ANZAC War Memorial Passchendaele Diorama

The ANZAC War Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park recently underwent a major extension as part of the commemoration of the centenary of the ending of WWI. The original memorial was officially opened in 1934 and the new extensions have added a number of exhibition galleries that add to the visitor experience.

My brother-in-law Paul Garry, a model maker, was commissioned to make a diorama to help interpret actions on the Western Front during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 and in particular the action of Captain Clarence Jeffries of the 34th Battalion during the capture of a German pillbox. The attack cost Jeffries his life and saw him posthsumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in leading the assault.

The curatorial staff were determined to ensure the diorama was as historically accurate as possible. Fortunately Paul is not only an experienced, professional model maker but he has a strong interest in the First World War. He is well read on the subject and has visited the battlefields in France and Belgium. This wasn't to be his first model making assignment for a military museum, having previously worked on a number of projects for the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, including the restoration of their renowned and iconic WWI dioramas that date back to the 1930s.

The research allowed Paul access to Singleton Infantry Museum and to parts of their collection that are not open to the public. Every now and then I would get text messages and photographs to let me know what he was up to and they were always guaranteed to make me jealous.

Paul and I have spent a lot of time discussing different aspects of modelling and it was great to follow this project from the ground up and to be able to offer the odd bit of helpful advice where I could.

This was always intended to be a fairly big diorama and by the time Paul had worked out what was required and at what size, it was clear this would need to be in a unique scale that would require the figures and materials to be built from scratch. The scale would be close to 1/25, not a standard modelling scale and Paul would sculpt each figure himself.

The terrain would be a ravaged landscape, pockmarked with shell holes and waterlogged. The centrepiece would be a German concrete pillbox and the figures would be arranged to show the tactical deployment of the Australians as they carried out a textbook infantry assault with a base of fire, flanking and assault parties.

The pillbox needed to have a similarly worn and battle scarred look.

And surrounded by all the normal impedimentia of the Western Front, including the ubiquitous wire and corrugated iron.

The battlefield itself was littered with other elements including the remains of a German field wagon and a horse. The field wagon was built from scratch and carefully embedded into the terrain.

The grisly remains of the horse were not too far away.

From time to time Paul would bring the memorial staff work in progress for them to review. Slowly as the terrain came together plasticine mock ups of the figures were used to illustrate where they would be placed and how they would tell the story of the assault.

I was able to point him in the direction of a number of manufacturers of 1/32 WWI figures and we discussed the potential to use 3D printing to scale up some of the equipment. With upwards of 23 figures to sculpt the ability to use 3D printing to create standard items of kit such as Lee Enfield rifles, mess tins, grenades and water bottles would make the task considerably easier.

There was to be no short cuts for the figures themselves, each one was lovingly hand sculpted to meet the requirements of the story being told.

The finished diorama sits under a large perspex dome as the centrepiece in the main gallery. It is surrounded by touch screen interactive displays which allows visitors to interpret what they see in the diorama and zoom in on particular aspects. It all works very well together and is beautifully executed. 

Paul had a few of the 3D printed weapons and equipment left over and so I now have a small 1/25 collection of my own, including a Lewis gun.

As for me, I must console myself with the one or two WWI models that I've made myself. Nothing on this scale and nothing anywhere near as ambitious. Here is Emhar's 1/35 MkV Female in captured German colours.

More than anything, seeing the completed diorama has really inspired me to get my 28mm WWI wargame project back on track, fortunately when it comes to finding some terrain tips I know who I'll be contacting....