Puttering in the Study

Marshall: Organizer of Victory - Leonard Mosley

Several years ago, when I was looking at whose portrait I would put over my non-naval military history shelves, I had a hard time deciding on someone. Naval was easy - the steady hand of Chester Nimitz during the Pacific meant he was the first of the bas-relief medallions. 

But who for the military?  I considered Winston Churchill for a long time since there are few leaders who make the decisively right choice at the right time with such enormous consequences as his in the summer of 1940 to stand against Hitler.  But even before reading Hamilton's complete trilogy, it was already clear that Churchill as a military leader had serious flaws, and his support for colonialism was a bridge too far.

But who else is there?  Most good military leaders have limited scope, and few are free of bad decisions.  Patton?  Not MacArthur, certainly.  Montgomery, Eisenhower - maybe Grant? 

 

Finally I realized that there was a single figure who was the indispensable man at the center of the U.S. preparation for war, whose integrity and good sense made so much of what the Allies accomplished possible.  To be sure, his strategic sense can be questioned.  His belief that France could be invaded by Allied troops in 1942 or even 1943 was wrong, as was his opposition to the peripheral operation that did make sense - the November 1942 invasion of North Africa. Nor is his management of the Army before Pearl Harbor beyond reproach, although there he had a lot of company.

But George Catlett Marshall was a man of honor and accomplishment, as this book I picked up two months ago at a HPBooks in Waco makes clear.   It was actually a really good read - but what I'll always remember about it is the incredibly poor quality of the paper.  I've never seen such a relatively new book (1983) so eaten up with acid. The paper was substantial but quite brittle.  I was glad when I finished it, not because I was glad to be done reading it, but because I was glad to be able to stop handling such a fragile book.

Revell angled deck Essex - fantail research

Sunday's project was rebuilding the fantail. I used the kit platforms, and recut them to fit the Essex plans, as well as enclosing the top (gallery) deck. (See photos where it’s still white and gray to see what’s original and what’s added). While I had the flight deck on and aligned I added the structural members supporting the flight deck. Still needs detailing, including railings, but it’s ready for the flight deck back there now.

For comparison, an OOB Wasp from the storage boxes, circa 1977.

I thought I'd pass along a few thoughts on the fantail of the Revell angled deck Essex model that I thought I’d pass along.

I’m working on a resurrection build of an old Revell angled deck Essex into an October 1968 CVS-9, and spent yesterday building the fantail based on plans from FDD and photos, mostly of the Yorktown (CVS-10). A photo of my Essex next to an OOB Wasp shows the original kit configuration. I wanted to share what I learned.
REVELL KIT
First of all, the kit. Revell’s box scale Essex has a single piece for the fantail deck and bulkhead to the hangar bay, as shown in the attached photo, plus two open decks which represent the upper hangar and gallery deck levels. The two decks have built-in railings but no structure on the decks themselves. The upper deck overhangs the lower - more on that in a moment - but the height is correct, meaning that between them they are three decks of equivalent height.
I decided to use as much as I could of these two decks in the rebuild, so I cut off the support posts, sanded them relatively smooth, and replaced the posts with scratch built as needed.
UPPER HANGAR DECK
Surprisingly, with some rounding at the edges the first deck was almost exactly the right size per the plans. But what Revell didn’t have was the shops that were constructed on that deck. They didn’t come all the way out to the edge of the deck, which is about to become important. So I built those per the Essex plans, as shown in the photo.
GALLERY DECK
The Revell kit differs from the original (including the Bennington (CVS-20) on which it was based) in two major ways here. First, the Revell deck overhangs the level below it, rather than coming out the same amount, as the photo of the plans clearly shows. And second, the Revell deck is open to the stern, when the original is enclosed completely by the massive transverse truss that supports the flight deck.
In photos and in person this truss is dominating (I once had a dinner on the fantail of the Lexington in Corpus Christi, and it is not a relaxing location sitting in the shadow of that monster of a truss). and sure looks like it is taller than the deck below and overhangs it - but it doesn’t. As this cross-section shows, it is the same height as the decks below it and extends no farther after than the deck below it. But it appears to because it does overhang the shops built on the deck under it.
And I think this is why the Revell engineers mistakenly thought that it did. Assuming the Bennington had enclosed shops extending only partway to the stern rail, the gallery deck would have overhung them. Now why they didn’t model this piece with a vertical wall, I don’t know.
In the attached builds of this kit, modelers have gone different ways with modeling the stern.
OTHER MODELS
In preparing my build, I’ve looked for other accurized versions of the Revell kit on the Internet and found a couple that have been a big help. For his Yorktown (CV-10) John Higgins chose to keep the Revell configuration of the decks (adding an accurate fantail - note that Essex has a solid rail but Yorktown has 3-bar) but sanded off the kit railings and added photoetch railing. Louis Carabott a lso added an accurate rounded stern to his Hornet (CVS-12) but corrected the kit decks by enclosing the gallery deck at the correct length and adding vertical details.

