"Did any WW2 veterans wargame?" Topic

Looking at recent posts and knowing wargamers who are veterans of various conflicts including the Korean War. I realized that in the past decades, I never knew or gamed with anyone who served or fought in WW2. My Dad and uncles answered my dumb questions when I was a kid, watched from a distance as I played with my Marx toy soldiers, but never gave any input other than maybe a little wry smile of amusement.

Just wondered if they simply left war behind them and had no interest or taste in gaming earlier wars.

Any comments or experiences? Curious on this one.

Purely anecdotal, but of the few WWII vets I've met, I would think that they left gaming of any kind behind a long time ago.

My dad, who did a little traveling in Europe in 44-45 with a little gang of his called the '11th Armored', was really the only one in my family who had any clue what my 'war gaming' affliction was about. Now, he didn't really 'play games'; when he and his buddies got together to shove little model tanks across a sand table, they were training for the time honored activity of 'making the other guy die for His country.'

The most famous wargamer in Britain was Donald Featherstone, and he served in tanks during WW2.

Donald Featherstone and Charles Grant effectively created the hobby.

Peter Young certainly did.

Brigadier Peter Young certainly played, and wrote "Charge!"

Don Featherstone and Brigadier Peter Young.

As above, many of the wargamers who created modern wargaming in the 1950s and 60s fought in the war.

Which was why Lionel Tarrs WW2 rules were called 'modern wargaming rules'.

Played in a game with Donald Featherstone as GM at GenCon. Got into the Napoleonic period due to a gamer called Ray Johnson and he knew Donald so when he put on a game I was able to get into it.

It isn't that they left war behind as much as wargaming did not really exist (in todays sence) and had to be created. As an example, the reason that 1/1200 ships became a wargamming scale was that during the war ship recognition models were created at 1 inch equals 100 feet. After WW2 these models were disposed of and in at least one case I know of were picked out of the garbage. I still have a few of my Alnavco models that have the name and class of the ship on the hull (side) of the ship.

My dad didn't play miniature wargames. He had served in the Army Air Force as a gunner on a B-29. He built model airplanes, both plastic 1/72nd & 1/48th; and balsa wood models that he flew. We weren't rich & I remember him drafting model plans from magazines onto brown butcher paper.

Charles Grant link

John Greenwood – founder of Greenwood and Ball, Garrison was originally the Greenwood and Ball wargames range
link

Derek Guyler – English comic actor and founding member of Society of Ancients.
link

There's actually quite a list.

My Dad served and was wounded in Holland in 1944.

When I was a boy he helped me start modelling and painting and I remember him cutting off the guns on bombers and saying they were reconnaissance aircraft.

Then I discovered Tamiya models and went to town and he was fine about that.That is until I put SS helmet transfers on some of the Germans.

Oh boy did I hear about that.

He was fine with the Heer. I will always remember that and fondly remember his tolerance. These men fought it and I can understand their sensitivity to certain aspects of this war or any war.

In my first wargame club in Hornchurch UK we had 2 or 3 men who had served in WW2. One was a tanker in the desert & Italy, can't remember what the others did (if I ever knew – it wasn't a subject that was raised).

None of them would play WW2 games though. Never explained why or objected to others playing them – and we were too polite to ask. In those days a 16 year old didn't ask a 40 year old "what did you do in the war Harry ?", you had to wait for them to start the conversation (but they never really did).

My wife had an Uncle who was in the 82nd Airborne. Quietest, most mild mannered guy you could meet. Never said two words about his service. One Christmas I gave him as a gift a large scale (90mm?) Para that I painted to represent him.

Larry Brom of TSATF was a marine.
Zocchi was in the AirForce but I think he was in the 1950s.

Most veterans that I know who are gamers are Vietnam era guys.

Max Hasting??

My grandfather who introduced me to wargaming.

Peter Cushing. Was in a troops entertainment group.

My dad was a WWII Marine and he did a little bit of gaming with me when I was a kid. We played chess incessantly, and he played Richthofen's War, Jutland and Panzerblitz with me.

My grandfathers were "critical war workers", actually, they really were.

One never said boo because his brothers and brothers in law all served. He passed when I was 10.

