Crete 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! Part 5: The JU-52s and the FJ companies

When I was a kid, close to some 50 years ago, there was a beautiful silver Tante Ju ( Junkers Ju-52) in my town at Portugal dos Pequenitos, a kind of playground with small Portuguese houses and monuments, which is still today one of Coimbra´s main attractions, after the University. The Ju-52 could be visited, we would sit and run in its interior and my devious mind already knew, probably from Readers Digest WW2 books, that these were used to assault Europe, and particularly, Crete. So when exiting the plane I would become a German Fallschirmjäger and jump... to the first step of the ladder that would take me to the ground safely. 

This was one of the last existing Junkers Ju-52 in the world as there are only some 20 survivors, mostly in museums. It was taken from Portugal dos Pequenitos (replaced by a Fiat G-91) in the 90´s, then taken to Norway for repairs and now sits at Alverca Aviation Museum, close to Sintra/Lisbon. Its also a testimony of Salazar´s alliegance to the Nazi regime as this Ju-52 belonged to a batch of 10 aircraft bought in 1937 from Germany. Even so, its history, and an important piece of it. 

Our masters Colin and Richard ordered us to have two of them for the action at Crete 1941. They are Italeri models built decades ago and carefully painted and weathered as I was doing in those days. Next to them there are 14 FJ companies, all figures necessary to the Prison Valley scenario, which is the one were more German paratroopers are necessary, allowing you also to make all other three scenarios. 

The companies are made from Airfix and Revell figures mixed in allowing for some 15 poses to be in this large group. 

Next: FJ containers and Kettenkrad