Wednesday 23 May 2012

27th May - World Wars Experiance, East Fortune

This coming weekend is on Sunday the annual WW2 Experience Day here at East Fortune at the Scottish National Museum of Flight, here in East Lothian;  World War Experience

There is a replica German Panzer III Tank on demo and hopefully the Scottish based WW2 German Reenactment group KGS will be there along with the large Allied reenactment groups...
You can see close up and handle de- activated weapons of WW2 along with other memorabilia....

Here is the post i did from last years event from a second blog i started which i have since cancelled and re posted  nearly all the posts to coastrider blog;

May 2011;
Sunday was the annual WW2 Experience Day here at East Fortune at Scotland's National Museum of Flight.
Living on the other side of the Airfield i cycled along getting through the gates first and ahead of the cue of cars waiting so got the chance to photo and film the exhibits on the re-enactment Groups stands before it got busy...

Its Ze Germans!...



These guys had some serious good kit on show, some was replica but a lot was genuine WW2 articles,The display was by the Kampfgruppe Schottland (KGS) there website is here; Kampfgruppe Schottland
KGS attempt to portray the life of the German soldier of WW2 and represent the units of the Fallschirmjager (Paratrooper) and Panzergrenadier....







I brought along my German spoon my dad found years ago and some guys looked at it and thought it is a Finnish swastika though the spoon is made in Germany by GROMARGAN ...




Lots of weapons...





M24 Stick Grenades, known as `potato mashers or here in Scotland The Scots called them`tattie mashers`!...



Known as `Hitlers buzz saw` the devestating MG34 Light Machine Gun...





Mauser K98 Rifles...



German sausage breakfast & a Panzerfaust Disposable Rocket Grenade Launcher...



Panzerschreck Anti Tank rocket Launcher...



80mm Mortar...



Fallschirmjager (Paratrooper) with his MG34 machine gun...



This was cool, a BMW R71 sidecar outfit...















German Bazooka...









Paratrooper with the MP40 Sub Machine Pistol...



Along with a lot of different machine guns i got to hold during the day i got my hands on a real Luger pistol, an iconic gun of WW2,
the gun that a lot of US soldiers wanted as a souvenir after the 1944 D Day landings, If you watched `Band of brothers` then you will remember the scene with the Luger...



Cool  outfit and MG34...












The Yanks...




The US Camp was big, and some amount of stuff on show...
The display was good, it showed what the US soldier would be issued with, clothing, `K`ration packs, cooking,washing equipment etc..
And being the yanks there was of course lots of extras that Britain did not see a lot of due to rationing, like fresh fruit,Coca Cola, Hershey bars,cigarettes and milk chocolate...







There wasn`t a shortage of fire power here either...



There was loads of 50mm ammo, boxes of it...



One of a few Browning 50mm Machine Guns, a devastating weapon...









Mine detector...





Tompson machine gun, Sten Guns and Browning Rifles...



















Cool big Truck...











And a mint Willys Jeep...











Also there was a BSA dispatch riders bike...





The Brits and Canadians...
Some nice Bren Guns here you could look at,some weight to carry with ammo too!...







Canadian Signals Corps had on display a spotter plane,pilot and Morse code and radio equipment...











There was also a display by WW1 Gordon Highlanders re-enactment group with 2 Stretcher barer`s...
They did some basic PT training,bayonet training then a re-enactment of taking a German Pill Box while under a poison gas attack, demonstrating the gas masks worn during WW1...









There was a kitchen, with food brewing in big pots..beef stew of course!





And a few pretty war time girls wandering about...



Ice cream from the 1923 Rolls Royce of S. Luca of Musselburgh, here in East Lothian...



There is of course loads of WW2 related stuff in the Hangers of the museum of Flight including what is regaurded the most famous plane of WW2...and my favourite...



But that`s for another post... it was time for the WW2 re-enactment,
Its Normandy 1944 and surrounded by the Allies the Germans tried to breakout through the Falaise Gap ...
What my wee camera does not pick up is just how ear shattering the rifle and machine gun fire was, maybe they were blank rounds fired but they were loud!,
There was a big scramble by kids after for the spent bullet shells!
What a great event...
Kampfgruppe Schottland (KBS) is recruiting and i reckon this could be really interesting...

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