Faces Of War (7)

More pictures from the second world war. My grandfather took these while he was a part of the German invasion troops on the African continent. He died while I was still a kid that I had no chance to ask him about these dark time, but the pictures give some clues, where he had been.

By the way, I still remember him enough to know that he in not the guy on the picture above, he is shown on this picture.

On the first picture you can see a damaged British airplane, a quick online search showed that this could be a US P-40 in British service or as they called it, a Kittyhawk.

While I wrote the last post about these old pictures, I found out that he at least visited the Lybian Marble Arch, found on this picture, near Ra's Lanuf. This time there are no special landmarks on these pictures but we may get some more hints about his military past.

The first picture of this group shows something like a cantina. You can read the Italian words "DI RISTORO PER MILITARI" what can roughly be translated to "refreshment for military". This may be a hint that his unit was connected with some Italian units.

Update:
A reader from Italy mentioned that the whole phrase should say  "PUNTO DI RISTORO PER MILITARI". Thanks for that addition, mate.

The plane on this picture seems like a Messerschmitt BF-110. There are a lot of clues that my Grandfather could have been a member of the Luftwaffe since there are a lot of planes on these old pictures.

I suppose this plane shows a Messerschmitt BF-109 as it seems. The insignia is showing the Berlin Bear with a crown above that. This could be a hint, in which unit he could have been. I will try to find out for which unit this sign stands and will add this to this post.

Update:

It seem that the Berlin Bear insignia was used by the second squadron of the Jagdgeschwader 27.

This picture of the Bear seems almost identical to the one on the plane above.

Dieses Werk (ausser dem Bärenbild aus der Wikipedia) ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung

 - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International Lizenz. -

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Sunday, funday. Today I am going to build some 28mm figures using some bits I got from the bay. There are a dozen of unbuilt Britons and some Germans who will get new weapons and the rest of the Westwind Productions gasmask heads. I hope this will work, there are way enough arms and weapons for the British troopers but I do not have any clue which of them belong together, this may include a lot of puzzeling.

While I am looking out of the window, I reminds me to the fact, that the color gray was invented here in 1254.

In tonights post we will keep staying in Africa, I am going to take a closer look at the first of the two available African themed Italian expansions for "TANKS", and a first look at the included cards shows, that the tanks are pretty weak, but the available crew and upgrade cars are pretty strong.