Puttering in the Study

SBD Upgrade

From when I started collecting kits almost 30 years ago my 1/72 SBD experience has been limited to the old Airfix/MPC kit.  While I have a couple of the Hawk/Testors kits, even I could tell they were too crude to be worth building.  I also bought every decal sheet I saw, so I probably now have enough decals to build well over a dozen aircraft, although at least half the decals are woefully inaccurate - usually the wrong size.

At present I have two of the Airfix/MPC kits built as Dick Best’s B1 at Midway and Leppla/Liska’s “Sail 12” at Coral Sea.  But in addition to being bad kits (and poorly built), both are now the wrong colors.  Best’s SBD-3 has a upper color I stopped using years ago in favor of FS 35189 for M-485, and the underside is FS 36440 which, although recommended by many sources, is not the FS 36357 of M-495.  The Leppla/Liska aircraft has the right color for the upper surfaces, but for some reason I used a different light gray for the underside.  

I had planned on simply repainting and upgrading, but recently I was able to get my hands of three of the Hasegawa kits - one SBD-5 and two SBD-2/3s (which have all the parts for -5s).  As the -2/3s kits come with markings for the Leppla/Lisko aircraft (many of which I’m not using for reasons I’ll explain in that build) that will be the first build.  After studying all the decals in my stash, I think the second will be a similar February/March 1942 Enterprise CAG aircraft with the oversized markings.  The third will be the SBD-5 box-art aircraft - a summer 1943 SBD-5 on the new Lexington with the red-outlined national markings.  

The Hasegawa kits I have been searching for for so long are no longer state of the art, even with aftermarket resin and PE - there’s a new Flyhawk kit out.  But it may be a while before I have that, so I am saving it for the Best replacement aircraft.  And with some aftermarket, it’s a tolerable build, and there are numerous SBDs I want on the shelves, so I’m still happy to have all three.

You can never have too many SBDs.

Carrier Warfare in the Pacific: An Oral History Collection (SMITHSONIAN HISTORY OF AVIATION AND SPACEFLIGHT SERIES) - E. T. Wooldridge (Editor)

This 1993 volume is a collection of edited oral histories of participants in the carrier war in the Pacific.  It's an extraordinary volume, with insights on everything from strategy and tactics to ship and aircraft design and operation.  

As oral histories will do, it focuses on the experiences of the narrators, and doesn't present a balanced narrative of the events recounted, but that's just fine with me.  I am interested in what they did, and saw, and thought was happening.

Grey Ghost: The Story of the Aircraft Carrier Hornet - Lee Merideth

I read this book before touring the Hornet last month.  Lots of errors a good proofing should have caught, but very useful information about the ship and what it contains.

USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) 1/700 – Finishing a 1994 Build in 2021

https://imodeler.com/2021/07/uss-ticonderoga-cv-14-1-700-finishing-a-1994-build-in-2021/

USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31) 1/700 Double Build

Since Typepad requires pictures to be uploaded and situated separately, I've started posting about completed builds in iModeler, and sharing the link to that post.

https://imodeler.com/2021/03/uss-bon-homme-richard-cv-cva-31-1-700-double-build/

Warships After London: The End of the Treaty Era in the Five Major Fleets, 1930–1936 - John Jordan

This was an enlightening book.  It covers naval ship design following the second of the interwar naval arms limitations treaties, and explains why the treaty came out the way it did, and how it affected warship design in the late 1930s.  

Following the end of World War I, a major naval arms limitation treaty (Washington) resulted in the scrapping of large numbers of capital ships then under construction, and provided Britain, Japan, and the United States with the battle cruiser hulls, unusable for their original purpose, which became the first generation of large fleet aircraft carriers.  Some years later, a second round of arms limitation talks (London) resulted in a second set of limitations, which had a major impact on all countries' naval construction in the 1930s as they began to ramp up for a possible war.  

The book was very interesting in that it explained the differing strategies countries had for naval construction – for example France and Italy had very different needs, and had different ideas about the best way to allocate their limited shipbuilding tonnage.  Similarly, Britain, Japan and the United States experimented with different allocations of their tonnage based on which ships they believed would be most useful in the event of war.

