Rapid Fire! Market Garden in 20mm - Oddities and such (part 4)

First of all, just because I placed a post yesterday, don´t think that I woke up during the night, and without eating or peeing the whole day made these six models, took pictures that I'm now posting. Its true the day was spent at home, just a small coffee nearby with family around 11.00, but the two white trams are done for years and the Umbaus were made in the last few days along other material like the British trucks. The modelling day's work was in fact the painting of the figures on the Umbaus, its basing  and the painting of the green tram. Of course the secret is avoiding the kitchen and other similar busy parts of the house and always eat in the dining room, varanda or outside. In the end you can help with the dishes and this is the moment you deserve a kiss.  

On the afternoon of 17th September another group of SS Germans using "requisitioned" Umbaus pass abandoned trams and enter Utrechtweg looking for British paratroopers. What they don't know is that nothing less than the commander of 1st Airborne, General Urquhart is hiding in the number 14 (the second house left of the St Elisabeth Hospital in the picture). 

This group of Umbau vehicles is my second after a few Matchbox conversions. Once again the "hard foliage" made of two component paste helps hiding the holes in the original fantasy models after taking out the strange stuff on them. 

The crew is this time from Caesar and very good they are. The set H099 has 12 different poses of perfect SS soldiers armed for late war and that includes Pzfausts and STG44s.

These are the original die-cast models bought in the supermaket from the Metal Machines range.  Wheels were replaced, windshield enlarged, engine, cargo holders and exhaust pipes carved out...

This is the looks of the Umbaus before priming. 

For the figures to seat correctly a few planks of Evergreen were added to the cargo area.

The trams are Ho scale from Atlas or Altaya. I bought and primed them years ago and lost track of its origin. I remember them being that first cheap sale of the collection so I bought three. 

They are vaguely similar to the longer trams of Arnhem. While the 71 and the 76 (this one is famous as it served Oosterbeek) were white there were others in more lively colours. I used green as in a cover of a Dragon 1/35th scale kit but I´ve seen also blue in a very nice diorama. As all original trams were destroyed by the bombardments I´m really not sure. 

This is a nice reconstitution of tram 76 in the Arnhem Open Air museum. 

 

Well,  it looks that Urquhart wasn't found and here goes the SS ready to nag someone else. Speaking of SS, I saw last night Operation Finale, a good movie about the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Try to see it and remember that even if the SS have nice camouflaged uniforms and the best weapons of the Reich they were a criminal organization responsible for some of the worst things that happened to mankind. 

If you want to see my Arnhem houses, most of them scratchbuilt, you can go here:

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/2012/07/rapid-fire-battle-of-arnhem-buildings.html

Next: Maybe three Sdkfz 263 from PSC.

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72 scale - Badajoz, 1936

Badajoz was conquered by the nationalist in their quick summer march of 1936. It ended in a bloodbath where the worst atrocities of the entire war probably happenned. When asked by foreign reporters after the war, general Yague, the commander of the attackers, said something like "what could I do? Follow to Madrid and leave 4000 enemies on my back?". Simple. Apparently the notion of POW was non existant in Yague's mind.

From the two photos above you can see the view the Republicans had of the advancing Moroccan Tabors who were encircling the city from the north heading to the Porta de Carros. The walls of the castle were still from the time of the fierce assault of the British in 1812 against the French garrison of General Philippon.

The steepness of the walls forced the attackers to look for more advantageous points of entrance.

The neighbourhood of  San Roque  was the assembly point of the II Tabor of regulares de Tétuan.

In the mean time,  4th Bandera charged Puerta de la Trinidad, in the south wall. This view is from the outer part.

This view here is taken from the inside of Puerta de la Trinidad. Plenty of information about the construction of this part of the wall but nothing else...

There were two HMG on the walls that poured deadly fire into the ranks of the 4th Bandera but the Legionarios managed to force the gate. 

As usual in Spain these kind of places have no plate, no description whatsoever about the Civil War events.

 History from 1939 up to 1973 was written by the victors who effaced all traces of their blame in the dreadful events of the period, placing the enphasis on the Republican killings of priests and nuns and the destruction of clergy property. The problem is that, while true, the Republic was in power due to an electoral victory of the Frente Popular, and the Nationalists were in fact outlaws that didn`t accept the result of the elections and who chose war in order to change that result. Besides, the killings by the Nationalists amount to the 150.000 (Paul Preston data, and not counting the horrors of Franco's regime up to 1973) and that of the Republicans to 37.000 in their respective areas. 

Even the killings of Paracuellos, in which the Republicans shot several thousand, were made on nationalists military personnel who openly denied to fight for the government of their country - that is, the Republic of Spain - and that would have suffered on those days the same fate in many countries of Europe and the world, as military discipline still predicted death penalty for the military.

In the Calle of San Juan, journalists counted over 300 dead people killed in the next few hours after the Nationalist victory. Rape and theft were also rampant. Badajoz lost 10% of its entire population.

But the worst place was the bull fight arena were the killed may have amounted to several thousands. The inscription read "the hugliest bull fight arena of Spain".

Viva la Republica! You can still read this in some parts of Spain after all those many years. Again no information for a visitor. After Franco, during Filipe Gonzalez long government  and nowadays, even with amnisties, the debate about what to do with the memories and living realities of the Civil War arrived to a dead end and the Spanish people buried the axe a little bit like we, the Portuguese,did with the PIDE agents of Salazar regime.
Is it fair to the memory of the killed?