by Olaf Krabbenhöft
1/72 DKM U-558 (Revell Germany)
This is Revell’s 1/72 U-boat VIIC-class. I built the kit as U-558, laid down at Blohm&Voss in Hamburg, on January 6th, 1940. U-558 went into service on February 20th, 1941, Oberleutnant zur See (Lt. jg) Günther Krech in command. Krech was promoted to Kapitänleutnant (Lt.) on April 1st and was successful with U-558 on nine patrols. The boat was sunk on it’s tenth deployment by a Consolidated Liberator and a Handley Page Halifax, northwest of Cape Ortegal, Spain on July 20th, 1943, only Krech and four of his crew surviving. Up to that day U-558 was considered a “lucky” boat, because she came back from her previous nine patrols unscathed and without losing a single crewmember.
I portrayed U-558 returning from a successful “Paukenschlag” (drum roll)-patrol off the east coast of the US and the Caribbean in 1942. Krech set the Stars and Stripes on his periscope to show, where he had been successful. It is not clear where he got the flag from. Some sources say from a steamer he had sunk on that patrol, others say, Krech took the flag out to patrol to sport it when coming home.
Revell’s kit was extensively modified with a lot of scratchbuilt parts. I cut off the lower hull and inserted a brass rectangular tube to give the hull its necessary stability. Especially the conning tower was intensively detailed with all the scratchbuilt bits and pieces, Revell left off in their kit design.
The crew figures come from the excellent Hecker&Goros sets, designed for the Revell kit.
For the diorama I did some research concerning the correct wave pattern and formed the waves from plaster, painted in different tones of blue and covered with a layer of clear acrylic gel, the wavetops highlighted drybrushing white paint.
Thanks to Christian Bruer for taking the pictures