It can be dry reading, especially when the book is discussing ships which did not play a role in World War II, but it is still interesting to see that there were different strategies surrounding naval construction during this period, and that all nations had false starts and design dead ends, with differing effects when the war began.

Captain McCrea's War: The World War II Memoir of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Naval Aide and USS Iowa's First Commanding Officer - John L. McCrea, Julia C. Tobey

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is a publication in book form of various writings and oral histories of Admiral McCrea.

The significance of this officer is that he served as naval aide to President Franklin Roosevelt throughout 1942, and subsequently as the first captain of the new battleship Iowa, in which capacity he carried his former boss to North Africa for conferences with Churchill and Stalin in late 1943.  I'm gathering references for a model of the Iowa during this trip, including the privacy screens on the first superstructure deck and the two elevators that allowed FDR to go up to the bridge levels, so it's interesting to read about the actual journey.

The book provides a great insight into Roosevelt's wartime White House, but with a couple of bonuses.  McCrea was charged with replicating Winston Churchill's map room in the White House, and selected a room on the ground floor next to the president's doctor's office.  I'm partial to this room, and it was one of the ones I asked to see when Jamie and I had a private tour of the mansion some years ago.  At that time its wartime use was commemorated by the map showing the Allied armies closing on Berlin on the day FDR died hanging over the mantel.  That's long gone, I understand, but the history's still there.  

He was also responsible for the creation of the presidential retreat Shangri-La in the nearby Maryland mountains, which would subsequently be renamed Camp David by President Eisenhower.

It is a very interesting story, and his stepdaughter did a good job of creating a narrative from the various sources available.  I highly recommend it to the reader interested in this interesting corner of World War II history.

Next Ship Model Project - USS Randolph (CV-15) - 1/700

My latest project is one that I have had in mind for a long time.

When I was about 10 years old, and just starting to get interested in World War II and aircraft carriers, one of the first books I got was Barrett Gallagher’s 1959 “Flattop”.  I remember it coming from the old stationary store at 115A East Austin – the one that my office is one door down from now – but I can’t recall the specifics of it, other than a vague recollection that it came from one of the dark rooms toward the back of the second floor.  I am guessing it was one of the books Pop had for sale in the store that Daddy found and thought I would be interested in.

The book details Gallagher’s experience photographing American aircraft carriers, beginning with the Essex class Randolph in 1945 and continuing to a photo of the new Enterprise under construction.  It is where I got my initial list of prewar carriers, and its opening photo of the stately Essex steaming behind a destroyer was one that has never left my mind.  In fact I recall getting in trouble during religion class in high school when Deacon Roden caught me sketching it out in the margin of my book!  It eventually became the model for the cover of my own book on Essex class carriers in 1996.

After completing four intensive builds of Essex class carriers ranging from 1945 to 1968 in the past year, all of which involved extensive kitbashing and scratch building, I wanted to undertake a simpler build this time around. 

The Subject

I decided to do the Randolph as it appeared in this photo Gallagher shot from the rear seat of a SB2C Helldiver on its way to strike targets in Japan on 10 August, 1945.  In addition to being a favorite subject, it would also give me the chance to model a couple of things that I had not before.

The Kit

I chose the Dragon 1/700 Randolph kit as my starting point.  The kit depicts CV – 15 as completed in the fall of 1944, in dazzling camouflage, and without the enhanced complement of 40 mm quad Bofors that had become common on carriers in the Pacific. 

The changes needed to the kit would be basically twofold.  First, the kit would have to be updated to reflect the ship’s appearance in August 1945, and second, various inaccuracies and deficiencies in the Dragon kit would need to be addressed.

References

I do not have access to a set of plans for the ship as of late 1945, but I do have a set of profile and plan views of the ship’s exterior as completed in 1944 in Raven’s Essex Class Carriers, as well as several photographs documenting the modifications made to the ship during its refit at Hunters Point on the West Coast in January 1945.

40mm quads

At Hunters Point, Randolph received the by-then standard three 40mm quads under the island and two aft on the starboard side, as well as two slung below the gallery deck on the port side aft.  The photos document the locations clearly, including the new lower location on the port side compared to mounts installed earlier in the war.

