Puttering in the Study

Bringing Back a Hero - Robert D. Jornlin

Our last stop on our RV trip was LST 325 in Evansville, Indiana, where I picked up this book by its captain on its return voyage in 2000-2001.  The story is an incredible one.  A crew of retired LST sailors, average age 72, got the ship back in working condition and talked their way into bringing back over 6,000 miles across the Mediterranean and Atlantic to the United States - so we'd have an example of a World War II LST.

The ship was an incredible experience to visit, but the artifact pales compared to what these men did to bring her home.  Jornlin was a retired commander from the 1960's, but his experience on the vessels and in feed sales gave him both the technical and the personal skills to successfully negotiate the challenges of getting the ship restored and the necessary permissions to bring her home.

I highly, highly recommend this book. 

The US Navy and the War in Europe - Robert C. Stern

This is another relatively recent (2012) Naval Institute Press book by prolific naval author Robert Stern.  It explores the little-explored aspect of the Navy’s contribution to victory in World War II which was the Atlantic theater, and in so doing clarifies why it is little-explored.

The Navy’s role in the Atlantic war was a limited one initially, although not as limited as it should have been under principles of international law applying to neutral nations.  The book explains why FDR drew the lines differently prior to U.S. entry in the war, and the practical effect that this had.  It also explains the cooperation between the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy in beginning protecting shipping from U-boat attack.

One thing this book shows that none other I have read does is the extremely secondary nature of the theater in U.S. naval planning.  The Atlantic only got the assets that the Navy could spare from the Pacific, and those assets started being raided after December 7, making this the first book I’ve read that make the Pacific Fleet in WW II look well-taken care of by comparison.  The carrier Yorktown left immediately after the attack, and the three relatively modern New Mexico class battleships (they were WW I vintage but had been modernized during the interwar period) followed soon after, effectively making good the battleship losses sustained in the attack - a little-known fact.  The Navy had eight battleships at Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred (with one refitting on the West Coast).  Several weeks later it still had eight battleships in fighting trim in the Pacific, but they were stuck on the West Coast for lack of tankers and air cover.  

After the U.S. began losing carriers at Coral Sea and Midway the Wasp - which had been making runs into the Mediterranean to deliver Spitfires and otherwise making herself useful - was also pulled out.  The only carrier to remain - Ranger - was left because, as Stern points out - she wasn’t wanted in the Pacific. FDR himself apologized for her condition to Churchill on 16 April 1942 saying that she was best suited for use as a “ferry boat” for aircraft because “we are not proud” of her compartmentation and structural strength. Stern later identifies another problem - due to her hull shape she could only operate aircraft in a mild swell, which would have made her unsuited for operations in the Pacific.  Nor was that all - due to her slow top speed she could not launch fully loaded aircraft without help from the wind.  At one point in late 1943 an entire task force sat drumming its hands for 20 minutes off the Norwegian coast waiting for her to find a couple of knots of wind so she could launch her CAP and then strike aircraft.  All this reminds me that someone needs to write on how the Navy learned enough from 1934 to 1940 that it could build an effective carrier (Wasp) using the same tonnage as the ineffective Ranger.  Wasp was slightly slower and less well-protected that her Yorktown-class half-sisters, but she could and did operate with them effectively in August and September of 1942 off Guadalcanal. Ranger could not have, apparently.

The story of the Atlantic war that Stern tells is largely one of small engagements between destroyers, submarines and merchant shipping, where small U.S. ships sustained frequent losses due to German attacks.  The surface engagements are there, but they are rare, usually small, and often between unevenly matched combatants.

Oddly, Stern does not cover at all a couple of significant U.S. Navy operations in the Atlantic.  There is no mention of the new battleship Iowa carrying FDR to the conferences in Cairo and Teheran in late 1943. It was specifically forbidden by Admiral King from going out and looking for trouble while waiting on FDR’s return, but still - it was a major fleet unit and should have been noted.

And most significantly, while he covers the damage suffered by Navy vessels, especially destroyers, in great detail throughout the book, including at D-Day, he leaves out completely the major role played by the destroyers during the June 6 landings in battling shore emplacements at extreme risk to themselves.  Stephen Ambrose addresses these incidents extensively in his D-Day book, but they are completely absent here, despite the high drama they represent.  In many ways they were the high point of the Navy’s contribution to the shooting war in the theater, and their omission in a book largely missing high drama is an odd one.

Another omission is showing the increasing strength of the Atlantic fleet as the war went on.  Stern makes clear at the beginning just how phenomenally weak the Navy’s forces in the Atlantic were, which is helpful, but doesn’t note quantitatively how that changed as the war went on.  It would be something like telling the war in the Pacific beginning by noting the Navy’s limited supply of carriers in 1942, and then never noting that they were replaced four or five-fold with new construction.  Having those additional assets changed the picture of what the U.S. could do, and there’s nothing comparable in this book with respect to the Atlantic theater.  He does make mention of new construction, but not in a way that shows how the Navy’s ability to fight the war in the Atlantic changed between 1941 and 1945, and when the shortages in warships were remedied.  Or whether they were remedied effectively or resulted in unnecessary units in some areas which excess construction occurred in others.

