1/32 sculpt due 2019
​Zeppelin Defence Gunner
                kurt Adler
                               "Eagle Eye"

kurt spent the wAR AS A SNIPER, TRAINED TO SUPPORT THE CRACK "TRENCH RAIDERS" THAT SO EFFECTIVELY SMASHED AND DEMORALISED THE ALLIED FRONT LINE ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

A BAVarian game keeper's son he learnt to shoot boar, elk and foul as a boy and to his father's delight was blessed with uncanny eyesight.
during the german last ditch offensive in spring 1918 he himself was targeted by an enemy sharpshooter and lost an eye and half of his face.
these horrific injuries could not be treated in the field hospitals and so he was sent to an experimental medical facility close to his home town, specialising in facial reconstruction.
his family and friends found it hard to accept that this "monster" was their beloved kurt.
many operations and painful treatments restored his breathing but resulted in him wearing a prosthetic mask, which does nothing to re-integrate him into the family and life he loved so much.
taking long, lonely walks in the forests of his youth over the next months he realises that the sight of his remaining eye is now enhanced and even keener than before, his hearing even more acute...

1919... 

one bright morning in the spring of 1919 he knocks on the door of his family home and presents his startled mother with a freshly shot and gutted, fine-tusked boar.
with a crooked smile he leaves for the zeppelin sheds of friederichschafen, heeding the call to arms and joining the veteran and disabled "drachenflieger" aboard Captain peter strasser's vessel "Wotan"...

all content copyright luftkrieg1919/aviattic 2016