FEMbruary Wrens

Posted on by Marvin

My contribution to mark #FEMbruary 2022 is ready!

I’ve had fun painting these Naval ladies, featuring a great topic and nice sculpting as usual from Bad Squiddo. A Wren signaller like these in the Royal Navy during WWII would be expected to master the Aldis Lamp, the Semaphore and signal flags and, of course, Morse code. These five Wrens from the Second World War have been assigned the following signalling duties.

Message taking / transcription #1

I gave this lady a pair of leather gloves. I don’t know why. She looked like her fingers could get perishing cold taking down those messages received via Aldis Lamp or on semaphore flags.

The task of recording signalled messages was vital. The qualities required were:

“Neat handwriting, accurate spelling, good mnemonics and integrity. All were key attributes when it came to selection for The Communications Branch. Good handwriting meant messages were relaid accurately. Spelling went hand in hand with this. The ability to memorise lots of information was crucial and integrity was key due to the sensitive nature of the information communicated.”

Aldis Lamp operator

For the Aldis Lamp’s bright light, I added a large dollop of gloss varnish to create something of a glow. The Aldis Lamp was a means of communication using the flashing of a light beam to imitate Morse Code to the observer. The lamp’s design was named after Arthur Cyril Webb Aldis who patented a small hand-held version of the signal lamps previously used and which featured an improved shutter to better direct the beam to the recipient and away from the prying eyes of enemy U-boats.

Telegraphist and signalman sending out a signal on the Aldis lamp, 1940. © IWM A 1613

Signal lamps are still in use today even it seems, on rare occasions, the venerable old Aldis Lamp. Yachting Monthly reported back in 2017 of a National Coastwatch Institute (NCI) watchkeeper averting a possible yacht grounding off The Lizard in Cornwall by using an old Aldis Lamp kept at the station and signalling to the vessel to urgently alter its course.

Semaphore Flags

Another means of signalling which is still in use today. Hand-held flag semaphore was widely used in the 19th century and is still used at sea. The positions of the flags indicate letters of the alphabet or numbers. I’ve just learnt that the semaphore flag colour combination of yellow and red are only ever used at sea. So perhaps I need to rebase this girl as being on deck instead! Umm, perhaps she’s in training?

I think the letter she’s communicating is ‘W’. Perhaps Bad Squiddo can go on to produce three more WRNS figures with positions spelling out the ‘R’, ‘N’, and ‘S’ too? Just a suggestion.

Semaphore position for ‘W’

Telescope

Of course, sending the message is one thing, receiving it another entirely. The use of a traditional Royal Navy telescope would assist, the Wren needing all of her observation and memory skills to accurately relay the messages.

Message taking / transcription 2

Finally, another message taker frantically writing down the information. The previously mentioned spelling and handwriting skills would be at a premium here. “Stink the Bismark?!!…”

And after all that, the message is (flashed in morse code) that my FEMbruary contribution is over for another year. Check out my previous post for some more “FEMbruary” submissions and also Azazel’s very neat female ranger and bard from Middle-Earth. FEMbruary’s original creator Alex at Leadballoony has found time in his busy schedule to offer a superb sorceress with attendants. He’s also raising funds and conquering mountains!

Sending a Signal that it’s Fembruary

Posted on by Marvin

Uncharacteristically, I’d quite forgotten that it’s actually FEMbruary, that month celebrating with great respect all things to do with female miniatures, shunning the demeaning and downright dodgy.

Genius Fembruary originator, Alex at Leadballoony, has got a whole big heap of all sorts going on this year and so regrets that he won’t be running a review and round-up as in previous years, but that doesn’t mean no Fembruary – not at all. Alex suggests that maybe it’s time for Fembruary to just exist free of a formal organiser and encourages us figure painters to still go forth and “paint some fantastic female figures from your collections and tag them as Fembruary!” And so I shall.

“I see no ships”

In previous years I painted for Fembruary:

Once again, I have once again turned to Bad Squiddo’s fabulous range of believable female miniatures – always perfect for some Fembruary figures. I’m also returning to WWII with some sailor girls from the WRNS.