Saddleback Leather Old Bull Desk Pad Set

Desk pads - and especially leather desk pads - are an acquired taste. You have to put one down on your familiar writing or working surface to see the difference they make.  Saddleback Leather’s new Old Bull desk set is a good example.  While I’ve worked on the same wood and leather-topped partner’s desk for 24 years, using a full-grain leather desk pad is a complete change for me, and underscored the difference between a leather top, and a full-grain leather pad, which requires a bit of explanation.

 

You see, not everything labeled "leather" is the same.

Leather which has not undergone sanding, buffing or any other process to remove any imperfections (in the grain shown at right) is called full-grain leather. It is the strongest type of leather and develops a patina over time.

"Top-grain" leather is actually precisely the opposite - the top few millimeters of the grain are sanded or buffed off to remove blemishes and imperfections. A topcoat is then applied, since top-grain doesn’t develop a patina over time. On the plus side, this type of leather is very flexible and soft, yet is still durable.

"Split leather", also referred to as "genuine" leather, is made of the layers of the hide that are leftover, during the production of other types of leather. The layers can be divided into two splits, referred to as the "middle" and "flesh" splits. An artificial top coat is often used to seal these types of leather to give them an appearance resembling that of top-grain leather, and to protect them from wear. These types of leather are also used to make suede, which is fuzzy and soft on both sides.

Saddleback’s existing line of desk pads are full-grain leather with bells and whsitles.  They are backed with a polyester lining for appropriate cushion, have a suede back, and feature rivets and stitching on the face.

The Old Bull set, in contrast, is absolutely plain, meaning it’s just a 3/16" slab of full grain leather, just quietly developing a patina behind my back as I stand here typing this.  It comes in a set of three which they refer to as a desk pad, a regular mouse pad and a large mouse pad. 

It took me a while to get over covering up the familiar varnished and gold-tooled leather insets on my desk with another layer of leather - especially one as plain as this.  And at first I thought it would be too plain, but I quickly realized that wasn’t a problem - the lack of ornamentation make it more versatile.

Once I got used to how to use it, it made a lot of sense. My tablet sits to the right on the small mouse pad that I can push and pull as I need it.  And Louis Sr., my wood slant-top document stand, does a lot better on the larger pad to my right.  I don’t mention my computer because it sits on a stand-up desk behind me, so I rarely actually used my desk before.

But I do now. The real pleasure is either resting my hands on the leather while reading or writing on it.  It's night and day from the leather-topped desk, which with the wood surface rails is nothing but a distraction when writing.

And writing is the point of a desk pad.  I get a lot more use out of it than I thought I would, since it redirected me away from my computer and to my desk, where I can refer to the same information on a tablet or laptop, but have an even, enjoyable writing surface.

Thanks to Saddleback Leather for providing me with a review sample of the new desk pads.

One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon - Charles Fishman

This is my most recent Apollo program read, and I enjoyed it very much.  The author's premise is that the digital world owes its origins to the Apollo program, and makes a strong case that it was Apollo's use of then-uncommon computer "chips" that both drove their price down and their reliability up so that they became a mainstay of modern products.

He also tells the fascinating story - based on later declassified recordings of a meeting JFK had on space policy with his advisers and a private meeting NASA chief James Webb in late 1963 that make clear that Kennedy's commitment to the moon race was flagging by the time of his trip to Texas as it became clearer that the program would not make it to the moon during his presidency, the cost of the program would require continuing support from Congress, and the original reason - the show American superiority over the Soviets in space technology - was being satisfied by the program's advances since 1961. 

So while it was Kennedy that set the goal, it was only his replacement by a true believer in the space race - Lyndon Johnson - that ensured the level of financial commitment needed to get to the moon before the end of the decade.

