A wargamer´s trip to Arnhem - (part 2) The Crossroads at Oosterbeek and the Oude Kerk

 

Writing "Oude Kerk" (the old church of Oosterbeek), makes me look more cultivated for sure even if I don´t know any other word in Dutch. Even so I´m sure it attracted your attention as it surely attracted mine a few days ago as I had no idea how to write 'old church' in Dutch. 

This post is about the Crossroads and the Oude Kerk, particularly this last one as I don´t have many references in order to build the church which is an important building still missing in my collection. I have all other major buildings already made for years and it was very funny to see them in 1/1 scale :)

On top of the page you can see the modern Tafelberg.  First it had the old red brick walls and it was like this that served as General Model´s HQ (together with Hartenstein) and then as a critical MDS station for the British. Today is a private house. Only the front remains from the battle time and it was recently painted white. 

Going down Pieterbergseweg you have on the right the No 35, Hotel Johanna. On the previous post you can see the piece of wall paper taken from this place and used as a kill mark by a British sniper.

While looking for this house I asked a lady that was passing by were Hotel Johanna was. To my astonishement she was the daughter of Kate Ter Horst, and I think one of the few still alive from a total of 6 children. We chatted a bit and I could understand that she was 5 years old when the battle happenned. She was very sad when I couldn´t understand initially her mother´s name in Dutch but then, when I mentioned that I remembered her mother taking care and saving hundreds of British Paratroopers, she became slightly happier. I´m not sure but after looking in the Web she seems to be Sophie, probably the youngest daughter now with the beautiful age of 87. 

Next to No34 is this other beauty, in typical Oosterbeek style, maybe also deserving a model. 

Hotel Vreevijk on the Crossroads was another medical post. 

Schoonoord Hotel. In fact this row of buildings was rebuilt after the landing of a revengeful V-1 weapon strike on the 26 January 1945 which killed 26 people. 

Quatre-Bras is probably one of the most elegant buildings at Oosterbeek. But frankly in the middle of so many beautiful buildings its hard to say. The triangular monument at the right bottom corner remembers the sacrifice of the 21 Independent Parachute Company. 

And now to the main target of my visit to Ooosterbeek, the Old Church. This church is famous for being the oldest church ground of the Netherlands and it became the focal point of Lonsdale Force in the last few days of the perimeter. There is a nice model picture of this church in the first Rapid Fire! book on Market garden designed by  Dale Rawson  but I wanted more information and take some pictures in order to make the model in the future. 

The guy in the picture is my wife´s cousin, almost two meters tall and was useful for scale. Well, at least if you use Valiant 1st edition 1/72nd scale figures :). Besides scale he was also a great company. 

The lime tree to the right is still shattered from the battle and next to it 4 British paratroopers died from a mortar shell. 

Going left around the church and still facing the river you can see some details of the windows in Gothic style. They look to be new as the church suffered a lot of damage during the battle with plenty of bullet holes that can still be seen right and left of this door. 

The view from the left side (east). 

With your back to the river there are new structures and different, smaller, windows. 

Using AI I got this information: 

Following the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944, the Oosterbeek Old Church (Oude Kerk) was left in a state of near-ruin due to heavy artillery fire and its role as a final stronghold for the 1st Airborne Division. Restoration efforts between 1946 and 1961, directed by architect Berend Tobia Boeyinga, focused on rebuilding the church while altering its structure to reflect its historical origins. 

Key changes and structural alterations after the 1944 battle included:

• Removal of the 19th-Century Expansion: The extensive 1856 neo-Gothic additions, which included a transept and large windows, were not restored.
• Restoration to "Original" Style: The church was rebuilt to resemble its older, pre-19th-century form (circa 1400).
• Choir Modification: The severely damaged 15th-century Gothic choir was replaced with a new, smaller, and simpler pseudo-Romanesque choir that matched the 10th-century nave.
• Structural Changes to Walls and Windows: To emphasize the Romanesque origins, large windows were closed off and replaced with smaller ones.
• Consistory Addition: A new, smaller consistory (a room for church meetings) was added to the choir.
• Commemorative Features: While the structure was repaired, many battle scars, such as bullet holes, were left in the walls as a memorial. Inside, the church was adorned with memorials to the British and Polish soldiers, including special kneeling cushions with the Pegasus emblem of the Airborne Forces. 