At the peak of it’s service during WWII there were 74,000 women in the WRNS (universally known as the Wrens) involved in over 200 different jobs. Their wide range of duties included driving/motorcycle despatch; admin/clerical work; radar plotters; wireless telegraphists; bomb making; weapons analysts; electrical work; harbour transport; catering; range assessing; flying transport planes and providing weather forecasts. Over 300 Wrens were killed in wartime service.

Two Ordnance Wrens in Liverpool reassemble a section of a pom-pom gun during the Second World War. From the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain.

The set shows five WRNS taking part in signalling duties.

The team of signallers include a Wren using a signalling lamp, another using semaphore flags, another interpreting signals with a telescope and two other ratings furiously scribbling down the messages.

My last group of marching Wrens painted back in 2019. I had discovered them as unidentified 54mm figures on eBay from a seller in Kent but later found that they were made in the late 70s or early 80s by MJ Mode, a manufacturer that – entirely coincidentally – I later discovered had its operations based in exactly the same suburb as I was then living in!

With half of February already gone, I need to get started as soon as possible. Thankfully some others have been more on the ball than I. I heartily recommend that for other Fembruary female figures you check the bloggers below.

From the talented brush of Wudugast comes forth:

Also, Rantings from under the Wargames Table blog brings us:

  • Faith and Deceit: Agatha Fox the spy in rain mac and Sister Maria aka ‘the nun with a gun’ – so that’s how you solve a problem like Maria!
  • Gnome on the Range: Two more Fembruary femmes with the delightfully named Blink Berenwicket the gnome and a fabulously diffident-looking female ranger.

That wizard of the diorama Imperial Rebel Orc and Alex himself at Leadballoony have indicated the possibility of some other Fembruary creations, so I’m watching out for those. And the ever entertaining and creative Mark at Man of Tin – is he Fembruarying this year, I wonder?

Future Figures

Posted on by Marvin

Happy New Year, everyone! Over the festive period (which includes my birthday) I’ve happily accrued some more figures for the hobby which I thought I’d share. These have included some more 54mm yeomanry figures from Tradition in Sweden, namely yeomanry representing the counties of Essex and Norfolk (and if they turn out looking anything like the cover pictures, I’ll be happy).

In addition, further extending my 54mm Yeomanry Project, I’ve even managed to source a rare figure from the now defunct Border Miniatures, which was duly ‘put away for Christmas’ for me. It’s a figure of the Westmoreland and Cumberland Yeomanry but, uniquely in my collection, it’s mounted! Both horse and rider are included, so a 54mm horse will be a first for me. That’s a lot of equine.

Border Miniatures issued another Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry figure (this time standing) which I’ve had in my collection for a while and is still awaiting painting. In fact, I posted on this manufacturer back in March of this year. I’m thinking that this mounted yeomanry figure will make for an fittingly eye catching coda to the project when, eventually, I’ve exhausted the rest of my unpainted 54mm yeomanry figures.

PM/1, Cumberland & Westmoreland Yeomanry, Mounted 1898 – Border Miniatures. (manufactured possibly late 1980s).

All the way from Germany, meanwhile, I ordered some more troops for the Army of Advent. In what will probably be the last major purchase for my festive force, the box contains a heavy cavalry regiment. For now, they will be stowed away ready for the another Christmas crafting season.

I’ve also received a package from the ever excellent Bad Squiddo Games containing some figures I intend to use for next year’s FEMbruary. I won’t reveal what they are in advance but simply wanted to show off these excellent little freebie rabbit figures that BSG supremo Annie very kindly included!

A Bunny Bonus courtesy of Bad Squiddo Games!

Finally, my mother came up trumps with something for these figures to stand on – grass tufts!

Looking Back and Forward

Posted on by Marvin

This year has seen Suburban Militarism become distinctly less suburban with a move out from the suburbs and into the county. My armies (mostly) survived the move and after a hiatus in order to settle in, painting has continued more or less as normal. Another year in the time of plague at least provides an excellent excuse to immerse oneself in hobbies and here’s some of things I turned my sable brush to in 2021:

FEMbruary 2021

For this year’s FEMbruary I produced 5 of Bad Squiddo’s female WWII SOE agents, providing a brief biography of each.

