Verlinden 120mm Waffen S.S… Hitlerjugend… [D Day group build]
12th ss panzer was formed in January 1943 when the commandant of the of the Hitler youth approached Himmler with the idea of a combat division made up of primarily 18 year olds formed from the ranks of the Hitler youth or had been a member...as a birthday present to the Fuhrer... they were all born in 1926 so in 1933 when Hitler came to power most were absorbed into the Hitler youth at age 7...these were the kids that ratted out their parents for listening to the illegal radio...raised completely by the state as human robots all most from the cradle to the grave much like the Spartans...and like the Spartans these guys were bad...on June 1st 1944 Heinz Guderian inspected the unit and declared it combat ready...their first day in combat was June 7, 1944 because on June 6 they were chasing down parachute dummies at von Rundstedt's behest...on the 7th they were thrown against Monty's very tough Canadians on the beaches and cities around Caan...Monty’s timetable for securing Caan was day one...he didn’t walk out of there until 60 days later...Ike called Monty and asked him “what the hell is going on in Caan” and even paid a visit to his headquarters to assess the situation himself ...both forces were locked in furious combat with each other in the the meanest fight of the whole D day campaign... what the SS lacked in technical and strategic know how... often failing to exploit gains... they made up for in ferocity and with zero air cover for 60 days while being pounded by the allied air forces on an hourly basis...out of 21,000 men only 12,000 slipped out of the Falaise pocket through the gap a 42% loss...as with all Waffen SS they had a habit of taking no prisoners but lets face it the SS didn’t have a very high survival rate in captivity either as they were the most despised of troops..after this they fought on the Belgian French border where their beloved leader Kurt Meyer was wounded and captured...next they were sent to the bulge under Sepp Dietrich where they faced some of the toughest American resistance...again they took about 10,000 casualties...then they were shipped off to Budapest to face the Russians where they again fought a losing battle with distinction...after this defeat Hitler gave up on the Waffen SS and ordered them to turn in their cuff titles...Sepp Dietrich never passed the order on...they eventually surrendered to the Americans near Enns Austria...Patton was quite fond of them even though they were often defiant...raised by the state to be killing machines without conscience I’m sure they have perplexed military and social thinkers alike...ironically when these guys show up at D Day reunions they are said to be very kindly and gracious old gentlemen...they are surely one of the finest bunch of fighting men of WW11...perhaps in history...unconscionable...never won a battle...never backed down...relentless...betrayed by their leader... and faithful until death
Absolutely superb Bob. Great figure and photos, a hearty well done. Nice piece of narrative - that first photo of the soldier scowling really says it all - very tough lads. I believe the Canadains took no prisoners when it came to these guys.
Nothing like affable old Nazis to warm the cockles of your heart...
Striking figure, though.
cracked me up
I was never much good at figure paintin'...maybe if I tried one in the "big" scale, it'd turn out as well as yours. Nice job, Bob.
You have got that touch with figure painting Bob.
You should post a tutorial on it.
Well done mate.
I agree with Simon, you do have the touch. Nice work on the camo along with the rest of the figure.
Gorgeous, Bob ! Spot on ! (how about doing a dozen, or so, "S" Boot figures in 1/72 for me. LOL)
Great work Bob,Thanks for taking part.
N.
Great Bob, and I agree with Simon that you should run a tutorial. I am really impressed by your albums. As a Canadian though, I am bound to correct a part of your narrative. Kurt Meyer survived the war and was tried as a war criminal for the deaths of Canadian soldiers as POWs in the fight for Caen. He was sentenced to death, which was reviewed and changed to life in prison. He spent some of his sentence in a New Brunswick prison and was transferred to prison in Germany in the '50's. I am not sure why, but his sentenced was reduced again and he was released in 1954 I think. There, my national duty is done and I want to compliment you again on the figure.
you are right...i stand corrected...not the first time
i should have said wounded and captured...thank you for the proof
Well done, Bob, a challenging subject, you've really caught the look.
Bob,
Great story and your figure painting is masterful. Well worth the wait to see him done.
Great job, many of those Verlinden figures are so nice, they get forgotten these days in the glut of 120mm resin figures. Good build!
Most of them never made it to the POW cages. They were shot after surrendering as the scum they were. This is the one instance of shooting prisoners with which I have no disagreement at all.
Forgot to mention - very nice work, terrible subject matter, but needs to be remembered.
One of them, after capture, feigned being a scared young kid, and one of his captors took off the handcuffs. The kid then grabbed a Sten gun and opened fire. He was shot by five of the survivors and his body dumped in the garbage dump.
i was kind of trying to think outside the box with the subject matter...figured everybody would do allies...all war is murder tom...soldiers hold court in the street
Hi Bob! @p38j
Great job once again! Congratulations!
I have another hobby (also on "sleeping mode" for a few years now), "boardgaming".
We use "boardgames" for that, which are basically maps of the areas depicting the subject of the game, be it a town, or a country, or the whole Europe, or the Pacific Ocean, or even the whole world, called mapboards (if on a cardboard), or "mapsheets" (if just on a sheet of paper), and then the "units" (usually on cardboard, but there are other possibilities) and some other pieces.
I have a few of them exactly about what you mention in the introduction, "D-Day", and the whole campaign after that (my favorite is a game called "Breakout: Normandy" but there are plenty more), for instance the capture of Caen, as well as all the other major locations in Normandy, Bayeux, St. Lô, Ste. Mère Église, etc, starting from the 5 debarkment beaches. Some very hard fights in there indeed!
Cheers!
Dolf
I love a little Risk myself