Dog Green Sector, Omaha Beach, June 1944

[spanner570]

Hi all, I have had a go at painting the soldiers. I have tried to get the soaked through, tired look into their appearance.

This one is a sample. I've given him a life jacket (some were issued with around the waist types) and he's been shot in the shoulder and arm and is soaked through, cold and in shock.

I hope he looks o.k. to you. It was difficult to imagine the colour his uniform would be after a swim and probably covered in diesel fuel from sunken landing craft.

Cheers,

Ron

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[yak face]

Excellent pose ron , the poor bloke really looks like hes tired out and dazed, the uniform colour looks fine to me,as you say it would have been soaked through,covered in sand,muck, diesel,blood, so would have been very far removed from the original dry colour.Keep it up mate , i see a story unfolding already, cheers tony

[Guest]

Nice work Ron this guys looks like he's had a bit of a bad day, lovely surgery on the troops.

scott

[stona]

He doesn't look good does he? Which of course means you've done a top job on the poor chap!

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

hi ron. 3 dio? thats some work for a few months! looking forward to seeing them all progress. the figure kits look a good choice. i've just got myself the U.S. soldiers kit by tamiya too. i've now just popped back on the forum for a quick look and realised your all doing a normandy beach G.B. i have a few of my own wee models planned but now i'm tempted to leave them and join in on the build!

[spanner570]

Thanks for your positive response to my 'Test' figure chaps, I can now happily proceed with the painting of the remainding ones.

Bobby, because I intend giving the landing diorama as a surprise to my eldest son, it needs to be something special (In my eyes!) so I'm focusing all my efforts into this one.

The remaining two will be nowhere near as involved, being smaller. So hopefully I will have enough time....sez he!

Nice to read you might be joining the party.

Ron

[spanner570]

Hi all,

The painting of the figures is progressing, but I need a break from them, so I am making a start on the base:-

I found an old 300x380 picture frame in the garage, (Sorry boys, no Pound Shop or Wilkinsons this time!) to this I fitted a piece of 5mm plywood and siliconed it into the rebate.

For the initial work on the water/beach, I have used builders red sand. Luckily, this is as close as damn it to the colour of Omaha beach. Incidentally, the sand on Utah beach, although only a fairly short distance away is a very light, almost golden colour.

The obstacle is there to give some idea of scale. I still have work to do on these things.

In my minds eye, things are starting to come together a bit more now, and I'm getting fresh ideas too.....

Thanks for looking,

Ron

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[Guest]

Great work on the figure Ron, The surgery looks great. The dirty clothes look great and he appears to be in a bit of pain. MEDIC!!!! lol, had to do it. The sand you've used on the base looks very realistic. Your son is a very lucky man to be receiving something as good as this.

Cheers

Kresten

[spanner570]

Thanks for the nice comments Kresten. Don't worry about the casualty, help is at hand....

The sand is only laid out roughly so I can get a feel of the thing and start playing around with it.

I hope I can do it justice, so it will be good enough to give to No.1 son!

Ron

[Guest]

Thanks Neill and Adrian.Niell.

My son and his family are off to the landing beaches again mid. April this year. he managed to get a good travel and accomodation deal to the place he stayed on his last trip over there :- Return ferry and a nice modern static caravan for 7 days, close by Sword beach, all for under £200 !

He was in bits the first time he saw the Coleville sur Mer cemetery, and he says it will be no different this time. He too said he had never seen such a peaceful and as he put it, some how 'happy' place with all the young lads resting together....

Sounds a strange thing to say but I know what he means.

The Cambridge American Cemetery at Coton nr. Cambridge which contains 3,810 headstones and a huge wall with the names of 5,127 m.i.a. has the same feeling. I had to take a minute when I visited it recently.

Ron

Hi Ron

I take it that they were mainly USAAF crew buried at Cambridge? I live in Belfast and what I only found out in recent years was that the 34th Division was selected as the first American contingent to cross the Atlantic. On January 26, 1942, just six weeks after Pearl Harbor, over 4,000 personnel, primarily from the "Red Bull" division, arrived at Dufferin Quay, Belfast Harbour, Belfast. This division only spent a brief time in Northern Ireland but they went onto serve in Operation Torch in North Africa. I think elements of the 1st and 29th divisions (the first two into action on Omaha on D-Day) were based here as well. It only came out after records and photos were released a couple of years ago that Eisenhower had visited a division based here and that they held a parade in the grounds of a public school in the lead up to the landing. I would recommend Ledger Tours as a good operator for battlefield visits as me and my dad went to Arnhem and Remagen in 2008 and I we had an excellent time (I couldn't get the girlfriend to go so I made the most of the German beer to make up for it!!

[spanner570]

Hi Neill, I know it's off thread, but I am enjoying our exchanges, so just briefly....

There are mostly USAAF crew buried at Cambridge, most of the others died in N.Africa and France as well as training areas in England and the waters of the Atlantic. I wonder if the training deaths had anything to do with that incident on the S.Coast when hundreds of U.S Infantry were killed during a practice landing for D.Day when some German E. boats got amongst them?

When I was at the cemetery, I was looking along the Massive M.I.A. wall containing the 5,000 odd names, when I spotted half a dozen names with a small bronze asterisk next to the names. All on the same date in 1944.

I asked the American Officer in the cemetery office what they were, he didn't know!! I looked it up on the internet and it turns out that the names belong to the crew of a Liberator bomber which crashed in dense woods in Germany and was not found until the mid 90's. So the asterisk is for those identified after being declared M.I.A.

I have heard good things about Leger Tours, unfortunately my son and I are the sort of people who like to mooch around off the subscribed routes and go where and when we like and be away from people. Sounds anti social, but I hope you know what I mean!

Thanks for the very informative post,

Ron

[stona]

You chaps may be "off thread" but I for one am finding it quite an education which must be a good thing! Keep it up I say.

Cheers

Steve

[spanner570]

A bit of a progress report:-

The figures are completed so I can now concentrate on the beach. I have finished the large log obstacles and here is one of the 'Czech Hedgehogs' painted, but not weathered. I had intended to scratch build these but I found I could get a 1/35 kit of them...so I did!

That is more or less it for the obstacles, except for a couple of other things, such as the single logs dug in at an angle with a Teller mine on the top of some of them.

The more I get involved in this the more it comes home just what a horrendous place Dog Green must have been. Yes, I know all beaches suffered to some degree, but here so much life was extinguished in minutes.....

Ron

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[spanner570]

Warm enough for a short time in the shed.

Lots to build for this yet, but I couldn't resist a 'Play' in the sand with what little I have completed.

I've had a go at trying to replicate Capa's famous blurred images of the landings.....I was only messing about, but I'm chuffed to bits with how the snap came out.

What do you folks think?

Cheers,

Ron

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[AlanG]

Looks great to me Ron