West Wall Museum at Pirmasens

A couple of years ago I went to visit the West Wall Museum at Pirmasens thinking that I was going to be at the front line of the Sigfried line, where the fighting bunkers and the dragon teeth are. In that respect I was a bit disappointed. The Museum is actually hosted inside a tunnel network that was meant to supply the bunkers on the actual front line, but the entrance to the tunnel system sits about 5km back from the actual bunkers. The tunnels were never finished. I suppose that the war against France was over so quickly that it was deemed no longer necessary, and when the tide of the war changed, it was probably too late to make that kind of investment in a static defense line. Anyhow, what I did find in this museum was a wealth of materiel and equipment that I was definitely not expecting. All sorts of vehicles, weapons, uniforms, German and American (the US occupied this part of Germany) are on display which makes the visit quite worthwhile and interesting. Let's take a look at what's inside.

The entrance to the tunnel system. Defended by what appears to be the dug in turret of a Panther Tank. The entrance is to the right, behind the trees.

Covering the entrance inside the bunker is a MG inside a small booth.

The are a couple of these compartments in which you can also appreciate the details of everyday life for the men living there.

The radio set inside another such watch post.

Once you are inside the tunnels, one side is lined up with all sorts of vehicles. As you can appreciate, the tunnels are quite wide and long.

A US 2 1/2 Ton Cargo truck, also known as Deuce and a Half or Jimmy.

A German Sd Kfz 251. Hard for me to tell which if the Halftrack variations it is.

An Opel German car. From its color it seems like it might have been used as a staff car.

US M3 Halftrack

German 88mm Anti-Aircraft gun mounted on its carriage.

German Kettenkrad.

Remember Saving Private Ryan?

Looks like a German Zündapp KS 750 with sidecar.

From the license plate, it looks like this one belonged to the SS.

German Kubelwagen.

US M3 Scout car.

This vehicle was the basis for the M3 Halftrack. 

US Willys Jeep

German PAK 40

Interesting mount for what appears to be a 75mm Tank Gun.

I suspect it's setup this way just for display. I don't see how such a mount could handle the recoil.

German Opel Blitz (Sd Kfz 305) Cargo Truck

Some exploded and unexploded bombs.

At some point you reach the end of the tunnels that are 'finished' and a fence prevents you from continuing on to the 'unfinished' section.

In a special room dug into the side of the tunnel you run into this quadruple 20mm Anti-Aircraft gun. A sheet of thick plexiglass made it hard to get a sharp picture... 

German SS mountain trooper.

All sorts of small arms are on display. 

Note the padding on the MG tripod to make it easier to carry over the shoulder.

Most interesting here is the rangefinder to the left of the SS trooper.

A German MG setup on a tripod could be used in an Anti-Aircraft role.

US trooper and motorbike.

Nice opportunity to see the German infantryman's uniform in detail.

German longcoat.

US 50 cal machine gun.

US Tommy gun, US flamethrower and mortar.

Multiple gas mask models. I guess WWI left them quite concerned (justifiably so!) about chemical weapons. 

Another set of German weaponry. Notice the Sturmgewehr (Stg44) on the left and the MP40 (Maschinenpistole) on the right.

A good variety of German helmets.

And some more...

Some medals and military insignia

A 'cave' full of unexploded ordnance

These are items that were found on an excavation next to a road. A German column had been bombed by an American dive bomber and all the debree had been pushed aside and hastily buried only to be discovered recently.

A couple of US tanks stand guard at the Museum's entrance/exit. The one in the back seems like a M41 Walker Bulldog light tank. That was a post WWII design, so it's not clear to me what it's doing in this Museum. I guess it was left over from the occupation and somebody thought this was a good place to park it :-) Anyhow, this is the parting view as you leave the museum. Hope you found it as interesting as I did.

Click here to see a post about the West Wall museum at Bad Bergzabern

Click here to see a post about the US Airborne museum at Fayetville

Click here to see a post about the British Airborne museum at Arnhem

Click here to see a post about the rocket museum at Peenemunde

Click here to see a post about the Auto and Technik museum at Sinsheim

Click here to see a post about the Normandy Landing Beaches

Unknown GIs

I recently found these GIs on eBay. They did not indicate the manufacturer, but I could tell that they were vintage so I got them (not to mention that the guy throwing the rock is a very unique pose!), assuming that I would be able to track down the manufacturer later. Well, I spent almost a whole afternoon trying to identify them and could not figure it out. It was thanks to a reader who left a comment that we now know that they are early Lido GIs. I'll add them to the corresponding post.