Overall an interesting book, but a highly specialized one, which tells a fairly small slice of the story.  Other books provide a more comprehensive analysis of the Battle of the Atlantic (I don’t have a recommendation on this one), the Mediterranean campaigns (the first two Atkinson books) and the naval side of D-Day (Symonds’ Neptune). But if you want the ship by ship engagements that the Navy’s destroyers fought, with damage accounts, this is your source.  The sources at the end are also going to be very valuable to you if you’re interested in this subject, since Stern identifies all the good books, references and cites for this area.

The Good Shepherd - C.S. Forester

When I realized the new Tom Hanks movie Greyhound is based on this book by the author of the Hornblower books I had to go back and reread it.  Terrific read - started it last night and finished it today.  I know I’ve read it before - notes say I got it in San Diego which means a long, long time ago, but I’m pretty sure I read it at the time.

Can’t wait to see the movie!

#IntrepidCorrected - Revell's Classic 1/720 Essex Class Carrier (Corrected)

For many modelers of World War II ships, Revell's 1/720 scale model of the USS Intrepid (CV – 11) was an early favorite. It was cheap (two dollars, compared to four dollars for a Tamiya Akagi), easy to build, and gave you a big rectangular flight deck with a dozen aircraft for  living room carpet war games.  I built my first in 1973-74, and many more since then.

 

The kit was originally released in 1967 as the USS Franklin (CV–13), and was re-released as the USS Essex (CV-9) the next year. In 1972 it was rereleased as Intrepid. (CV-11). It was the only class of wartime aircraft carrier available in plastic modeling in or near the 1/700 scale until the advent of the water line Japanese manufacturers in the 1970s. While the flight deck is basically accurate, the hull shape is significantly undersized, and the island suffers from numerous inaccuracies.  The kit was greatly surpassed in accuracy by the Hasegawa Essex and Hancock kits in1974, and over 20 years later by a far more accurate series of Essex class carriers by Trumpeter and Dragon.

 

As a result of these later kits, the Revell Intrepid is not a logical candidate for building as anything other than a toy, as one of these later kits could be accurized far more easily. In fact, it would be significantly simpler to build an Essex class carrier in this scale from scratch than it would be to accurize or kitbash this kit into one. 

 

Nonetheless, the kit is a sentimental favorite of mine, and I recently began contemplating building a "corrected"version of the kit which would have the major errors in shape and detail corrected in a way that is visible. I chose to do this by making all the corrections in white plastic and putty, and leaving the model unpainted so that the revisions are clear.  Again, the intent was not to detail or accurize the kit – the kit's armament and other details remain the same – but instead only to correct the kit's inaccuracies using the same level and type of construction of the original model. In other words, I focused on making changes that could have been included in the original kit when it was released.

 

Date of Model

 

I chose to model the Intrepid as it appeared at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October, 1944. I did this for two reasons. 

 

First, the kit lacks a  40 mm quad mount on the front of the island, has multiple 40 mm mounts elsewhere, and the box art and kit painting instructions show a dazzle camouflage pattern. This does not match the Intrepid's appearance as built in 1943, but does match its appearance after a March-June 1944 refit following its torpedoing off Truk in February 1944. Intrepid returned to service with the fast carriers of Task Force 38 in August 1944, so Leyte Gulf two months later was a logical time. This also meant that I could use the extensive detailed (and scaled) plans of the Intrepid in its June 1944 configuration in John Roberts' The aircraft carrier Intrepid Anatomy of the Ship book, reduced to 1/720 scale.

 

Hull

 

The biggest change to the kit was obviously going to be deepening the hull significantly. I prepared a profile with the accurate dimensions, which gave me precise calculations for how much additional hull material was going to be needed. I used as my starting point the existing kit's main (hangar) deck, and determined that additional height had to be added in the underwater section of the hull, immediately above the water line, and at the top of the hull just below the flight deck.

 

Underwater Hull

 

I decided to replicate the kit's two-part hull, so that I could separate the underwater portion from the rest of the ship in case I ever wanted to paint it and add it to my  collection of 1/700 waterline Essex- class models. This meant that the first piece of construction was going to be a separate underwater hull.