So in order to make model of this church (no interior) you need:

- To add the transept 

- Make larger neo-gothic windows. 

- Take into consideration that the clocks are not contemporary of the battle and frankly I´m not sure if they even existed by then. 

This plate on the wall also clarifies the date of the major changes.

The view of the church from the river. To the left, the beautiful white building is the house of Kate Ter Horst family. 

And the view of the other side of the Lower Rhine river were the remnants of the 1st British Airborne Division and the Polish Brigade arrived after escaping the German encirclementon of Oosterbeek during Operation Berlin on the 25th and 26th September 1944, an operation made under constant fire from the Germans. The river is not very large but the current is very strong which caused trouble to the salvage boats and to swimmers on those days. 

Next: a visit to Arnhem itself

A wargamer´s trip to Arnhem - (part 1) Oosterbeek Airborne museum and surroundings

 

The days of the Carnival break were spent in the Netherlands and - obviously - around Arnhem and Oosterbeek, with a short visit to Eindhoven, Nijmegen and the Vught concentration camp. 

The Oosterbeek Airborne Museum (there is another at Arnhem) is the old Hartenstein Hotel and the HQ of the 1st British Airborne Division during the 9 days of the Market Garden campaign, and also the center of the defensive perimeter very close to the east/west main artery of Oosterbeek, Utrechtseweg. 

As we flew cheap with backpacks I was not able to carry my two large volumes of Market Garden Then and Now but was able to take my two excellent volumes on Arnhem and Oosterbeek of Battleground Europe by Frank Steer which cleared many doubts on the way and helped me find virtually everything I needed. 

Unfortunately, the tennis courts at the Airborne Museum of Oosterbeek (old Hartenstein Hotel) were the German prisoners  were held are gone and turned into a sort of rest area. 

Inside the museum you can find a great collection of items very well displayed. The container next to the British paratrooper is of good usage both for modellers and wargamers. 

A Polish radioman.

                           

A very good selection of weapons in the vitrine to the left. The 50mm German mortar is interesting with a base in dunkelgelb and the tube in panzer gray. The large Nebelwerfer rocket probably belonged to Von Tettau´s large Kampfgruppe or less likely to the 10th SS Panzer division as these ones operated south of the lower Rhine. 

I´m not sure if this was the first 8cm German mortar I´ve seen but it looked quite big. I think that its representation in 1/72-20mm size should be slightly increased in most brands. 

It was nice to see the British webbing in a light pea green tone close to what I did with my British paratroopers. 

This is a British list of 'Gerry' casualties fu..., sorry, taken by this sniper. This piece of wall paper was taken from Hotel Johanna, No34, Pieterbergseweg, Ooosterbeek. 

Frost´s hunting horn given to him in Iraq ended up in the museum after some adventures. Now I need a 20mm John Frost with a hunting horn. 

A painting of the medical aid from both sides around the Crossroads.

An animated battle map is one of the best features of this museum as it shows the events from the day one up to the last. Of course, in the basement you can take a ride in a Horsa Glider and go through Oosterbeek ruins in another great animation.  

The HQ of the artillery regiment of the 1st British Airborne was situated some 100 meters to the south of the museum and is represented by this battered 17 pdr AT gun. 

                             

As you can see there is more than one Urkuhart, with the British version (183 cm)) being slightly taller than the portuguese one (170 cm). Unfortunately the weight between the two is getting dangerously close. 

                          

                                                         

The first modelling consequence upon arrival was to repaint sand yellow a good part of the white walls of my scratch built Hartenstein hotel /Airborne Museum as white walls was the perception that many had during decades, including RF! Masters Colin and Richard.  I left the interior white but I may go for some paper wall decoration as in the original. 

Next: part 2 with more Oosterbeek

Rapid Fire! in 20mm. Filling gaps in WW2 (part 7)

 

This batch of models plugs some holes in the OBs of several WW2 periods and armies. Retroaranda is a nice Spanish 3d on-line shop that I found while searching for the Vercors Gotha Go 242. They are still using PLA for their prints but dividing these kits into many parts which helps reducing lines and excess plastic. Besides, the kits arrive with all parts clean which makes them easy to build. There are also three kits from First to Fight, namely the funny little cutter KM12, a large 150mm sFH18 and the artillery crew. 

