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It dawned on me a while ago that my Brewster 339 doesn’t really follow the spirit of this group build: yes, it’s known as a Buffalo, but only in British service, really. Mine will be an ML-KNIL (Military Aviation of the Royal Netherlands-Indian Army) machine, though, and pilots and crews knew the plane as a “Brewster” there, not as a “Buffalo”.
So what to do to build something that does fit, and also fits my interests? After considering several options, I eventually decided on these models that I’ve been intending to make for about a year and a half:
Yes, not one, but two Sherman Crabs. Or, more precisely, one Sherman Crab, “before” and “after”. Or perhaps even more accurately: “after” and “long after” — read on (What’s the M36 for? Like I said: read on!)
This is going to be a historically accurate build, to be precise this particular tank:
That’s a Sherman Crab Mk. I, War Department number T148656, photographed in the immediate post-war period (probably 1946, if I had to guess) in the Zuidstraat in Westkapelle, Netherlands. It’s one of several tanks (two Sherman Mk. Vs, three Crab Mk. Is and a Churchill Mk. IV AVRE) left in that street after the Allied landings on 1 November 1944, as they had been parked for the night but were swamped by sea water during high tide and inoperable the next morning. I’ll supply a bit more history later, in a follow-on post.
The spot the tank was left looks like this today:
(The buildings in the 1940s photo were demolished a few years later to make way for a market square.) Explore for yourself — the house directly behind the camera if you follow that link, is where the 1940s photo was taken from, through a small window in the roof.
But why two kits? Won’t one do? Do you need parts from both?
Yes, I do, because I intend to build the tank not only as it appeared in the 1940s, but also as it does today:
This is the same tank, minus pretty much all of its Crab fittings and plus a number of sheet metal bits and other alterations to restore it to presentable condition. The reasons for these I’ll explain in a later post, as some of it’s quite a convoluted story that I was only able to piece together from old newspaper articles. It stands as a monument on the sea dyke at Westkapelle, and is known in the village simply as “the tank”.
At the foot of the dyke is the village museum, which naturally has a large part devoted to the war. When I was taking pictures of it to build an accurate model earlier this year, the museum’s manager told me a funny anecdote: he was on holiday in Greece a few years ago, and someone asked him where he was from. “The Netherlands, a place called Westkapelle,” he replied. “Ah, with the tank!” the Greek man exclaimed. It turned out the man had been a sailor, and had often come past there on the way to and from Antwerp, with the tank being a clear indicator to everyone of where they were in the world
The almost-new version of the tank will be built from the Asuka kit and most of the accessories shown, including interior parts from the Academy M36. The monument version will come from the Dragon kit, plus one of the track sets to get the correct ones for the tank as it appears today.
So what to do to build something that does fit, and also fits my interests? After considering several options, I eventually decided on these models that I’ve been intending to make for about a year and a half:
Yes, not one, but two Sherman Crabs. Or, more precisely, one Sherman Crab, “before” and “after”. Or perhaps even more accurately: “after” and “long after” — read on (What’s the M36 for? Like I said: read on!)
This is going to be a historically accurate build, to be precise this particular tank:
That’s a Sherman Crab Mk. I, War Department number T148656, photographed in the immediate post-war period (probably 1946, if I had to guess) in the Zuidstraat in Westkapelle, Netherlands. It’s one of several tanks (two Sherman Mk. Vs, three Crab Mk. Is and a Churchill Mk. IV AVRE) left in that street after the Allied landings on 1 November 1944, as they had been parked for the night but were swamped by sea water during high tide and inoperable the next morning. I’ll supply a bit more history later, in a follow-on post.
The spot the tank was left looks like this today:
(The buildings in the 1940s photo were demolished a few years later to make way for a market square.) Explore for yourself — the house directly behind the camera if you follow that link, is where the 1940s photo was taken from, through a small window in the roof.
But why two kits? Won’t one do? Do you need parts from both?
Yes, I do, because I intend to build the tank not only as it appeared in the 1940s, but also as it does today:
This is the same tank, minus pretty much all of its Crab fittings and plus a number of sheet metal bits and other alterations to restore it to presentable condition. The reasons for these I’ll explain in a later post, as some of it’s quite a convoluted story that I was only able to piece together from old newspaper articles. It stands as a monument on the sea dyke at Westkapelle, and is known in the village simply as “the tank”.
At the foot of the dyke is the village museum, which naturally has a large part devoted to the war. When I was taking pictures of it to build an accurate model earlier this year, the museum’s manager told me a funny anecdote: he was on holiday in Greece a few years ago, and someone asked him where he was from. “The Netherlands, a place called Westkapelle,” he replied. “Ah, with the tank!” the Greek man exclaimed. It turned out the man had been a sailor, and had often come past there on the way to and from Antwerp, with the tank being a clear indicator to everyone of where they were in the world
The almost-new version of the tank will be built from the Asuka kit and most of the accessories shown, including interior parts from the Academy M36. The monument version will come from the Dragon kit, plus one of the track sets to get the correct ones for the tank as it appears today.