The “Neglected But Not Forgotten” Painting Challenge…

For Ann’s challenge, I threw myself into clearing an entire two boxes (and a quarter) of some old Mars Saxon Infantry of the Great Northern War,

…eventually producing an entire brigade of six regiments! The entire process, interrupted by the disruption of moving house, took months.

I took time out on occasion to add to my 54mm Yeomanry Project, producing:

A sergeant of the Worcestershire Yeomanry:

An officer of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry:

An officer of the Lancashire Yeomanry:

Continuing with troops of the Lace Wars of the 18th century, I managed to paint a couple of cavalry regiments:

Schomberg’s Regiment of Horse (British) or Beust’s Regiment (Saxon):

French Horse Grenadiers:

I even managed to take a brief summer holiday for the first time in two years and sent a postcard:

I continued to nurture my slowly developing Ottomania! Project with some examples of Eyâlet infantry.

I expanded to (nearly) 1:1 scale with this submission into the local Scarecrow Festival. It was based on Michael Morpurgo’s WWI cavalry-themed book “War Horse”, or as our entry had it – “Straw Horse“:

I entered the Jazz age with a 28mm scale homage to singer Adelaide Hall for Black History Month:

I received a request to paint a large number of Serbian and Austrian infantry in 1/72 scale, a project which is still continuing slowly but surely!

And, as the year drew to a close I painted some more wintry-looking figures for my ever-growing French infantry retreating from Moscow in 1812…

…and finally produced two more regiments for my Christmas-themed Army of Advent. One, an entirely new regiment – The Poinsettian Rifles:

…And the other, the oldest regiment in the army, received their brand, spanking new uniforms – The 1st Noel Regiment of Foot:

Next year? I’m too wise to make specific predictions but I’ve no doubt that the old, familiar projects (see above) will make an appearance at some point. Often, though, it’s the unexpected diversions which keep the motivation high and I’ll look forward to more of those in 2022.

Hoping for a healthier and saner 2022, I send my best wishes and a Happy New Year to all Suburban Militarism’s visitors.

Marvin

Adelaide Hall

Posted on by Marvin

“If my husband can be a merchant navy officer, I’m going to be a soldier.” Adelaide Hall.

Seems most appropriate during Black History Month to post two figures I’ve painted of Adelaide Hall, successful singer and businesswoman. As one of the world’s first jazz singers, through her improvised wordless rhythm vocalising she pioneered scat singing and enjoyed a career that spanned eight decades.

Adelaide Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1901. Her family tree included a lineage to the Shinnecock Indians of Long Island. From 1921, Hall quickly developed a very successful stage career in the US, making a strong reputation appearing in all-black performer shows of the time. As a sought-after and successful singer, Hall made enough money to move to affluent Westchester County in New York where she received some racial threats and hostility from some white residents but also had support from her many fans.

Unknown author – The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 6 September 1934, page 20, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In 1935, Hall moved with her husband to the more racially integrated Paris where they set up a jazz club and toured extensively. In 1938, she moved again to London where she would remain until her death in 1993. Her move continued her success and in 1941 she replaced Gracie Fields as Britain’s highest paid entertainer.

In London, she also opened clubs. A club that she owned in Britain was bombed by the Luftwaffe and she later reopened another on Regent Street. The arrangement worked well for, if work ever went quiet, she could always perform a show in own club. Her move to London just preceded the Second World War in which she would play her part in the war by entertaining troops as a member of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association). It is this point in her career that Bad Squiddo’s figures represent.

“The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A Newsreel of this concert showing Adelaide Hall singing We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists.” Wikipedia

Unfortunately, ‘hanging washing out to dry’ was about the only thing the Siegfried Line was useful for as the Wehrmacht moved swiftly into France and Belgium in the Battle of France. The ENSA members operated as part of the armed forces.

As such Adelaide Hall was enlisted as an officer and entitled to a uniform, as she related in an interview to presenter Sue Lawley on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 1991;

SL: And you wore a uniform?

Adelaide Hall: Yes, and they made me a Lieutenant.

SL: Did that mean the boys had to salute you?

Adelaide Hall: Oh, yes! And I had my own jeep (laughs) and driver. My pianist was with me… [It was] a beautiful uniform, I loved it and I couldn’t stand the collar – very stiff for me, but you get used to anything, I suppose.

