After the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe steamrolled the Polish resistance, groups of military personnel fled the country to fight another day. While some fled to Russia, others made their way to France and Great Britain. As such, these countries specially formed all Polish units and divisions, like the 2nd ‘Warsaw’ Armoured Division of the British Army, which this Sherman IC Firefly was part of. Serving with the 2nd Squadron, 1st Krechowiecki Lancers, it was nicknamed “Rycerz I” (“Knight I” in english) while serving in Italy. The model as seen here was part of the Loreto parade held on 15 August 1945, with ‘Rycerz I’ visible in yellow paint on the tank’s side, presumably applied after combat in Europe had ceased.

This kit went together without a hitch as we are used from Tamiya kits. Some scratch building work was needed however with the usual ‘open bottom’ over the tracks and other small details. I did encounter a small problem when I lost one of the tracks links, of which there are no additional spares within the kit itself. The markings where completed by cutting a mask by hand in Tamiya tape and painting the markings instead, since no decals are available in this scale for one of the ‘Polish Fireflies’ that I wished to recreate. A few additional stowaways were also placed on the back of the tank with the help of the spares box.

The diorama was created with the usual materials with additional citadel grass tuffs and an electricity pole that came from the spares box. The ground colours were created with a mix of modelling and spare paints and powder pigments from the local arts and crafts store.