The other, who had both brothers-in-law either KIA or WIA, was willing to support not only my hobby, but convinced my parents to let me enlist when I was 17.

Go figure. Each enjoyed the fact I respected history and thought toy soldiers was a way to enjoy it.

Eric

My wifes late father, Reg was a member of 1st/6th Battalion East Surrey and was on active service in 1945 in Greece during the civil war. He was an avid modeller, gamer and collector until his death.

Larry Brom of TSATF was a marine.
Zocchi was in the AirForce but I think he was in the 1950s.

Larry and Lou both served post-war.

Larry was USMC and was in the invasion which Macarthur
launched into the flank of the Norks.

When he posted here, he used 'Wolmi-Do' as his screen
name. Wolmi-do is the island upon which the Marines
landed to begin their inland push.

Larry was wounded later in the campaign.

At Enfilade there was a chap rolling around in wheelchair with an 101st Airborne patch and WW2 on it. I spoke with him briefly but never got his name. He is a regular gamer, from my understanding.

My rifle coach in the 70s had been a US Army horse cavalryman in the PI in '42 and was an avid historical minis gamer. He said humbug to my D&D interests.

I think it's a misconception to think that people who are in the military would also be interested in hobby wargaming. There might be a small correlation, but not as big as many people would think.

Hobby wargaming correlates with an interest in military history. Not all professional soldiers are interested in military history, as not all professors are interested in the history of science, or athletes are interested in the history of their sport.

Sure, many military men (esp if you belong to a tradition-rich regiment) know some potted history of their own unit (if not because it's required to pass some weird ritual in the mess – I had to learn by heart all the regiment's commanders since 1830, and all battle honours), but that's something different from a broad interest in military history.

There will of course always be individuals who are in the intersection, some of which have been mentioned above.

Phil Dutre has it right IMO. Most of the veterans I've know in my life (and I've known a few) had enough of war the first go around. They didn't talk much about it and were, in general, fairly anti-war. None of them played wargames.

I suspect the wargaming veteran was the exception and not the rule.

Yes, we used to have a WW2 veteran mechanized infantryman in our group before he moved out of state to be close to his children.

The best story he told was once when he had diarrhea on a night vehicle march. He had to hang his bare rear out of the back hatch on the halftrack and would "eject" onto the road. When they reached the lager an irate new lieutenant was barging around looking for the person who "ejected" all over the hood of his jeep. Seems that his driver was following too close.

Jim

'I suspect the wargaming veteran was the exception and not the rule.'

Yes, but that is true of the entire population anyway.

I suspect the wargaming veteran was the exception and not the rule.

Wargamers in the population in general are the exception, not the rule.

The OP posits whether or not the frequency of wargaming in the subpopulation of veterans is greater, less than, or (what Bismarck percieves) overwhelmingly less than that of the population in general. I don't know you can judge that by observation.

Especially when you consider how, as mentioned above, the hobby has several "factions". The two cons I frequent are sponsored by an organization with "historical" in the title. I would guess the ratio of veterans at GenCon or Spiel would be different.

Hobby wargaming correlates with an interest in military history.

Everything correlates with everything else.

WRT hobby wargaming and interest in military history, there are large swaths of hobby wargaming that have absolutely nothing to do with an interest in military history and large swaths of military history that have nothing to do with an interest in wargaming.

I don't think there is any meaningful and predictive correlation between the two interests.

Pretty interesting feedback. fellows. I knew about Featherstone and a couple of other greats. I was curious since when I began gaming my Dad was 68. He never had any interest in gaming other than commenting on the accuracy of figs or vehicles. It seemed like there was a wide time gap between the WW2 guys and the rest of us who became gamers. I knew Larry was a Korean War veteran and like Rudy posted earlier, most of the older gamers I know are Vietnam Veterans like myself. And for my first decade of gaming, WWI was basically my cutoff time. I really was more interested if any of us had gamed with any of them, not looking for or implying a statistical correlation of the population.

thanks for the input and information, guys.

Most of the veterans I've know in my life (and I've known a few) had enough of war the first go around.

I'm a combat veteran (of a much later war than WWII) and I wargame. I understand the difference between real war games.

Same as me Scott, it's just a game.

My dad was a Pacific War vet. When my brother and I gamed, he was happy that we were having fun, but he wasn't even remotely interested.