While painting, I got a feel for my subject and her music by listening to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs broadcasts. She was recorded twice, once in December 1972 and again nearly 20 years later in January 1991. By the time of the last recording, Adelaide was in her 80s. A 6-minute extract only of her December 1972 broadcast remains:

Adelaide Hall was very well-respected in the industry and played with many top musicians and artists including Fats Waller, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. Since her death, Adelaide Hall and her accomplishments have not been forgotten such as being acknowledged in Vogue’s list of ‘7 Remarkable Black Women Who Shaped British History’ and the award of a Black Plaque at Abbey Road Studios where she once recorded with Duke Ellington.

“I had a lovely uniform made by Madame Adele of Grosvenor Street and it was smart. Oh, you should have seen me in it! With the Sam Browne (belt) and a lovely cap, and the greeny-beige shirt and tie.”

Adelaide Hall

“I went through Germany twice – and I must say that I enjoyed it. I was a bit on edge, but I persevered. I said, if my husband can be a merchant navy officer, I’m going to be a soldier.”

Adelaide Hall

(#Fembruary2021) SOE Sisters V: Virginia Hall

Posted on by Marvin

“I would give anything to get my hands on that limping Canadian (sic) bitch.“

Reputedly Klaus Barbie, Lyon’s Gestapo chief.

Virginia Hall

  • Born: Baltimore, United States, 1906.
  • SOE Rank: Second Lieutenant.
  • AKA: ‘Artemis’, The Limping Lady’, ‘Marie of Lyon’, ‘Cuthbert’ (her leg’s pseudonym).
  • Died: Rockville, United States, 1982.

The most highly decorated female civilian during World War II, Virginia Hall was born in 1906 to a wealthy family in Baltimore. As so often with these female SOE agents, Hall was not in any way an average person. She wanted adventure, recognising herself as a “capricious and cantankerous” personality. She once went to school wearing a bracelet made of live snakes. She also enjoyed hunting, and it was while hunting birds that she accidentally shot herself in the foot. Her left leg was amputated below the knee after gangrene set in. Hall’s resilience and determination was forged in her painful recovery and in her learning to use a wooden leg.

Bad Squiddo have cleverly sculpted Virginia Hall adjusting her prosthetic limb.
Hall carries a STEN gun over her left shoulder.

Hall was living in Europe when war broke out and she drove ambulances for the French until the country was overrun. She then went on to become one of the first British SOE agents sent to France in 1941. It became apparent that she was a natural at the art of spying and subterfuge. Her caution was a great asset. She declined to attend a meeting of SOE agents in Marseille, sensing some danger. The French police raided the meeting and captured a dozen agents.

“Virginia Hall, to a certain extent, was invisible… she was able to play on the chauvinism of the Gestapo at the time. None of the Germans early in the war necessarily thought that a woman was capable of being a spy… “The Germans came to realize that they were after a limping lady,” said her biographer Sonia Purnell. Hall constantly changed her appearance. “She could be four different women in the space of an afternoon, with four different code names,” said Purnell. The man in hot pursuit was none other than the Gestapo’s infamous Klaus Barbie, known as “the Butcher of Lyon” for the thousands in France tortured and killed by his forces. Barbie ordered “wanted” posters of Hall that featured a drawing of her above the words “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy — We Must Find And Destroy Her!” ‘A Woman Of No Importance’ Finally Gets Her Due by Greg Myre, NPR.

Image result for virginia hall

As the net closed in, Virginia Hall escaped to Spain by crossing the Pyrenees which was an incredibly arduous journey for anybody (over 50 mountainous miles in the heavy snows of winter), never mind someone dragging a wooden leg. The British SOE refused to sanction a return to France, fearing it would be fatal for her, such was her reputation with the Nazis. Hall was nonetheless determined to return and instead went to the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) for a role with them and was sent back to France. She went to extraordinary lengths to remain undetected, knowing the risks her return entailed.

“She got some makeup artist to teach her how to draw wrinkles on her face,” she said. “She also got a fierce, a rather sort of scary London dentist to grind down her lovely, white American teeth so that she looked like a French milkmaid.”

