HMS Kipling & U-75

[stu_the_flat]

After my Mariya Oktyabrskaya project I’ve decided to build a model based on my grandfather’s experiences in the war. He was an artificer on board the HMS Kipling.

He told me of the stories where they engaged U-75 a VIIB U-boat. He told of boarding the submarine once they had brought it to the surface. He was on the launch boat travelling over only armed with a cutlass while everyone around him had machine guns, while on the Deck of the U-75 they noticed the captain go back down the conning tower. My grandfather went down into the submarine after him. He said that he really did not find it comforting having to go down a ladder into a hostile environment arse first and that the hatches where so tight that the cutlass he had with him was more of a hindrance as it would get stuck.

In the command section he saw the chief engineer and the captain looking at him as he cleaned out a Luger. The captain said to him something like “Das ist eine Bombe“. My grandfather said he didn’t like the Luger and he didn’t like the word “Bombe”.

They refused to leave and once the crew were off the ship they dived U-75 and scuttled her.
https://uboat.net/boats/u75.htm
I found a record of U-75 here and the captain was called Helmuth Ringelmann he was only 29 my grandfather would have been 19 in 1941.

I am unsure how I want to build this model. I don’t think I can model the two of them at the same scale, If I knew anything about how to design 3d figures building a model of a man climbing down a ladder with a sword would be good. But would not know where to start.