Awarded: Bronze
By: Tomas Jakl
Manufacturer(s): AB Figures, Samek Models, Calibre72, Silflor, HEKI
Modifications: I added only hooks for camouflaging net from brass wire to the pillbox.
Description: In the night from 4th to 5th May 1945 third platoon of company G, 2nd Infantry Battalion of US 5th Infantry division, led by lieutenant N. J. Bone, was send to seize the Soumarsky bridge over Vltava river in Sumava mountains, Czechoslovakia. North bank of Vltava was defended by elements of German 11th Panzer Division under General von Buttlar. German defence was strengthened by former Czechoslovak pillboxes, built in 1937 against Germany. Just prior lieutenant N. J. Bone's men approach to the bridge German defenders blew it up. GIs managed to create a small bridgehead on the northern bank supported by two rifle sections of G Company and an MG section of the Company H until daybreak. Then the crossing was covered by German MG fire from pillboxes nearby. GIs on the bridgehead seized three pillboxes next to the bridge but were pinned down by fire from other pillboxes and by a German tank. The rest of G Company found another crossing over the river in the south-east from the bridge and until 3 pm wiped out German defenders form the pillbox-line and relived the besieged bridgehead. Diorama shows US Infantrymen on the bridgehead taking cover behind a LO vz. 37 A pillbox. It is in distinctive square camouflage used in this area by Czechoslovak Army during Munich Crisis in 1938 and confirmed still on pictures from 1945 too. One soldier is signalizing to the southern bank while a bazooka team covered by a BAR fire is trying to hit an embrasure of the next pillbox in the line.