I thought that I was the first ..... (updated)

….armour modeller in my family but it seems my Maternal Grandfather built a tank model back in 1944!

My Grandfather was in the Dutch Infantry at the outbreak of WW2. He was shot in the lung defending an airfield and was hospitalised as a result. He lost the lung, but recovered enough to escape from the hospital before the Germans could round up all the nearly recovered POW’s. He managed to sneak his way back home to Aarle-Rixtel (East of Eindhoven/SSW of Arnhem) and hid from the German’s for the rest of the 5 yrs of the war. He had a day job in a factory and a night job helping the Resistance. Unfortunately he did not like to talk about his experiences and as he died 7 years ago the opportunity has passed.

My Grandmother saw me reading a book on Arnhem and Operation Market Garden, and seeing my real interest began to tell me what actually happened then, and some of the stories of what she knew my grandfather got up to (he didn’t tell her much so as not to frighten her).

Anyway, shortly after the end of Market-Garden my Grandfather, a carpenter by trade, decided to make a cigarette box to commemorate the liberation of the Dutch (at least in the southern part of the country) and his freedom to walk in the open again. This is the end result.





The cigarette box was a representation of a British Tank and has an inscription ‘25 September’44’ painted inside the lid (the large square under the turret comes away), that being the day that this part of the Netherlands was considered liberated. Before they emigrated here to Australia, my Grandparents gave away those things they could not bring with them, one of them being this tank. The relative that eventually received it recently died, and the other relatives sent it back to my Grandmother. She has now given it to me, and is now one of my most treasured possessions.

To the best of my investigations, the tank may be loosely based on a Cromwell of the Guards Armoured division attached to XXX Corps of the Second Army – the white cross on blue shield on the front being the colour reversal of the second Army’s Blue cross on white shield with upraised sword in the middle of the cross. (The red white and blue flag on the left is the Dutch National flag and not a unit designation.) This assumption would fit in with units in the vicinity of Eindhoven during liberation in September 1944.

If anyone can give me a lead onto other possible units or a specific regiment, I would appreciate it.