As it was only the second Dragon Essex kit, the Randolph kit does not yet have any of these mounts, as it depicts the ship as built.  Later Dragon kits have them on sprues G and M.  Fortunately, I had both in my spares box from the Princeton CV-37 kit that I modified into the Oriskany (CV-34) last fall, so I simply added parts G-5, -5, and -6 and M-7 and -8.

No hangar deck catapult

Dragon includes the external hangar deck catapult sponson that early ships of the class had, but Randolph never had one, but it is relatively easy to sand this off, as I did for both Oriskany and Bon Homme Richard.

Deck Blue Flight Deck Stain

Every Essex class ship I have built to date had the lighter blue flight deck stain.  However, later in the war the ships began to complete and refit with a significantly darker flight deck stain which was intended to approximate the Deck Blue paint used for walkways.  This color was just released by Mission, and I am using that paint.

White Flight Deck Numbers

Although the Randolph appears to have been completed with the standard black flight deck numbers, the lack of contrast with the dark flight deck stain was apparently enough of an issue that at Hunters Point the Randolph became the first fleet carrier to change from black flight deck numbers to white ones.

The kit comes with black flight deck numbers, and as I discovered to my sorrow on my last build, my almost 30-year-old Gold Medal Models flight deck numbers are in poor shape, so I ordered a new set of numbers.

Reconfigured 20mm gun tubs

To accommodate the new 40mm quads on the port side, the existing gun tubs were relocated while the ship was at Hunters Point.  They seem to be the same 6-mount tubs, so moving them around should be pretty simple, and using the same kit parts. 

Whip antenna

Multiple photos show a whip antenna at the extreme end of the port gallery deck catwalk forward.  The kit doesn’t have this, so I will add it with stretched sprue.

Bow gallery deck tubs

Both gallery decks terminate at the extreme bow with small round enclosures.  I have not been able to figure out yet what they are, but they will need to be added to the kit.

Island 20mm gallery / yardarm

This will be my first Dragon island, and one change I know is already necessary is that the aft starboard side 20 mm gallery is much too long.  It holds six mounts, and photos seem to indicate it should only have three.  I will probably just cut out a portion of the existing part.  The kit also doesn’t have a yardarm so that will be added as well.

Measure 21 Navy Blue (5-N) camouflage - weathered

While at Hunters Point, Randolph repainted from her East Coast dazzle camouflage scheme into overall Navy Blue.  A photo showing her in profile at around the time I am modeling her, approximately seven months later, shows extreme and uneven fading.  So I anticipate doing a lot of work weathering the finish.

Flight deck cutouts

The Dragon kit contains small cutouts for gun directors that were intended to be installed on the port side gallery deck.  None of the ships ever had these installed, and Randolph never had the cutouts at all, so I will be filling these in with some small chips of plastic.

Sand down hull

I may be wrong, but I think that Dragon’s Essex class kits are too tall from the water line to the hangar deck, so while it only contributes a tiny amount, I try to sand the lip of plastic that is intended to help the model fit to its underwater section to reduce the height a little.  I then put the boot topping on the upper hull, and that seems to get the waterline to the right point.

Lower 40 mm mounts

One of the things that changed on the Essex class carriers during the war was that the 40 mm quad mounts located adjacent to the port side 5 inch gun galleries were lowered from their original position so that they became level with the 5 inch galleries.  This was likely because the ships were increasingly overweight as the war went on, and even if weight could not be eliminated, if it could be lowered, it would help the ship’s stability.

As Randolph was the second generation of Essex class ships, it was built with these two mounts in the new lowered position.  But since the Randolph kit was a modification of Dragon’s original Essex, it still uses part C-6, which has the original raised position.  But its later versions, including Princeton, have a new part — M-6 that has correct lower position, so I swapped out C-6 for M-6.  (I missed this new part when building Oriskany, and scratchbuilt a 40mm tub in the correct lower position).  Aft, D-34 can simply be lowered by cutting off the tab and puttying over the hole in the hull.

3D printed 20 mm guns

I gave up completely on the Dragon 20 mm weapons on my last build, and simply put short pieces of wire into the openings to simulate the kit gun barrels that wouldn’t fit.  The Blue Ridge 3D printed weapons came highly recommended, so I have ordered a couple of packages of those.