Her tour of duty in France in 1944 and 1945 was a great success in which she avoided detection and established a thriving network of up to 1,500 members of the Maquis in three battalions, one of whom, a French-American soldier, she went on to marry. After the war, she worked for the CIA but was apparently unhappy at what were effectively senior bureaucratic desk jobs. Furthermore, as a disabled woman, it is unlikely that she received the same treatment as male colleagues would have been at that time.

Virginia Hall of Special Operations Branch receiving the Distinguished Service Cross from General Donovan, September 1945. By CIA People – Making an Impact: Virginia Hall. The People of the CIA. CIA Official Website, Public Domain.

The US President Harry Truman was unable to get her to agree to a public ceremony to receive her US Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) honour. She was also awarded the British MBE and the French Croix de Guerre. Hall was implacably against any exposure or public recognition and slipped into obscurity after retirement. Belatedly, 40 years after her death in 1982 in Maryland, she is finally being recognised with a number of books and movies being made about her life. In 2016, a CIA field agent training facility was named the Virginia Hall Expeditionary Center.

That’s my final figure for the month of FEMbruary – an idea by Alex at Lead Balloony’s blog. You can check out other submissions for this challenge by going to the comments section of his original post and keeping an eye out for his final round up post due at the end of the challenge.

And a final reminder of my five female SOE agents…

(#Fembruary2021) SOE Sisters IV: Noor Inayat Khan

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Noor Inayat Khan

  • Born: Moscow, Russia, 1914.
  • SOE Rank: Assistant Section Officer.
  • AKA: ‘Nora Baker’, ‘Madeleine’, ‘Nurse’, ‘Jeanne-Marie Renier’.
  • Died: Dachau Concentration Camp, Bavaria, 1944.

Continuing Leadballoony’s fabulous Fembruary challenge, Number 4 in my SOE spy series is Noor Inayat Khan. With this Bad Squiddo Games figure, we have a lady trying to get somewhere in a hurry with a suspiciously heavy-looking briefcase…

Noor Inayat Khan’s musician father was a teacher of Sufism and came from a family of Indian Muslims with hereditary nobility (his great-great-grandfather was Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore). Her mother, Ora Ray Baker, was an American. Noor studied music at the Paris Conservatory but went on to became a writer being a regular contributor to children’s magazines and to French radio. In 1939, her book, Twenty Jataka Tales was published, inspired by traditional Buddhist tales. At the outbreak of war, Noor escaped from Paris and on arriving in the UK joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a wireless operator. Seeking a greater challenge she secured a commission and was later recruited to the Special Operations Executive in 1943.

Some of those who trained her had doubts about her suitability for what was undoubtedly a very dangerous task ahead. Her finishing training report read:

“Not overburdened with brains but has worked hard and shown keenness, apart from some dislike of the security side of the course. She has an unstable and temperamental personality and it is very doubtful whether she is really suited to work in the field.” Next to this comment, Maurice Buckmaster, the head of F Section, had written in the margin “Nonsense” and that “We don’t want them overburdened with brains.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan

It’s a little difficult over 70 years on not to wonder whether a degree of scorn for her gender, if not her race (“physically unsuited… she would not easily disappear into a crowd”), may have influenced some of that opinion. That Noor was a trained harpist who studied at the Paris conservatory, was a published writer and won a commission as an officer seems to contradict the ‘no brains’ assessment. There was another aspect may have also compromised her assessor’s faith in her ability to do the job. Noor’s upbringing made her committed to non-violence and she was apparently distinctly uncomfortable with weapon training (“Pretty scared of weapons but tries hard to get over it.”).

By Unknown author – This is photograph HU 74868 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain.

Her brother Vilayat recalled attempting to stop his sister going on this hazardous mission:

“You see, Nora and I had been brought up with the policy of Gandhi’s nonviolence, and at the outbreak of war we discussed what we would do”, said Vilayat, who had followed his father and become a Sufi mystic. “She said, ‘Well, I must do something, but I don’t want to kill anyone.’ So I said, ‘Well, if we are going to join the war, we have to involve ourselves in the most dangerous positions, which would mean no killing.’ Then, when we eventually go to England, I volunteered for minesweeping and she volunteered for SOE, and so I have always had a feeling of guilt because of what I said that day.“

Questioned closely by a sceptical SOE as to whether she had the confidence to go ahead with this incredibly dangerous assignment, Noor was apparently shocked that there was any doubt and insisted adamantly that she wanted to go, being fully competent for the work.