Click here to see a post about other hard to identify soldiers

The Normandy Landing Beaches

In the summer of '98 I had the opportunity to tour the Normandy landing beaches for two days. These are some of the pictures I took. Unfortunately this was before the day of digital photography, so some of the shots are not as sharp as I would have liked. On the positive side, having to shoot with film probably kept me from taking several hundred pictures which is what I am sure would have happened had I had a digital camera with me at the time! Anyhow, this is a report on what I did manage to document. If you are reading this blog, you are very likely to be quite familiar with the role that the Normandy beaches and D-Day played in WWII, so I won't dwell on introducing them here. Instead, I'll focus on some of the ground-level details that I encountered during my trip. 

Arromanches, France. Gold beach. 

View of the left half of what remains of the artificial harbor built by the allies to be able to unload additional men, supplies, and material in the absence of a real harbor. This artificial harbor technology is known as a Mulberry Harbor and it was key to be able to sustain the war effort. A combination of these concrete breakwater blocks and sunken ships were used to afford protection from the rough ocean and allow the unloading to happen. The actual harbor was about twice as big as what can be seen in this composite picture, extending to the right side of where I stood.

Sherman tank located on top of the bluff overlooking the Arromanches (Gold) beach. One of many pieces of ordnance left over from the campaign.

Monument to Kieffer's Commandos in Ouistreham, France. 

Kieffer's commandos were the first French troops to land on Normandy. This one is located above Sword beach, the eastmost of the landing beaches.

One of the many pillboxes and small bunkers along the edge of the villages overlooking the landing beaches. Note how this gun is pointing away from the beach though. Seems to be protecting the rest of the position against a flanking move.

Some of the destroyed war materiel has been transformed into monuments along the sightseeing route.

A Churchill tank at Courseulles-sur-Mer, Juno Beach, Canadian sector. Juno was the second landing beach, from the east, after Sword and before Gold and Omaha and Utah (in that order).

Memorial monument dedicated to the Allied forces who liberated France, located at Saint Laurent-sur-Mer above Omaha beach.

Battery bunkers at Longues-sur-Mer, sitting south of the beaches at the border between Gold and Omaha beaches. This battery hosted four 152mm guns and operated throughout D-Day and was eventually captured on D-Day+1. At that point, only one gun remained operational, with the other three having been knocked out of action by fire from ships off shore.

This one shows more damage. Cracks on the left side and a hole in the back.  

Looks like this is the one that survived the battle. It continues to guard the channel...

This shot puts their size in perspective.

Standing on top of the west-most of the four casemates hosting the guns. You can see the other three bunkers and the ocean in the background.

The bunkers from a distance. I would not have liked to have to approach that over open terrain.

The observation post. Located about 100 yards north of the battery bunkers, at the edge of the bluff overlooking the beach. 

The observation post at sunset. A view that the men guarding the Atlantic wall might have seen many times not knowing what the next day would bring.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-Sur-Mer

The morning mist gave it an even more solemn atmosphere...

When you struggle to see where it ends, that's when the magnitude of the cost of war hits you. And this is just a small fraction.

The cemetery contains the remains of close to 9400 men who fell during the Normandy campaign in the summer of '44.

The view from Omaha beach. As you can see, the challenge was not just crossing the beach but going over or around the elevated terrain overlooking the beach.

The view to the west side of the beach. Gives you a better feeling for what the men landing might have felt having to cross what must have seemed like a huge expanse of beach under fire.

The view to the right, the east side. The pill boxes at the edge of the high ground provided deadly enfilading fire.

One of such pillboxes overlooking the beach from the west. 

Pointe du Hoc, Isigny-sur-Mer. 

