COBI Cromwell MK. IV Set 2269

COBI's Cromwell Mk. IV "HELA" is a 1:35 model built from 544 blocks, 18 cm long, in the exact markings of the command tank of General Stanisław Maczek of the Polish 1st Armoured Division. The turret rotates, the gun moves, the hatch opens, the engine is accessible and the tracks work. An exclusive figure of General Maczek is included, plus a brick with the tank's name. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The general in this box ended up working behind a bar

Stanisław Maczek commanded the 1st Polish Armoured Division through Normandy, closed the Falaise pocket, and liberated Breda in the Netherlands without a single Dutch civilian being killed — a feat the city has never forgotten. He was made an honorary citizen and a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.

In 1946 the communist government in Warsaw stripped him of his Polish citizenship. He could not go home. Britain, whose army he had fought in, did not grant him a military pension, on the position that Polish forces were not British forces.

So he stayed in Edinburgh and worked as a barman in a hotel to support his family. He held that job for years, and Polish veterans in the city used to come in and salute the man pouring their drinks.

He got his pension in 1989, at 97. He lived to 102, long enough to see Poland free, and was buried in 1994 in the Polish war cemetery in Breda among the men he had commanded, as he had asked.

The tank

The Cromwell was fast — 64 km/h, from a de-rated Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine — and undergunned, which suited the reconnaissance regiments that ran ahead of the advance rather than fought for ground. HELA was Maczek's own command vehicle.

In the COBI range

Set 3091 is the Cromwell Mk. IV at 1:72. Set 2057 is the Warsaw Uprising, fought by the army Maczek's men could not reach.

Specifications

Pieces: 544 · Figures: 1, General Maczek · Scale: 1:35 · No stickers
Model dimensions: 18.2 × 9 × 11 cm (7.2 × 3.5 × 4.3 in)