In June 1943, Noor (working under the codename of ‘Madeleine’) was flown to France to become the first female radio operator for a resistance network in Paris called ‘Prosper’. Members of the network were arrested shortly after she arrived but she insisted on staying on to remain in France and spent the summer moving from place to place, trying to send messages back to London while avoiding capture. In 1943, an operator’s life expectancy was six weeks. She had to move location very frequently to avoid detection and would have carried her bulky transmitter in a suitcase, as we can see with Bad Squiddo’s figure here.

Noor was betrayed to the Germans by the sister of another French agent and arrested by the Gestapo. Interrogated at their HQ in Paris, she attempted escape twice with other agents but was recaptured in the vicinity. After refusing to sign a declaration renouncing future escape attempts, she was taken to Germany. Hans Kieffer, the former head of the SS in Paris, testified after the war that she did not give the Gestapo a single piece of information, but lied consistently. She was held at the same location for ten months, classified as “highly dangerous” and kept in appalling circumstances (shackled in chains most of the time) until she was transferred to Dachau concentration camp with three other captured female agents. There they were all executed.

Noor Inayat Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross and by the French with a Croix de Guerre with silver star. Noor is the first woman of South Asian descent to have a blue plaque honouring her in London. The plaque was unveiled at a virtual ceremony on the 28th August 2020.

Noor Inayat Khan might not have had the bravado of Nancy Wake, or the recklessness of Krystyna Skarbek, but in my opinion she was nonetheless possessed of a rare implacable bravery that led her to ultimately sacrifice herself in the most lonely and terrifying circumstances for a cause she believed in.

One more SOE lady to go in this FEMbruary series which I’ll hopefully share soon.

(#Fembruary2021) SOE Sisters III: Krystyna Skarbek

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“Very brave, very attractive, but a loner and a law unto herself“

Vera Atkins on Krystyna Skarbek

Krystyna Skarbek

  • Born: Warsaw, Poland, 1908.
  • SOE Rank: Captain.
  • AKA: ‘Christine Granville’, ‘Pauline Armand’, ‘Krystyna Gettlich’, ‘Krystyna Giżycka’.
  • Died: London, England, 1952.

The third of my SOE FEMbruary female figures is a Polish agent by the name of Krystyna Skarbek. Krystyna Skarbek was said to be Churchill’s favourite spy and to have inspired an Ian (James Bond) Fleming character. My first two SOE figures in this Fembruary challenge was Nancy Wake and Annie Norman.

Krystyna, a Polish Countess, arrived in Britain in 1939 from Poland where, after being initially overlooked, she was eventually accepted as an agent into the SOE. After being sent to occupied Poland, she soon organised a system of couriers between Poland and Hungary, skiing into her Nazi-occupied homeland across the Carpathian Mountains in winter. A report from this time described her as “absolutely fearless”. Though shot at, chased, captured and escaped she succeeded in creating an escape line across the mountains through which she aided the passage of several hundred Polish pilots who would later go on to play a decisive role in the Battle of Britain.

Krystyna Skarbek (Christine Granville) in FANY uniform by Anonymous, Scan of identity paper dated 11 mai 1945.

She was eventually arrested by the Gestapo in Budapest, but by faking tuberculosis (by biting her tongue to simulate coughing up blood) she escaped and was taken to Romania in the boot of a diplomatic car, later to serve in Cairo, Egypt. 

In 1944, she was dropped in France under the name Pauline Armand to be a courier for the Southern France resistance. She then made her way to the Italian border where groups of Poles reluctantly pressed into German service were garrisoned at frontier posts overlooking the winding Alpine passes. Her job was to persuade them to change sides and hand over their arms. In late 1944, she personally negotiated the release of three SOE officers with the Gestapo, even though there was a price on her head too. A clever mixture of bribery and threats of post-war retribution secured their release hours before their execution was due.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25373713

Skarbek, living in London, was in reduced circumstances after the war despite her wartime achievements. She had to scrape a living as a shop assistant, a hat-check girl in Harrods, a waitress and a toilet cleaner on passenger ships. Tragically, in 1952 she was stabbed to death at the hands of a jealous man whose attentions she had spurned. The murderer confessed and was hanged later that year.

