Strana 29
Plastos – History of Scale
Plastic Modelling
Part Two – Once Upon A Time In The East / Vladimír Šulc
Arrival of the former British Frog kits on the Eastern European model market
significantly accelerated international barter exchanges between modelers.
Just as the industrial production of traditional plastic kits and the cottage
industry epoxy kits and associated trade developed in Czechoslovakia, so too
did the production of kits from Frog molds and the associated trade develope
in the Soviet Union. And despite both doing so officially, some of that produc-
tion certainly made it into the retail network, even though testimonials from
that time say that Soviet stores were permanently empty. But the main thing
was again that gray economy. I assume that a lot of what was produced was
stolen, smuggled out of the factory and sold illegally.
Death of a Fleet
History / Chris Goss
On 8 November 1942, Allies forces landed in Morocco and Algeria as part of
Operation Torch. The Luftwaffe's response was codenamed Stockdorf and
a number of combat units quickly but temporarily moved to south-west
France, at that time under Vichy French control, in response to the perceived
threat of an invasion in southern France and to secure airfields and military
stores
Stanisław Skalski
Model & Story / Vladimír Šulc, Jan Baranec
The most successful Polish fighter pilot was definitely not an exemplary
soldier at that time. He received several disciplinary reprimands, including
two for insulting a superior officer, and a rather curious one for attempting
to join the Chinese Army and take part in the war with Japan. On October 1st,
1938, he was appointed second lieutenant and assigned to the 4th Air Regi-
ment in Toruń and attached as a pilot to the 142nd Fighter Squadron, armed
with the famous Polish PZL P-11c high-wing aircraft.
On the very first day of World War II, on September 1st, 1939, he jumped
a Henschel Hs 126, the kill of which was credited to his colleague Marian
Pisarek. Skalski then landed next to the downed aircraft, helped the
wounded crew members and arranged for their transport to a military
hospital, thus probably saving them from lynching by the local civilian
population.