My Ariete division was very short of command vehicles and this lovely SPA Dovunque 35 radio vehicle comes in that sense. 

The kit has no exterior radio system and this one has to be scratch built. This  photo saved me from making too many mistakes on the roof of this radio vehicle. 

On the background of this photo you can see the two biggest inventions of the last decades,  cyanoacrylate and liquid plastic glue, far ahead from Covid19 vaccine and AI. What would be of us all without them? 

Some tracks, stairs and EverGreen plastics were used to improve the model. 

The Ford V3000 radio vehicle was built from 1941-on and will be helpful particularly for the Eastern Front. Only some stowage was added on the roof. The model also brings another antenna for the travelling position. 

This is another Japanese Type 89 Go. The other one I have is from MiniGeneral, made from a different file and slighly bigger. 

This artillery group - one 155mm sFH18  and a 105mm leFH16 -  is the one necessary for the bombardment of Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, 13-15 June 1944 as part of the artillery of the 157th reserve infantry division. I already had several of these artillery pieces but in different colors and environments so a late war summer style group was necessary for the Vercors.

The artillery group who bombarded the Maquis position at St-Nizier made it from a distance of over 5 km and up to an height of over 1000 meters in relation to Grenoble. These stills are taken from the 2nd part of Le Maquis du Vercors- Juin 1944, La Bataille de St-Nizier. 

For the full video see 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTRyf8seItk

and don´t forget part 1 and 3. 

In this still from the 2nd part of series you can see the St-Nizier heights in relation to the Grenoble valley.

And this is  the today sports park from were the German artillery bombed the Maquis. 

In this other screenshot of the 2nd part of the YouTube Le Maquis du Vercors- Juin 1944, La Bataille de St-Nizier you can see the placement of this artillery group who bombarded the Maquis position at St-Nizier from a distance of over 5 km and up to an height of over 1000 meters in relation to Grenoble and this is the one I´m portraying in RF! terms.  

I don´t have any information on the usage of these Gebirgshaubitze 40 105mm howitzers by the 157 RID as the division had several battalions of Gebirgsjäger. Even so I built these two that can be used elsewhere. 

The crew is FtF with heads from Airfix Afrika korps. There is also one Simon Soldier figure (the one with Zeltbahn) and a Revell conversion that previously was arming a grenade and now is pulling the gun string. 

Other crew for the guns came from FtF and all of them can be used from the artillery box. The seated figures need to bend the legs with heat in order to fit the narrow places on the Feldkanone 16. 

There are some figures with 20/37mm shells for AA guns that were converted to carry the big 150mm shells. That is easy as the FtF plastic is quite easy to carve. 

First to Fight offers the MK12 in 3d printed resin. I don´t know if this one will ever be used in a wargame but the magazine that comes along with the model has some nice stories (recently they are already in english side by side with polish) that can be used as the basis of several wargames. The figures are Revell and Hat WW1 Germans as the Polish sailors had the WW1 Stahlhelm for land combat and even the armored body of the German Stormtroopers, not used here. 

Finally for something wrong. What I asked was one more LVT-A4 in order to have a pair of them to support the Marine landings in the late war period. The designer by seeing the "4" on the vehicle´s name thought that the turret of the M8 75mm HMC fitted the late LVT-4 when in fact the very different LVT-2 was its basis. The "4" just means the 4th way to place guns on the LVT-2 Amtrac. So I got something wrong that needed to be used somewhere. The idea for this conversion came from the following photo: 

One of the few different models from the LVT-4 basic was an ambulance model deprived from its guns and painted with (lots) of red crosses. The canvas cover in the model was made from hardened tissue paper with cyanoacrylate in order to cover the big hole of the turret. This photo sometimes looks a bit fake as the smaller red crosses look strange but I read that "Sphinx" shows in two forms around the Walcheren period, one armed and another - this one - already without its guns. Probably the same vehicle used in two different ways. 

Next: More Napoleonics