The idea of the figure of Krystyna appearing in skiing gear is an appropriate choice by Bad Squiddo, given her exploits in the Carpathian mountains! Keeping things appropriately low key for someone avoiding attention and detection, I’ve given her a simple blue scarf and plain white pullover.

POSTSCRIPT: With great timing, Mark at Man of Tin blog found a BBC Radio programme about her life (first broadcast in 2016) being broadcast again tomorrow, 20th February 2021. The programme is part of the “Great Lives” series – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078y4tv

The fabulous first Man of Tin submission for FEMbruary 2021 can be found here – https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/15/fembruary-2021-figure-1-rosie-the-riveter/

Girl Soldier: The Death or Glory Girls

Posted on by Marvin

Continuing to keep an eye out for anything relating to the Soldier Girls postcard series, something popped up recently for auction which, though not the same, bared many similarities. It was a postcard with a listing which included the associated words; “Ellam?, Political, Comic Postcard, 1900s, Suffragette, Votes, Women” and was titled “Our Future Army”.

The postcard shares many similarities with the Girl Soldier series. Beautifully illustrated, it features a lady wearing an authentic Full Dress British cavalry uniform from around the year 1900.

The composition is much the same too; a plain (albeit dark) background with a single soldier standing in a relaxed pose. There’s no artist signature on the card however. Although the auction listing queried Ellam’s name as artist, I’m not convinced it’s William H. Ellam’s style, which veered more towards the cartoon.

Right: a female Life Guard by Ellam and Left: a 17th Lancer by an unknown artist

On the back, there are even less clues. No publisher information of any sort, so apparently not an Ellanbee (Landecker and Brown) publication. The only indication is “Series 531”, suggesting even more of these ladies were produced. I wonder if this postcard was even an ‘official’ publication.

The series title Our Future Army is open to interpretation. When titled Soldier Girls, we can assume that series was intended to be patronising / amusing; a play on the established concept of “soldier boys”. Being so similar, was Our Future Army intended to be comic also? Again, the auction listing suggests so. Is it a snide warning of a shockingly feminised future? Or, presuming this was produced around the same time as the campaigning for women’s suffrage, could it possibly even be a celebratory invocation of a future of gender equality?

As with the other “Solder Girls”, our lady lancer is a confident and relaxed individual. I’d say that there seems nothing overtly patronising, amusing or incongruous about the image to modern eyes; just a woman in uniform (although the Troop Sergeant Major may have something to say about that extravagant hair-do).

The Uniform:

N.B. Much detailed information on this uniform, as so often, has come courtesy of the fabulous Uniformology website:

The illustration is of an officer of the The 17th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) Lancers. She wears the distinctive lancer’s cap with the ribbed cloth on the top (called a trencher) being white for the 17th regiment. The extravagant drooping white feather plume is swan.

An earlier version of a Czapka of the 17th Lancers circa 1854 (The Royal Lancers & Nottinghamshire Yeomanry Museum)

The tunic’s dark blue, as are the overalls which feature double white stripes. Two rows of brass buttons and a white plastron are on the front of the tunic. The piping seen around the tunic edge is in the same white facing colour. There’s a gold lace shoulder belt with silver picker plate and boss (though I can’t make out the chains). Gold cap lines are passing under the gold shoulder cords (although I can’t make out a brass button which would have had the famous ‘Death or Glory Boys’ skull and crossbones upon it – or should that be Death or Glory Girls?). With no silver rank markings visible, I’m calling this lady a 2nd Lieutenant.

From the design of the 3 bar hilt, it appears she’s holding an 1822 pattern Light Cavalry Sword, though I’m not certain the sword knot should be white. The white gauntlet gloves here were worn both mounted and, as in this case, dismounted.

