We had always played Belgium as being forced into the French Union when the French Army Invaded the, then Neutral Belgium, after alot of French propaganda got the French Walloons supporting the occupation of the West Bank of the Rhine.
It wasn't until the French turned the East Bank into a no-mans land (including Netherlands) that the Flemish and some of the Walloons started to go "oh Shit"...
Hell, our campaign had the creation of Flanders post-Twilight War because the French Union launched a major attack on Bremerhaven to keep the Germans from getting all the hardware that the US was giving them and the British in exchange for the ships to get the US Forces out of Europe.
The combined forces turned and fought off the French-led force and didn't stop until they were in to pre-war French Soil so that the remaining dependents could get out of the way.
Flanders, Netherlands and the West Bank of the Rhine were no longer part of the French union. Hell, when our campaign ended the governments were negotiations on the formerly occupied Grand Duchy of Luxembourg getting Alsace-Lorraine as reparations for their treatment during French Occupation so they could become a neutral buffer state between France and Germany.
But back on topic...
The Evac of the Dependents would have been in stages, especially after the 'false start' of the Sino-Soviet War that had them do the major evacuation of dependents and only to see them returned a few weeks later when the expected offense in Europe didn't happen.
Some officers and senior NCOs might have sent their families back to the States when the West Germans went into East Germany to 'evict' the Soviets from the DDR. Espeically if they had the brains to know, 'This is not going to end well'... Hell, this would have put a lot of people into wanting to send their families home on what ever transport they could get on board.
Thus the statement that the planes and ships that had brought men & materials over would have been loaded up with who ever wanted to get out of the possible combat zone. And with the fighting going on, i can see far-sighted general & flag officers agreeing to that.
When those transports were starting to get attacked, the commanders would have turned them to neutral areas that would hopefully not come under attack.
It's why we had in our campaign alot of dependents evaced to Ireland. but we also had alot of people who got stuck in the rear areas...
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Fuck being a hero. Do you know what you get for being a hero? Nothing! You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah blah blah, attaboy! You get divorced... Your wife can't remember your last name, your kids don't want to talk to you... You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me kid, nobody wants to be that guy. I do this because there is nobody else to do it right now. Believe me if there was somebody else to do it, I would let them do it. There's not, so I'm doing it.
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