All American #1 - Capture of the La Fiere Bridge 1944

LA FIERE, NORMANDY, 6 June 1944: Led by decrepit French armor, a German counter-thrust swept through Cauquigny, losing tanks to Levy’s patrol but evening the score by effectively wiping out the ad hoc ‘Company B’ formed by Lieutenant Colonel Lindquist. Flushed with this success, the Germans advanced onto the causeway. What took place there is best described in the words of Marcus Heim, for whom the causeway is now named: “There was a 57mm gun up the road in back of us along with another machine-gun. We carried anti-tank mines and bazooka rockets from the landing area.

Around 5:00 P.M. the enemy started to attack. Two tanks with infantry moved along each side and in the rear following them was a third tank with more infantry following it. As the lead tank started around the curve in the road the tank commander stood up in the turret to take a look and from our left the machine-gun let loose a burst and killed the commander. At the same time the bazookas, 57 millimeter gun and anything else we had fired at the Germans and they in turn were shooting at us with cannons, mortars, machine-gun and rifle fire. Lenold Peterson, the gunner and myself (Heim), the loader, in the forward position got out of our foxhole and stood behind the telephone pole so we could get a better shot at the tank. We had to hold our fire until the last minute because some of the tree branches along the causeway were blocking our view. The first tank was hit and started to turn sideways and at the same time it was swinging its turret around and firing at us.

We kept firing at the first tank until it was put out of action and on fire. The second tank came up and pushed the first tank out of the way. We moved forward toward the second tank and I fired at it as fast as I could load the rockets into the bazooka. We kept firing at the second tank and we hit it in the turret where the body joins it, and it also went up in flames. After finding some new ammunition, we put these new rockets to good use against the third tank. After that one was put out of action the Germans pulled back to Cauquigny and continued shelling us for the rest of the night.” The critical La Fiere bridge had held.

Almost 20 years ago CH launched the independent publishing movement with its first ALL AMERICAN historical module by Ian Daglish (dec.)—and now things have come full circle. The original inspiration for the series was the number and variety of actions fought over a small piece of French countryside. You are offered a wide variety of infantry actions, and can now fight them out while enjoying color format scenario cards, color special rules, and more!

THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE GAME! Ownership of the ASLRB, and any modules providing the Germans and Americans, plus standard system marker counters is required to play this historical module.