My 28mm Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle of the Coldstream Guards....

....who in 1863 toured the Confederate states for 3 months and is seen here in the movie Gettysburg and played by the actor James Lancaster, he viewed most of the battle from a tree, met Longstreet and Lee amongst other Confederacy officers and wrote a very interesting diary of his travels through the south which I have just read and liked, my copy was from 1956 sans dust jacket.

So anyway you're wondering why am I harping on about him, well I wanted to represent Fremantle with a figure for my ACW forces as a possible scenario involving him (his journey) was uneventful and relatively safe until he crossed over in to the Union lines (some townsfolk handed him over to union military forces with a note that said basically in nice words to hang him as a spy).....

....so after much searching through Victorian and Crimean miniature sites I either found nothing or nothing cheap (part of a larger set) but surprisingly Ray found and bought for a £1 a suitable figure at the Foundry stand at Salute in their singles pile (what a nice guy, it's hard to believe some people say such terrible things about him).

I present Lt Col Arthur James Lyon Fremantle (1835-1901), he is described as wearing a grey hunting suit with a cowboy hat at one stage but I could only find this version which is more like the movie version below........

James Lancaster in a scene from the movie..........

....the man himself and you can read more here.

.....and the book is well worth a read!

....and that great girl Tamsin is giving away five lots of goodness and today is the last day so go visit here and the links for the other 4 are there also!

Heaven & Hell: Diary of a German Paratrooper.

Picked it up on the bring and buy at Salute, I always like to read a bit from the other side of the conflicts.

Very good account of a German paratrooper from the second world war from training right up until his surrender to British troops at Rees, Germany in 1945, it's a no bullshit look at the training and tactics of a new type of warfare, he fought in Poland 1939, Narvik 1940,Crete 1941, Russia 1941-2-3, Sicily and Southern Italy 1943, Normandy 1944 and finally Holland and /Lower Rhine 1944-5 and is sent to England as a prisoner of war until 1946.

He starts off with enthusiasm for the war and the Nazi party but as his account goes on this enthusiasm for both dwindles as the war and years progress. His writing is short and to the point with literally dates sometimes following each other as he mentions little if nothing happened or if  their is action or casualties, he cares for his men and their survival, he has some discipline issues in the early days.

We learn what he thought, what he felt and what he went through and his transformation from an eager soldier into a war weary veteran wanting mainly to bring his men home safely, his description of the chaos and confusion of war is vivid and grim. Good read and great pictures throughout.

Service Medals:

Iron Cross First Class
Iron Cross Second Class
Luftwaffe Jump Badge
Luftwaffe ground assault badge
Close Combat Clasp in Silver
Wound badge in Silver
Narvik campaign sheild
Kreta Armelband