Gallery deck undersides

Finally, although I am not going to cut off the gallery deck catwalks and replace them with thinner ones as I usually do because I have realized that after the railings are attached you can’t tell how thick the underlying structure is anyway, I will be adding strips of .040 plastic to the underside of the flight deck as needed to simulate the correct thickness of the gallery deck.

And to the extent I can ascertain what the bow and stern walkways were, I will be adding those in photo etch as I did with the Bon Homme Richard.

Photoetch railings & radars

Finally, I ordered another Gold Medal Models World War II carrier photoetch set so I would have all the parts to do the necessary railings, radars, and other fittings.

Flotation net baskets

Finally, I have found that adding flotation net baskets to the outside of the gallery deck railings really adds to the appearance of the kit, and will be including a couple of dozen or more of those cut from .040 plastic strip.  They are available in 3D, but I didn’t think the cost was worth it.

While the above may look like a lot of modifications, it is actually pretty minor compared to what I have been doing on similar builds lately, so I don’t anticipate this build taking too terribly long.

Essex Class Aircraft Carriers, 1943–1991: Rare Photographs from Naval Archives (Images of War) - Leo Marriott

When your workbench is a double-build of the same Essex-class carrier as it appeared in 1945 and 1968, and the project before that was an Essex class carrier in 1968 (and 1943), and so was the one before that (1950), and you're updating another and being tempted to start on yet another - it's a pretty foregone conclusion that you're going to buy any book that comes out about the Essex class.

Which is pretty much the only reason you should buy this one.  While many, if not most, of the photos are not ones that I have seen published previously, many are, and in fact there are numerous photos that I included in my book on the class 25 years ago.  But the bigger problem is that the type of paper used – not glossy – means that the reproduction of these black-and-white photos is poor.  I consult numerous photos of the class on a daily basis, and this book is a very poor resource for studying the details of the class because of the format and paper.

Nor do the problems end there.  Apparently the publishing business has reached the point that no one is editing what is sent in for publication because the content suffers from numerous grammatical and formatting errors, as well as significant factual mistakes.  The second sentence of the book places the battle of the Coral Sea in the wrong month of 1942, and while substantive errors like this are not common, they are common enough that I don't trust the factual assertions presented without checking them in another source.

The book does not have much substantive text, but it does have extensive detailed photo captions that explain the photos, and this is one of its high points.  The captions provide analysis that I have not seen elsewhere, as well as explanations of certain activities that are not covered in other publications.  So while the photos are of marginal quality, they are clear enough to understand what is being portrayed, and the captions do provide useful background.

All in all, if I saw a really good picture in this book I would run it down online if I needed it for reference, but what is in the book is probably good enough unless you are trying to nail down a very specific detail.  And there is useful information, mostly in the photo credits.  But the bibliography is short and puzzling - how can you not list Norman Friedman?  

From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945-1955 - Jeffrey G. Barlow

The U.S. Navy's transition from World War II into a nuclear postwar in the new U.S. defense establishment is the subject of this lengthy treatise.  Actually the treatise itself is not quite so lengthy because 304 of the 710 pages in this book are references, including index, bibliography and an insane amount of endnote material.  But given the quantum of information that I'm sure exists on even this narrow slice of a subject, it is still probably only touching on the high points of the story of what happened in the Navy in the first Iten years after the end of World War II.

The principal story to be told is the Navy's role as the national defense establishment nosedived in terms of appropriations following demobilization after the war, then skyrocketed again during the conflict in Korea beginning in 1950, and then swung back and forth over the next five years as first the Truman and then the Eisenhower administration's attempted to settle on appropriate level of military funding in a peacetime that it was increasingly clear was not all that different from wartime in terms of national responsibilities.  The knife fight between the Navy and the new Department of the Air Force - mostly over whose aircraft got to carry the nuclear weapons - is covered, as are the various departmental leadership struggles as the Navy found its way under the new Defense Department establishment where it was no longer a Cabinet-level department under a three-plus term President who had been an avid naval supporter since his days as Assistant Secretary of the navy in 1913-1919. Truman, unlike FDR, was no fan of the Navy, and it was one of his Secretaries of Defense that canceled the Navy's new supercarrier United States with no notice to the admirals, sparking the well documented "revolt of the admirals."

All in all, while clumsily written in places, it is a useful reference to understand what was going on during certain periods of time, and a good starting point for research to dive deeper into individual issues within its scope.