This was the site of a daring operation by the US 2nd Ranger Battalion. Three Ranger companies landed and climbed the cliffs under fire to capture and destroy a battery of 6 155mm guns. Ironically the guns had been moved 2 days earlier 1 mile further inland. The rangers nonetheless, located them, destroyed them and went on to fend off German counter attacks until they were releived the next day.

The memorial monument to the 2nd Ranger Battalion, sitting on top of the observation post.

The observation post at the tip of Pointe du Hoc.

The pockmarked terrain reveals how intense the bombardment was in this area. It's all one crater after the next, with bunker ruins in between.

A view from the southwest. In the foreground, there is an open circular gun pit that allowed a gun to rotate and be fired in any direction. In the background you can see some more collapsed bunkers and cratered terrain in the distance. Far towards the left-center of the picture that's where the observation post and the memorial are located.

The entryway leading to the door to one of the bunkers that still stand.

German Military Cemetery, La Cambe, France. 

21,000 German dead are buried there. The hill at the center is actually a mass grave for about 300 men, most of them unknown.

View from the top of the hill, at the center of the cemetery, where the main memorial stands. 

Click here to see a post about the West Wall museum at Bad Bergzabern

Click here to see a post about the West Wall museum at Pirmasens

Click here to see a post about the British Airborne museum at Arnhem

Click here to see a post about the rocket museum at Peenemunde

Click here to see a post about the Auto and Technik museum at Sinsheim

Click here to see a post about the US Airborne museum at Fayetville

Reisler - Toy Soldiers

Reisler is a Danish Toy Soldier manufacturer named after its founder Kai Reisler. They made a good range of figures covering many different topics, from cowboys and indians to rangers, aliens, arabs, French Foreign Legion, zoo animals, and of course, some WWII as well. Apparently, they were primarily in production during the 50's and 60's. Their figures are made from plastic. Unfortunately, when it comes to WWII I have only seen the GIs represented and some Danish Navy guys. Being a European manufacturer I would have expected them to have made more of the European combatants. The sculpting and diversity of poses is really good for the time when they were made. I just wish they were easier to come by these days.

Reisler US Infantry - Part I

These are just 3 poses out of about 25 GIs that they made. Some of the Reisler figures I have seen online have paint on them, but I don't know if they came this way out of the factory. As you can tell, the figures are well proportioned and have a decent amount of detail on them. Several of the poses that I am missing are even better. Hopefully I can get my hands on them soon and show them. 

Reisler US Infantry - Part II

I recently got lucky and found a few more of these guys. Note that among them is a nurse, which I was not aware of until now. The guys in this picture are dsiplaying quite a bit more movement than the previous guys, and I particularly like the two poses at both ends. The machine gunner is also a good pose as you always want some heavy weapons in your units, and the radio man is also important to be able to call in some artillery support!

Reisler US Infantry - Part III

Two more poses which came in this last batch. The man on the left is a typical prone guy firing, but the one on the right, really caught my eye as it shows what is probably a very common situation in the field, however not frequently represented in the toy soldier world. He is much better suited to be placed behind a log or behind a pile of debree, but in order to get a better picture s you can fully appreciate him, I just placed him in the open.

Reisler US Infantry - Part IV

 A few more Reisler guys. Note that initially, I mistook these guys for Timpo GIs. It wasn't until I started to research some of the other poses that I realized that Reiselr also produced their versions of several Timpo poses.

Reisler US Infantry - Part V

And a few more, also made by Timpo. Not sure if the color they have was added by a previous owner or if they came painted like this out of the factory.

Reisler US Infantry - Part VI

This is an original Reisler, as far as I know, and not a very common one. I only recall one more wire cutter among WWII plastic toy soldiers. The Revell German Engineer.

Reisler US Infantry - Part VII

Another three GIs straight out of Timpo's lineup. The only reason you can tell that they were made by Reisler is by the label on the bottom of the base of the middle guy. So considering the number of manufacturers which have reissued Timpor GIs, these guys are not that special. But it's still good to be one step closer to having the complete set of Reisler guys. 

Reisler US Infantry - Part VIII

These are two of the less common Reisler poses. They actually came together in the original packing, which shows that they were sold separately. The man on the left is operating a recoiless rifle/gun. The guy on the motorcycle is OK for the most part, except that his right hand can't be placed on the bike's handle. They simply do not line up, but the right hand does, so at least he can drive with one hand :-)

The other thing to note is that the detail is not as crisp as you would expect from original figures, but they do get bonus points for being fairly unique.

