My grandfather recently came across some photos of his time spent in Korea in the U.S. Army during the 40’s. I came across these two photos, which appear to be a gigantic model of the Normandy invasion. When I looked at the 2nd picture first, I though it was taken from a plane over a small European town, until I looked closely at the vehicles.
It appears to be outdoors, and judging by the people standing in the first shot, it is a huge model. I know its not a train layout, but I think its an interesting model. My grandfather thinks that it was taken in Korea in the 40’s, but hes not sure.
I see in the background army barracks. Now, those quite possibly could be in Korea; but there sure were a lot of them around the US. Noting that there isn’t a roof over the model, I do wonder if the location might not have been at an Army base in a very dry location of the US. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were some sort of training device for “new” recruits.
I notice some writing in the picture. That might provide some info if you can read it. I’ll note here that I found a lot of prints of pictures that my father took about the same time. Back then, prints weren’t enlarged a whole lot when they were printed from the negative (in fact, sometimes they were contact printed). This means that there’s frequently a lot more detail on the print than you might think. You might be able to do a really nice scan and pick up the words.
In the background, I see two people. It might be useful to see them a bit better.
Trying to puzzle out old pictures can be really fun. My father was in China in 1946 and brought back a lot of pictures. One of them features an armored train. Pretty cool. In another there was a flower arrangement at some sort of Chinese military party or event. The writing was in Chinese. I asked my bank teller to translate it and it said something about a very famous Chinese movie actress of the time–famous enough for her to be familiar with the name. Very curious!
Looking at that second picture, looks like a town in Europe or England. The buildings look like someplace in England or France with the center building looking like a Cathedral.
I agree the buildings appear to be European. My immediate thought was it might have been used for training bombadiers using a simulation. If you weren’t around then we didn’t exactly have planes lying around we didn’t know what to do with.
I remember similar military miniatures as a boy in the mid 50’s. My father was in the Army stationed in Germany and some of my friends had miniatures that had supposedly been used by the Army for training purposes. These were said to have been set up in large outdoor sandboxes with terrain features like your first picture. As I recall, there were various vehicles including tanks, trucks, landing craft, jeeps, etc. There were also figures such as a machine gun with crew of two. IIRC the pieces were plastic or maybe stiff rubber and not painted. Rumor was that the Army had stopped using these shortly before my family arrived in Germany, and let some of the dependent kids have them.
I was only 9 at the time, and I was hearing this from other kids my age. So this is all anecdotal.
The buildings are definitely European and not Korean by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been to both Germany and Korea and never saw any building anywhere in Korea even close to what are in those photos.
I would venture that it is a model of a D-Day site. It appears there are docks in the second picture. Been doing some searching along the French and Belgian coasts with no luck.
Also, it appears to be train related after all, it looks like tracks in the first picture with a crossing and a bridge to the left. It looks like they were planning routes and security for the routes.
I agree they look like some sort of military planning or training dioramas. Possibly done on a beach or a sandbox as one of the other posters suggested.
However, the people in the photos look to be regular civilians, a guy and his girl, and what looks to be a young family perhaps-- not exactly the type of folks I’d expect to be privvy to that type of sensitive information / planning apparatus unless perhaps it was taken after the war… ??
The tanks and stuff have an “American” look to them. German tanks were generally more rectangular and it doesn’t look like a Korean locale. Also I wonder if any of the terrain was “colorized” as opposed to being just sand. Several patches look like they are intended to be “crops” or some such. And I don’t get the sense that these are “D-Day” related particularly, unless they’re plans or training for what to do after the beachhead is achieved. That doesn’t look like a typical coastal scene to me.
Could it just be an elaborate war game? I.e., non-official, just for fun? People had a lot more time back then and tended to use it more creatively.
Also you might notice that the tanks are headed toward the viewer so that what seems to be “sand”, as in a “beachhead”, is probably mis-interpreted even if it really is physically sand, it probably isn’t intended to be “Sand” in the context of the “model”.
I agree that it would be strange to have civilians present for the planning of a major military operation. However, as was pointed out before, it could be after the war and part of a museum for the public to see the planning that went into the operaiton.
John, I doubt that at the time when the pictures were taken, anyone would have liked to play war games - they had the real thing and plenty of it!
On the first pic it says “Army Training Area” but I cannot locate where that could have been. Looking at the 2nd pic, depicting a Normandy port, I would guess that this is one giant “sandbox” used for training purposes before D-Day, most likely situated in southern England.
The first picture appears to be a model of somewhere near the German border; the tank barriers/traps are indicativce of the Siegfried Line, and the Sherman tanks would place it at or near the end of WWII. The POV is looking toward the west.The second picture appears to be of a port city, possibly Antwerp(?). There are ships tied up to the docks along the top of the photo… The line of trucks appear to be carrying supplies to the front.
And that is definitely not a cathedral - they just made the city churches big in the 16th and 17th centuries. It’s probably a Protestant church, also - twin steeples and linear construction; Catholic churches generally have a cruciform floor plan.
I’d be interested in knowing the origin and use of these dioramas.
The only reason that I suggested that the model might have been located in Korea is because my grandfather only served overseas in Korea and on Okinawa. He remembers taking the picture, so I would venture to say that precludes the model from being situated in Europe itself. Its possible it could have been in the states
I re-scanned the picture at a higher DPI, and can make out the words “Army Service Area”, but from what I can tell that phase refers to a theatre of service, nothing that can be used to ID the locale. I agree that the town appears European. The armored vehicles going through the berm are definatley Sherman tanks. The people standing on the decking overlooking the model appear to be civillians as one posted stated, both male and female. There are a couple of what appear to be military-type barrack buildings in the background. Unfortunaley the original picture is developed at the size of the original film, so it is quite small and thats about all the detail I can make out.
It sounds from some replys that these types of models were used as training aids; would they have been common on a military base?
thanks for all of the input. I found alot of other neat pictures from his time in the service, but he is 94 years old so he doesnt remember the exact circumstances of each one.
Any chance you can share what portion of the country he was from or stationed? The “real” structure in the background looks like it could be part of gun range, leads me to believe it may have been a stateside display. If he was in the armor force, my guess would be Ft Knox possibly.
As I studied the first pic a bit more, I still think its a large “sand table” for planning what an area will look like to the soldiers. I was searching around Carentan and St Lo France as that is the area just behind the Normandy beaach landings. Since there is a lot of armor depicted, the likely area in teh states to look would be, as mentioned, Ft Knox as that is the home of the Armor School.