All in all, I’d say it’s pretty darn accurate! I wonder why the illustrators of Soldier Girls and Our Future Army would go to such lengths to accurately reproduce uniforms like this if the intention was to create a postcard solely for comic amusement? The listing description suggests something of this modern ambiguity; in some way “political” yet at the same time “comic”, albeit including the term “Suffragette”, though positively or derisively I’m not entirely sure from the illustration.

Whatever the intention, this 21st-century collector likes it. It’s a skilful and accurate illustration of a 17th Lancer’s uniform c.1900 and is also (to my eyes) a realistic and respectful portrayal of a woman wearing it. And so, Our Future Army takes its place in the slowly growing gallery of my “Soldier Girls” collection.

Postscript July 2021: I’ve recently discovered an image of another of these “Our Future Army” ladies. The image is of a trooper of the Royal Horse Guards, ‘The Blues’.

I’ve not seen it for sale and so is not in my collection – yet!

PPS – And another from this series with the lady seemingly smoking, carrying a crop or cane, and wearing some sort of informal dress uniform? Anything more is difficult to say.

FEMbruary: The Other ‘Empress Catherine’

Posted on by Marvin

I’ve been making swift progress with my FEMbruary submission. In the first FEMbruary challenge back in 2018, I chose Bad Squiddo’s 28mm figure of Catherine the Great. One of the most remarkable rulers in history, most people are familiar with her name, the monarch being the subject of recent TV miniseries in the UK (2019) and Russia (2014-19). While Catherine II of Russia is famous, less familiar is Catherine I, mostly because she only reigned for three years after Peter I’s (her husband’s) death.

Catherine I, Empress of Russia by Augustine Fauchery, hand-coloured lithograph, 1830s NPG D34625 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Born of very humble beginnings as Marta Helena Skowrońska, she was nonetheless to become a remarkable and very capable empress. In a happy marriage, the “energetic, compassionate, charming, and always cheerful” Catherine proved to be the perfect partner to support and manage the tempestuous emperor Peter. With no successor named by the dying Peter, popular Catherine took power with the support of Peter’s best friend, Prince Menshikov, and the Guards Regiments.

Catherine I by an Unknown artist. Public Domain.

I was interested to discover there was an equestrian portrait of Catherine I in a Guards uniform riding a grey charger, closely resembling (perhaps not coincidentally) the later painting of Catherine II by Eriksen which had inspired my 2018 figure. So, it seems that the Bad Squiddo figure could stand for either Empress Catherine?

Catherine I and Catherine II both in uniform and on grey horses.

I am very unfamiliar ground painting 18th dresses but thankfully the fashion of the early 18th century was for plainer designs:

“In the beginning of the (18th) century…a plain style was preferred, without too many ornaments. This style was strongly influenced by Françoise d’Aubigné, the wife of King Louis XIV.” How did women dress in the 18th century?

This seems to be born out in contemporary portraits and it made things much easier for me. My Strelets 1/72 scale figure wears a dress which I’ve painted in a similar shade to her portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier. A red sash and an ermine-lined velvet cloak is all that’s missing. I may brush on a little satin varnish to imitate silk.

Catherine I of Russia By Jean-Marc Nattier –
Public Domain.

The above painting most probably was the inspiration for Strelets’ sculptor too. The dress design being remarkably similar and there’s even a tiara on her head closely resembling the one she wore (making some allowance for the complications of sculpting such a thing in 20mm scale)!

Catherine’s opulent tiara; an abundance of large pearls, gold, possibly diamonds, together with some pretty hefty rubies in there too!

The other two FEMbruary ladies at court are also nearly completed. This charming figure is using her richly decorated fan and gazing into the distance:

The other lady has a small dog at her feet which she is reaching down to pet. I thought that it looked a little like a King Charles Spaniel (a breed, incidentally, particularly popular with the 1st Duke of Marlborough), so I painted it in that fashion. This is the figure for whom I had to resort to some serious flash removal. To conceal her disfigurement, half of her face I’ve hidden under the locks of her hair.

So, these three courtly women are nearly completed but not quite! There’s more to come – the Empress Catherine is reaching her hand out in front of her and I’m also painting something which will make sense of this gesture and complete the scene more fully. So, ‘stay tuned’!