Reisler US Infantry - Part IX

And yet a few more poses. Amazing how many of them there are. What's interesting about this small batch is that one of the men, the one on the left, has a movable arm. I suppose this was done this way so that it could come out of the mold, because it does not really add much to the figure in terms of a useful action. The guy speaking on the phone is also a bit different and interesting. The man with the sub mg is a bit too stiff for my taste. But glad to have him and be closer to being done with the set. At this point I don't know if there are any other poses left to find.  

Reisler Danish Navy

Just 4 poses. It seems that they were originally released factory painted, in blue (1953) and white (1955) uniforms. The guys in this picture must be more recent casts as they came without any paint on them, although they do have the Reisler sticker on them underneath the base. Unfortunately with so few poses and two of them being so similar, there won't be many possibilities when it comes to setting up a scene with these guys. Still they rank well on the uniqueness factor and seemed worthwhile to add to the collection.

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Click here to see a post about the Danish Navy

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The Bridge at Remagen

The Ludendorff bridge at Remagen was a railway bridge built during WWI in order to ship men and materiel to the Western front. It was about 1000 ft long. It gained notoriety during WWII for being the first place at which the Allies crosed the Rhine on March 7, 1945. Alexander A. Drabik was the first man across, leading his squad under machine gun fire. Lieutenant Karl H. Timmermann the first officer to reach the eastern side. Both of them received the Distinguished Service Cross for this accomplishment. Crossing the Rhine was of great significance as this was the last natural barrier of any significance in the west protecting the heart of Germany and all other bridges capable of supporting heavy vehicles had already been destroyed. The US 9th Armored Division had the distinction of accomplishing the crossing. This was made possible in part by a series of mishaps on the German side who desperately tried to demolish the bridge but were unsuccessful and the fact that it was only defended by a platoon-size garrison. The responsible German officers were subsequently court-martialed and 4 of them were executed. A few days after the bridge was captured and having being subjected to constant bombardment -including some not so well-aimed V2 rockets-, the bridge collapsed, taking with it 28 combat engineers who were working on it. At this point, the loss of the bridge did not matter that much as other pontoon bridges had already been built and troops could continue to flow into the other side. Also, some argue that this bridge was not sufficient to move enough troops across to continue the advance and the offensive had to wait for the armies to the north and south to get to he eastern bank of the Rhine. Even if that's the case, having crossed the Rhine had great phychological impact on both sides and the war in Europe was over just two months later. The bridge has not been rebuilt since then and today, all that remains are the towers at each end and a small portion of the ramp leading to it on the western side. The towers on the western side have been transformed into a Museum dedicated to Peace. Below are some pictures from my visit a few years ago.

The ramp leading to the bridge from the western side. The ramp is actually partially destroyed. There are about two arches left of it and the broken end of it stands about 20 feet off the ground. In this picture I only framed the portion that is still in good shape. 

View of the bridge standing at the edge of the broken ramp, as far as I could stand. From here you can also see the towers at the eastern end of the bridge. This is the view that the GIs met with (along with the metal structure of the actual bridge) when they crossed it. With the high ground at the other end of the bridge providing artillery cover and the protection of the towers, the bridge could have been a much more costly affair to capture. Luckily, for the GIs it was not adequately defended. Note that today there is quite a bit of overgrowth on what would have been the road/ramp leading to the bridge.

The view of the west-side towers from the river's western edge. Note that there is nothing left of the bridge. Where the bridge would have begun we only see a clean cut.

View of the eastern side, with the eastern bridge towers at the river's edge and the commanding hills in the background. The day of my visit was a bit cloudy so the towers are a bit difficult to see. This picture also shows the width of the Rhine river at this point. 

Click here to see a post about the West Wall museum at Bad Bergzabern

Click here to see a post about the West Wall museum at Pirmasens

Click here to see a post about the British Airborne museum at Arnhem

Click here to see a post about the rocket museum at Peenemunde

Click here to see a post about the Auto and Technik museum at Sinsheim

Click here to see a post about the Normandy Landing Beaches