Photos of the Kaiserreich

[Kurt_Steiner]

An unlucky Schwere Kampfwagen IX (SKIX) destroyed in anambush near La Gleize by the Belgian resistance, 1944.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Tanque Liviano Yacaré.

After the fall of Britain, Michael Dewar began a long journey that, eventually, ended in 1936 when he settled in Buenos Aires. La Plata was one of the big powers of South America and it was re-arming herself very fast. Thus, he accepted an offer from the Argentinian goverment to work at Fábrica Platense Militar de Municiones de Armas Portátiles (FAPMMAP) [Military Munitions Factory for Handheld Weapons of La Plata] under the name of Pedro Matthies. Dewar moved to Córdoba in late 1937 with some of his British and Canadian co-workers he had recruited after being offered the job at the FAMMAP. While there, Dewar worked together with Lieutenant Colonel Alfredo Aquiles Baisi to design the Tanque Liviano Yacaré (Light Tank Yacaré), which was to inspired the US designers to create the T6 Medium tank.

The Yacaré was armed with an enloganted version of the 75 mm Krupp Model 1909 Field Gun used by the Platensian Army in a rotating armored turret. Too lightly armoured, the Yacaré was only used to train future tank crews.

The Tanque Mediano Nahuel.

Dewar then proposed a heavier version armed with a 105 mm gun, the Nahuel. This new design was enthusiastically supported by Colonel Juan Domingo Perón, General Edelmiro Farrell, and Counter Admiral Alberto Tesaire and it was lavishly funded by the government of La Plata. The armament was changed to a 90 mm gun based on a local design, and the effort employed around 80 different factories and establishments, with all three elements of the Fuerzas Armadas de la República de La Plata [Eng. Armed Forces of the Republic of La Plata] being involved in the development. The Air Force supplied the engines, which were licensed and modified Lorraine-Dietrich 21BE’s manufactured by Fabrica Militar de Aviones [Plane Military Factory] between 1935 and 1936 and the Navy offered its ship armor laboratory and the communication system, which Oscar Baisi, Alfredo Baisi’s brother, worked on.

Nahuel tanks being assembled in Esteban de Luca.

In 1940 the Nahuel was placed into production and was first shown off to the public in an exhibition on June 4th 1941. The initial order of 360 Nahuels was reduced in 1942 to 250, 150 of them rearmed with the British 17 Pounder (76.2 mm/3 in) gun. In 1978 the Nahuel suffered its most notable modernization, when its firepower was greatly increased by mounting a 105 mm L44/57 FTR gun produced by Fábrica Militar de Río Tercero.

The last Nahuel remained in service with the Platense army until May 1998.

 

[The Gybson Boy]

Katherine of Greece and Denmark, Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and Empress of India sitting on a chair in a courtyard, probably in Halifax, Canada in 1940
Catherine of Greece and Denmark, youngest daughter of King Constantine I of Greece and Sophia of Prussia, born in 1913, the young and beautiful Greek princess caught the attention of King Edward VIII in the late 1930s, which caused quite a stir in Canadian newspapers. buzz about the king's romance with the Greek princess. The two were introduced by relatives and got along well, being photographed together at numerous parties throughout the Dominion of Canada, becoming officially engaged on January 08, 1938.

The British and Greek royal families gather at the wedding of King Edward VIII and Katherine of Greece and Denmark in Ottawa, Canada on May 21, 1938
King Edward and Katherine of Greece and Denmark were married in a lavish ceremony in Ottawa on May 21, 1938, although their marriage was made out of mutual feelings, it also served to consolidate the alliance between the Entente and the newly formed the Hellenic Empire, the wedding took place less than a month after the end of Canadian intervention in the Second American Civil War and the defeat of the Combined Unions of America, while a feeling of preparation for the recovery of the home islands spread throughout the empire, this would prove correct because a few weeks later the Savoy Crisis would lead to the beginning of the Second Weltkrieg after the French invasion of Switzerland on July 16, 1938.

Queen Katherine of the United Kingdom attends a charity event in Marlborough without the presence of King Edward VIII in August 1947, a scene increasingly common in the 1940s
After several years of marriage, King Edward and Queen Catherine were unable to have a child, despite years of repeated attempts in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Queen Catherine showed no signs of any possible pregnancy in almost six years. marriage, because of this their marriage became increasingly cold and distant, although the couple remained together through the period of the Liberation of Britain (1943-1944) and the period of the British Reconstruction Authority (1944-1946). After the end of the Second Weltkrieg, Queen Catherine spent much of her time attending functions separate from the king, also making some extended trips to her homeland in Greece, in 1948 most reluctantly returning to her husband's side, the separation would become final after the abdication of Edward VIII in 1952