Pages

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Looking through my picture albums ...

My wife and I began going on cruises before I began writing this blog, and as part of the 'clean up' process I did yesterday in the hope I could improve her computer's performance, I found quite a few photographs from those earlier cruises stored thereon, some of which I though might interest my regular readers ... so here goes ...

Calvi (Corsica)
This is a monument that commemorates the landing of the French Batallion du Choc at Ajaccio on 13th and 14th September 1943, and its subsequent recruitment of local Corsican resistance fighters into its ranks.


Zeebrugge (Belgium)
The newly commissioned Leopold I (F930). She was formerly the HNLMS Karel Doorman (F827), the name-ship of a class of Dutch frigates that have now mostly been sold to other countries (two to Belgium, two to Portugal, and two to Chile).


St Petersburg (Russia)
The famous Cruiser Aurora, which is preserved as a monument and museum ship on the River Neva that runs through the centre of St Petersburg.

Her bow gun is supposed to have fired the shot that signalled the storming of the Winter Palace at the start of the October Revolution ...

... but this may not actually be true!

Montjuich Castle (Barcelona)
This military museum is situated on a hill overlooking Barcelona, and was the scene of serious fighting during the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Amongst is large and varied collection are some interesting pieces of artillery including two different models of 57mm Anti-tank Gun ...

... a Vickers 75mm Anti-aircraft Gun (which seems to have a lot of mount for not much barrel!) ...

... and a Vickers 105mm Field Gun.

The latter was supplied to the Spanish Army before the Civil War, and has had a longer barrel added at a later date as part of an upgrading programme. The original Vickers design influenced the development of the famous British 25-pounder Field Gun/Howitzer.

Brest Naval Base
The rusting hulk of the French Aircraft Carrier Clemenceau awaiting disposal.

Unlike her sister ship Foch, she was sold for scrapping rather than for further service with another navy.

Maritime Museum (Rotterdam)
HNLMS Buffel is a nineteenth century iron-clad ram ship, and she is now one of the main attractions of the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam.

4 comments:

  1. Gotta love the whitewall tires on the Spanish 57mm AT gun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. jhnptrqn,

    It is a very 'Soviet' look ... and the guns themselves have a 'Russian' look about them, so it is very appropriate.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bob,

    the first AT gun is undoubtely a 6-pdr 57mm, but the second looks like a 17-pdr.

    Fabio

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gabriel Guerin,

    They were both labelled as being 57mm calibre, and close-up they looked like the same barrel on different mounts.

    I suspect that they may have been US-supplied 57mm barrels fitted to 'new' (possible ex-Soviet) carriages, with different shields on each model.

    If I can find any further information, I will make it available.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. Please note that any comments that are spam or contain phishing messages or that come from Google Accounts that are 'Unknown' will be deleted.