Fishman also addresses the constant "what we could have done with that money" argument, making clear that spending for Apollo wouldn't have simply been redirected to antipoverty or other programs, and can't be blamed for the levels of spending those programs enjoyed.  Apollo ended up costing almost exactly what its initial estimates predicted - about $20 billion, with spending peaking in the mid-60's at around $3 billion a year.  I can't recall the precise figures, but at exactly the same time the U.S. spent about five times as much - per year and overall - on the Vietnam War, which mnakes clear that the money was there - it was just spent on something else.

The book also tells the fascinating story of the development of the Apollo computer hardware and software, as well as the guidance systems.  Interestingly, the book told very few stories that I had heard before - even in part.  It was new stories and new insights into a story that is now half a century old.

Last Knights of Columbus Fall-out in Old Regalia at St. Josephs

We celebrated the 110th anniversary of the Marshall Knights of Columbus chapter this evening with a mass celebrated by Bishop Strickland. It was bittersweet because tonight was also the last time our Assembly will fall out in the regalia we've worn for over 70 years, and I've had the privilege of wearing for the last 27.

A couple of years ago National decided to update the 4th degree's official "color guard" uniform from the traditional capes which have been worn with tux and chapeaux since 1940, and were worn for decades before that with white tie, tailcoat and top hats.  The new look is navy blazers and neckties with dark gray slacks and a black beret.

It was a good time to get a final picture with Mom & Pop's window in the sacristy with my sword, which was Pop's back when he was wearing the tails and top hat in Waco in the 1910s and 1920s.  The baldric (diagonal sash which holds the sword) and sword may still be used with the new uniforms, but we don't know for sure if they will as a matter of course yet.

I actually wore Pop's tail coat as well, which was still in the attic in the early '70s in a school play as the Mad Hatter (the top hat was not original).

The tree behind me has a bit of family history as well - here's Mom and Pop helping Mother past it on her way into the church for her wedding in 1957.

Anyway, as soon as we got home from the event, instead of putting my chapeaux back in its bag I put it up on the religion shelves in the study. (You can tell they're the religion shelves because there's a trompe l'oeil medallion of St. John Paul II over it).

I know the change is bothering a lot of Knights, but not me.  It's what we do and stand for that's important - not what we're wearing.

George Bush's TBF Avenger "Barbara III" - 1/72 Academy

Another recent finish was the a 1/72 TBF Avenger finished as George Bush's final TBF, the Barbara III. 

My tail markings are not wrong - the aircraft shown below behind Bush and his crew was the Barbara II, which had a dark panel behind the aircraft number on the tail.

The kit is the 1/72 Academy, which seems to be a modified version of the even older Frog kit.  It is (mostly) of the British version, the Tarpon, and the further I got into it the more I realized this wasn't going to make a very good model.  Nor were the decals very good - the national insignia were a royal blue.  And don't get me started on how the flat finish coat went on like snow.

In the end, I decided to just finish this one as best I could as practice for airbrushing a three-color paint scheme, and look for a better kit to use the Barbara II decals - and better national insignia - on later.

Me 262A - 1960 and 2017 Airfix 1/72 kits

I recently finished a double-build - two 1/72 Me 262A German jet fighters.  The reason for the double-build was that I had two kits - a 1960 Airfix kit which I sat on for so long they came out with a much-improved version in 2017, which I then bought.

The newer kit on the left was a 262A-1a day fighter, had far more parts and was magnificently engineered. The older kit was a -2a - the bomber variant - and came with bomb racks and a pair of torpedo-shaped bombs.

I decided to build the older kit as a bomber - as Hitler intended - and the newer as a day fighter.

For my model for the bomber I chose the only surviving bomber version, the "Black X" that is on display at the Australian War Memorial. In part this was because it was one of the few -2a aircraft I could document markings for, but also because it had a very interesting paint scheme. 

The latter Me 262s weren't even finished in factories - they were assembled in open fields or forests, and by the time this plane was assembled it only got a light and ragged application of two-color camouflage, which meant that the bare aluminum with dark puttied seams tended to show through on the top.  On the bottom, most of the aircraft was unfinished aluminum with the dark putty seams, which was a fun opportunity to show a partially painted aircraft.  The actual colors I used were the first time I tried the late-war RLM 81/82/83, and the RLM 83 was not green enough. But I was happy with how uneven and watery the paint as applied worked out, even though it doesn't come across in the photo. 

