Historiker

One thing that I really like is period music…

Tex Beneke and the Glenn Miller Orchestra with Chatanooga Choo Choo…

Benny Goodman Orchestra from Hollywood Hotel…

I’ve picked up a few new items that should be of much use in the upcoming reenacting season…

First off I’ve got a 5 litre trinkwasser. It’s a large aluminum flask for storing potable water. When I received it it had been used for storing used motor oil, yuk! After pressure washing and steaming and much soaking it’s clean, but I’m only going to use it for camp wash water for now.

Another couple of items that will be useful around the camp are two carbide lamps. Both are railway lamps with waffenampt stampings. One is brass and bears the manufacture marks of Heinrich Gillet Lanternenfabrik in Berazaben. I’s a little beat up but it cleaned up well and during initial test worked. Unfortunately as gas pressure builds up the seal on the carbide container can’t hold so I get flames around the seal… not good. I’ll find a replacement seal and it should work fine after that. It is missing it’s reflector but a good polish of the brass will have it spreading good light in the campsite at night soon.

The other lantern is made of bakelite and has shutters and coloured side glass. It is in great shape. Here are a couple of photos with the shutters in and removed. Note the front shutter has a dial-an-opening to allow light control as well as a shutter for to show just a tiny slit of light. Well thought out.

The lantern also has two hooks in addition to a nice carry handle. One is a simple tab for wall mounting and the other is a chain hook to allow it to be hung from a branch or a beam.

Unfortunately the gas nozzle is plugged, I’ll have to clear it, but worse the water flow tap was broken into several pieces (bad pot metal). I’ll have to turn a replacement on the lathe before the lamp is back in working order.

At Shootfest last week our unit commander had created a mockup of a JU-52 fuselage with a jump door. We all eagerly lined up and hammed it up for the camera… We started out looking pretty good but after a while we got a little punchy and authenticity went down accordingly…

Gerda the R-71 has hit the streets! After the arduous bureaucratic process I have all three legal documents and so you will see Gerda on the streets of South Austin. Though nothing much turns heads here… people seem to fall into two groups; blase never seen anything that interests them and the larger group of totally oblivious, yakking into their cell phones. It’s the latter group I worry about when I’m on the roads.

Gerda…

All armies had large bureaucracies, the German military in WWII was no different. I love the line from A Piece of Cake where the maintenance officer says, “you need a bloody form to get a form!”

A friend of mine made me a drivers license and a vehicle permit for my R-71. Both are quite respectable forgeries… or I mean historical reproductions. I wish I’d known Bill in high school - he’d have been making fake hall passes.

Here’s the front cover of my Führerschein…

And my Kraftfahrzeugfchen…

At our recent Shootfest event I was awarded the Erdkampfzeichen after the last action against the Ruskies.

It authorizes me to wear the badge on my tunic.