Not having been to a museum for a long time I thought I'd take a short trip to the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. Until my relatively recent interest in playing Rommel, Chain of Command and Cruel Sea's I'd not really been there very often so it still has a certain novelty for me!
Last time I visited I mainly went around the WW1 gallery so this time I thought I'd try the WW2 version. Unfortunately much of it was closed for renovation though so the display was a bit limited!
The museum has a T34 tank, in much better condition than '
Stompie' another T34 that weirdly is parked on waste ground near where I used to live on the Old Kent Road:
Venturing to the next floor the first item on display was a LRDG truck:
The front grille:
In rather better condition was Monty's staff car, available as an Airfix model in the dim and distant past if I remember rightly:
Again from the front:
A German BMW motorbike and sidecar. As a child in the 70's I had the Britain's model of this as part of my collection of Britain's figures, sadly long gone:
Another view:
The ubiquitous Sherman M4A4 tank, a nice example which is much bigger in reality than I'd thought it would be:
The war in the Far East against Japan is represented by a couple of exhibits, firstly the wreckage of an IJN Zero fighter that was discovered in the jungle and a captured Japanese good luck flag:
A collection of surrendered Japanese officer's swords:
Moving to the other side of the gallery I was interested to see an example of the Smith Gun I'd deployed in the last CoC game I played!
A front view, in the background is a flag flown in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese and hidden from them by POW's:
A photo of troops training on the Smith Gun:
Next was a bit of a naval theme with an Italian 'human torpedo':
This wasn't a suicide device, the idea was to pilot it into a harbour where the crew would attach the explosive on the front of the torpedo to an enemy ship then, in theory at least, escape before the charge exploded. Maybe because it is Italian is is quite a stylish craft with very nice brass control levers:
The final item I looked at was a German 88mm anti-aircraft gun, famously employed against tanks on occasion:
An interesting hour or two which brought back memories of childhood toys and tied in nicely with the games I've been playing lately. When the revamped WW2 galleries reopen I'll definitely pay them a visit.
I keep telling myself that I should really pay a visit to the IWM and the National Army Museum, but never seem to get around to it. I think this post has given me the push to do it.
ReplyDeleteI've just taken a look for the Airfix kit. The Humber staff car was a 1:32 kit; Revell and Matchbox both did a 1:76 kit with his Caravan and a Dingo - I thought that Airfix had done one too. Looking at photos, it seems the Matchbox was a repackaged Revell kit.
They are both well worth a visit, the NAM has had a complete makeover and is very much a 'modern' museum with far fewer things in it but loads of text panels explaining everything.
ReplyDeleteI was fairly sure that Airfix did the staff car in 1/32nd but could be wrong!
The 1:32 kit of the Humber was Airfix.
DeleteI keep looking for a project I could do using Airfix figures. Unfortunately every time I try and buy a box I end up looking at figures that are showing their age and have unsightly mould lines all round them that are much harder to clean off than with metal figures!
ReplyDelete