The 2017 version I finished as Adolf Galland's last plane, known as "White 3".  While there are no photos of it to use as reference to confirm the details of the camouflage, it seems to match most of the artwork and models I have studied.  The kit is simply magnificent, and I really wish I had paid more attention to weighting the nose down properly so it didn't need a tail stand. I used aftermarket decals, and there were approximately 50 to reflect the many stencilled warnings on, under and around the plane. Both aircraft got repeated black washes after completion, and could probably use even more.

All in all, a really fun build, with challenging camouflage patterns.

 

Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea - the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13-15, 1942 - Eric Hammel

This is the third of Hammerl's three books of the Guadalcanal campaign.  I had read The Carrier Battles, but not Starvation Island, and thought this might explain the surface actions a little better.  Did it ever.

The book began by patiently explaining that in the first year of the Pacific War, U.S. ships had both a poorly prepared cadre of combat leaders based on prewar caution, and widely varying fits with respect to fire control, radar, and training on both.  Some ships relied on manual firing of their guns, some had various systems to more accurately direct their fire, and some had the brand-new "radar" units, some of which could aid in firing accurately, especially at night, and some of which could aid in locating enemy vessels in the first place.  Importantly, some commanders did not yet understand that it could do that.

This explains the two nights of battles covered in the book.  In the first, a poorly organized and led line of U.S. ships was heavily damaged by a Japanese formation, despite having the tools on various ships to do much better.  The second battle a couple of nights later saw a more evenly matched engagement, where the U.S. flagship, the battleship Washington made effective use of its radar-controlled fire to destroy the Japanese battleship Kirishima.

The emphasis on the various radars had a distinct effect on my next modeling project, in which I updated an old Matchbox destroyer USS Fletcher (DD-445) which was tail-end Charlie the first of the two nights.  But it had both fire control radar, SC air search radar and - crucially - the new SG surface-search radar.  So unlike the two flagship cruisers where the admirals sat, it could - and did - accurately locate the enemy.  So I scratchbuilt a new mast to carry carefully fabricated photoetched versions of all three.

How Carriers Fought: Carrier Operations in WWII - Lars Celander

Now this was an unusual book.  It dealt with the nuts and bolts of how aircraft carriers operate - from what happens in the cockpit to how aircraft and the ships that carry them actually work, to the battles they fought in.  The book concludes with an analysis of various carrier design and combat tactics which I found very interesting. 

Carriers tend to be approached either as historical objects or as tools used in significant historical actions.  Some books deal with them from a design perspectives, but few deal with carrier tactics, much less analyze why the tactics were what they were, and whether they, the the ships' design, should have been otherwise.  

Celander's book also discusses postwar developments to a certain extent, explaining how carriers developed postwar and why, and - I especially liked this part - why they would not have developed as they did had the wartime need for "deck-load" strikes persisted.  It never occurred to me that angled decks only made sense if a carrier is constantly rotating aircraft, and would have been highly problematic had carriers still been launching massive strikes as was usually the case in naval combat. Celnader's book doesn't get into this, but had that need remained we might have seen carrier design divide into "rotating" air operations carriers, as we have now, with a few "battle" carriers which are designed to launch and land large numbers of aircraft in a short period of time, while protected by "rotating" carriers.  WW II task forces did that by sometimes having certain carriers assigned to provide CAP (combat air patrol) while others launched strikes, but that isn't how modern air operations work.

All in all, a very interesting book.

Hitler’s Jet Plane: The ME 262 Story - Mano Ziegler

I read this on the Kindle while working on my two 1/72 Me 262s.  It was written by a former Luftwaffe pilot, and he does a good job telling the story of the development of the aircraft and the units that operated it.  The usual controversies over its development and Hitler's role in it are detailed, and the story ends up being more complicated than we usually hear.

It seems that it was Willy Messerschmitt that answered Hitler's question as to whether it could be used as a bomber with an emphatic "yes" with visions of more aircraft contracts dancing in his head - when in fact it was a terrible use of the aircraft.  But to what extent that decision delayed its introduction into Luftwaffe air defenses is unclear.  What is clear is that the introduction of the aircraft into operational use was as poorly executed as the rest of the Luftwaffe's decisions, although - again - whether even the best decisions would have helped the aircraft through its teething troubles is unclear.  It began reaching units just as Allied air superiority ensured that it could be destroyed at its bases, where it was highly vulnerable, rather than in air to air combat.