It wasn't the war aspect. The idea of a grown man playing a game in general was not part of his generation.

Playing a game with a child was odd as well. He loved children, but children were children, and adults were adults, and they did different things.

Oops – typo. I meant to say:

I understand the difference between real war and games.

Lucius,
I think that just about sums it up about our Dad's generation.
I never remember mine ever mentioning games of any sort from his childhood.

The OP posits whether or not the frequency of wargaming in the subpopulation of veterans is greater, less than, or (what Bismarck percieves) overwhelmingly less than that of the population in general. I don't know you can judge that by observation.

The question was did WW2 veterans game? Those that did were the exception to the rule. It does not ask about the population at large. Just if any gamed. We have several examples. But, they are definitely the exception. especially when dealing with such a small hobby as wargaming.

It sounds like the OP had a similar experience with veterans as I did, suggesting that they indeed probably felt once was enough.

Wargamming did not exist before the 1960s. Kriegspiel may have existed in the German Army as a training tool but it wasn't used for entertainment. It wasn't until the first military board games came out, the first military toys got drafted into the new hobby and the first manufacturers came out with figures that wargamming got started.

Yes, H.G. Wells came out with Little Wars but it was the exception and didn't start a new hobby. I suspect that of all the books Wells wrote Little Wars had the lowest sales.

So if a WW2 veteran was not interested in playing with "Toy Soldiers" can anyone blame him/her.

Wargamming did not exist before the 1960s.

It certainly wasn't well known as it is now (relatively speaking), but it did exist as a hobby. Read Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World" for a very extensive overview of the history of wargaming, or John Curry's series of books in the History of Wargaming project.

Stuff *did* happen between Little Wars (Wells) in 1913 and Wargames (Featherstone) in 1962. We just have forgotten about it.

It would be interesting to look at the list of original subscribers to War Game Digest (1957): link
Those people did come from somewhere – most likely from within the circles of model soldiers, which had as a subculture miniature wargaming.

Naval wargaming certainly existed well before the 1960's and with commercially produced models and rules too. I'm not sure of the dates but a version of Fred Jane's rules may even have been available before 1913 – the models certainly were.

Board games may have been the first appearance of wargaming in the US but other forms were already in existence on the other side of the Atlantic.

I don't know if Gene McCoy was mentioned above. He was the owner of 'Wargamer's Digest' magazine. I believe that he had mentioned (in his magazine) a couple of times that he served in the U.S. Army during W.W.II.

TomS.

As has been pointed out, it seems that there was a lot less wargaming occurring in the 1950s and 1960s; very likely because of the paucity of models.

In the mid 1960s I can recall that the Airfix sets in Woolworths and Beatties were about it. All we knew of figures back then were what could be seen in the photos of Featherstone's early books. As an early teen, Hinton Hunt were unattainable and the Scruby figures might as well have been on the moon.

I may have even owned a set of LWS rules, possibly the ACW set as the cover seems familiar. I've always wondered exactly what the London Wargames Section was a section of; the British Model Soldier Society is a possibility but I am rather curious to know.

I don't think I've ever actually met a WW2 vet who was a wargamer. When I was in college, one of my classmates saw me painting some Airfix miniatures, and he commented that his father had had a lot of miniatures, all painted historically correctly, and that he had sold them for "big bucks" some time ago. If his father was about the same age as my father, he would have been of an age to serve in WW2. That's as close as I ever got.

My father was in the Merchant Marine. When watching war movies, he always noted whether dead guys in the water were realistic.

My Uncle met a German general in the 70's in Gettysburg on the second floor of a store. The general was on the floor playing with model tanks and gave my Uncle his autogragh for 5 bucks.

The question was did WW2 veterans game? Those that did were the exception to the rule. It does not ask about the population at large. Just if any gamed. We have several examples. But, they are definitely the exception. especially when dealing with such a small hobby as wargaming.

It sounds like the OP had a similar experience with veterans as I did, suggesting that they indeed probably felt once was enough.

The title asks the specific question. The OP is broader than the title.

My point in bringing up the population at large is that a handful of peoples' observations in their wargaming circuits are a poor way judge the question as described in the OP. There are a large number of systematic biases in that as a sampling method. One way or the other.