The weather was great for this 2013 edition of Camp Lucky Strike at Ename, Belgium. The turnout of vehicles was mostly the same as on last year’s Wings & Wheels, but it included no less than 3 tanks (!), a DUKW, a Seep and one I hadn’t seen before: a truck with a disassembled Piper Cub reconnaissance plane.
Firing baseballs with a mortar was a real hoot! My son and his friend had a great time.
Take a look at the photo album
This re-enactment event, organized by the WW2 Battle Wheels group is worth visiting, especially if you are from this area. The camp is based at the site of the Provinciaal Archeologisch Museum at Ename (Oudenaarde).
On Saturday they will do a tour of the Flemish Ardennes in allied military vehicles. You need to register as a participant for this. They will also demonstrate the launching of a DUCKW amphibious vehicle at the Schelde river. Should be fun to watch.
There will also be a militaria show.
Visit the WW2 Battle Wheels site for more info
Sergeant “Shifty” Darrell Powers was part of the same unit of the famous HBO TV-series. He was the sharpshooter and not one of the main characters. I borrowed this book from the local library, and I warmly recommend this to all Band of Brothers and WW2 paratroopers enthusiasts. What’s special is that it’s written in the first person, so like an auto biography. Especially the part covering the Battle of the Bulge and his post-war biography are very gripping. Getting back to civilian life, the bond between veterans, and getting old, are aspects usually left out of other unit histories and are kept brief in most biographies.
One small, but interesting piece of information to remember from this book: according to Shifty Powers, neither he nor any of the sharpshooters in the 506th used a rifle with a telescopic sight, as did the paratrooper sniper in Saving Private Ryan.
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I have finished writing my review of this beautiful reproduction M1918 BAR. You will read how to age it and to fit it with an original wood handguard and a real-steel magazine!
ACM M1918 BAR with accessories
Be sure to give this another look. I have added new items for sale, closing next weekend and there are still items closing today.
Top item is this BC-1000 / SCR-300 radio with many accessories.
Also worth checking out: a clinometer with leather pouch. Very rarely found! A nicely aged Hawkins No.75 mine reproduction and many other small items.
This pamphlet is one of a series issued by the Northern Command, which was the Home Command of the British Army. I only bought this pamphlet showing what a German Paratrooper looks like. It’s the early Fallschirmjäger with green smock, blue trousers, grey helmet and brown leather field gear.
Below is a small rime, apparently supposed to underline the brutality of the German Paratroopers:
Only the bird
Bedecks the brutes
Who float around
In parachutes
I recently picked up this beautiful set of sweetheart jewelry. It’s a sterling silver enameled pin with the 17th Airborne patch on it, and under it U.S.A., attached with a gold (colored?) chain to tiny sterling silver jump wings.
The 17th Airborne pin is marked Whittemore & Co. – Attleboro, MA. The jump wings are really tiny, even smaller than common sweetheart jump wings and are marked STER. (Sterling).
Check out the new paratrooper.be eBay sale ending on February 9, including many original US WW2 items and some interesting paratrooper items too!
There are two original front-seam M1 helmet shells refurbished to M2 D-bale helmets of the 551st PIR and the 504th PIR.
Also for sale are 2 original escape compasses. And much more.
Go to auction
Plexi glass escape compass without any markings
I just bought this escape compass in the US. It’s a type I had never seen before. It consists of a plexi glass dome and a metal base plate with a pin on which the arrow can rotate. The needle is made of stamped steel. The blued end points North. The needle is fixed to the pin with a brass cap. There are no markings anywhere. This type is said to be issued with American escape kits, but I have no documentation anywhere to support this. As far as I know the only type of survival kit the Americans had during WW2 was not issued in the ETO. If anyone knows more about this, or has one like this, please let me know.
View full escape compasses article
This history of the 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR at Normandy was published by Osprey in 2009. I bought it second hand this year, and I just finished reading it. I have been going a bit easy on the unit histories lately. I had had a bit too much of them, and the stories started to look alike. But I couldn’t pass up on this bargain. It turned out to be quite good, especially the beginning. That’s the part where the paratroopers are at their training camps and staging areas in Britain. The authors have done very painstaking research, and that shows. They talked to veterans, and everything was cross-checked right where things happened in Normandy. This is how the authors were able to determine the correct location of a wooden footbridge that plays an important role, and which was misidentified for decades in older books. It is generally well written, and the part on Britain is even entertaining. Although I must confess that the whole narrative on Carantan is a rather dull. Of course the authors have to be detailed, but the chain of events is lacking some narrative. I leafed through the last chapters a bit more quickly because of that. The book also has a lot of photos and a few situation maps. I often find myself referring to them while reading, as it is easy to lose track of all the names of roads and farmhouses.
Let’s hope the authors find the courage to follow the 3rd Battalion’s history further up to Holland, Belgium and Germany.
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