 

I started by drawing up a set of hull sections to be attached to a central "keel" for the underwater section of the ship. This would then be glued to the existing kit's underwater hull. I quickly realized that this would mean cutting away most of the underwater hull, since the Revell kit is terribly inaccurate in this department. Like its Yorktown class forebears, the Essex class has a streamlined hull fore and aft that is completely unlike the North Carolina class battleships whose underwater hull the Revell kit more closely resembles. In the end, all I ended up keeping of the kit's underwater hull was the bottom, which ended up being the approximate shape and thickness of the ship's double bottom, as well as the sides of the hull amidships. Once the cut-down hull was attached to the keel with hull sections, the rest of the hull was filled in using strip plastic and white Tamiya  putty.

 

I then cut two waterline plates, one to serve as the top of the underwater hull, and the other to serve as the bottom the of the above water hull. After carefully aligning them, I cut holes in both for a series of dowels to align the two parts of the hull when finished. I finished off the underwater hall by scratch building a rudder, propeller shafts (to which the kit propellers were attached) and  bilge keels.

 

Upper Hull

 

The above-water portion of the hull was built the same way as the underwater hull, with hull sections attached to a longitudinal member glued to the upper water line piece. The approximately quarter-inch section of strip plastic that marked most of the missing depth of the hull above the waterline then served as the guide for how much of the kit's above-water hull would need to be cut away, which was a significant portion  below the hangar deck aft, and the entire forecastle forward. Once the kit's hull sides were securely in place, I added a full hangar deck.

 

If the insufficient depth of the hull is the worst flaw in the kit, the  shaping of the forecastle is the second. As a result, the hull was completely reframed forward of the #1 elevator, and topped with a new much broader forecastle deck. Again, the hull was filled out with sheet plastic and putty to the correct shape. The kit's original anchors were cut off the kit's hull pieces and then sanded down as much as possible before being glued on. 

 

Even with the substantial addition below the kit hull, the  hull was still slightly too short from the hangar to the flight deck, so another section of sheet plastic was installed between the hull sides and the flight deck raising it to the required level. Interestingly, the hangar openings in the hull were almost completely accurate – so while I had to raise the height of the openings, I didn't have to move them, as I had to do when kitbashing the Hasegawa Essex and Hancock kits. I couldn't help adding some roller doors in a partially lowered position - which I justified because the way the hull pieces are molded, it would have been easy to include this level of detail.

 

Hull detailing was deliberately limited, since I did not want to turn this into an accurizing project, but I included the level of detail that was consistent with the molding of the kit's era, including some hull piping which had been lost in all the sanding, as well as supports for the deck-edge elevator. The stern was completely missing the necessary structures, so I included them, built simply enough that they could have been included as part of the kit parts.

 

Last, the 5 inch gun platforms forward and aft on the port side in the kit completely lacked the necessary sponsons, so I built those up with sheet plastic and putty.

 

Flight Deck

 

The kit's flight deck has always been a favorite of mine so I decided early on not to modify it, other than rebuilding the deck edge elevator. The elevator on the kit is not correctly shaped, but more importantly is not the right size, so I cut it out and installed a correctly sized elevator at the hangar deck level. After the bow was lengthened by including a correctly shaped forecastle, and the stern was reduced by eliminating the sponson for two 40 mm quad mounts, which the Intrepid didn't have until later in the war, I had to trim off a portion of the flight deck aft, and add a section forward. The kit's flight deck is slightly wide for scale, but not enough that it demanded change, so I left it alone.

 

When I checked the gallery deck antiaircraft gun mounts against plans of the ship for the relevant time period, they were surprisingly close to correct. Because the kit's 20 mm mounts are oversized, the gun tubs, while generally the correct size, only hold about two thirds the number of weapons they should, but I thought that was close enough to leave as is. The only place where I modified the shape of an existing gun tub was the aft starboard side, where I substantially increased it in order to get to the same two thirds ratio that the other tub show.  I particularly like the Frankenstein's monster appearance it gives the model!

 

On the starboard side forward, the Intrepid didn't have the forward 20 mm mount gun tub that some other ships of the class had, so I snipped that gun tub out and replaced it with strip plastic, and added another section a little further back on the starboard side gallery deck. Intrepid did have three small gun tubs near the stern that aren't shown on the kit, so I scratchbuilt those and filled them with matching mounts from another kit. The spares box also provided two more lattice masts aft.  The last change to the gallery deck mounts was replacing 5 inch 38 caliber guns in two tubs on the port side aft with 40 mm quads - why they didn't have them in the first place is a mystery.

 

Island

 

The general shape of the island was, surprisingly, pretty close, but there was some reshaping necessary. Most notably, the kit's island has a rounded shape at the front, which is incorrect, so I squared that off using putty and plastic. 

 

One of the most prominent errors in the kit's island is the inclusion of an open tube at the front of the flag bridge. It isn't intended to be an AA mount, but instead the gun director that sits on a stalk just in front of and below the flag bridge. I cut it off and installed it on the necessary stalk. I then modified the island platforms to match the Roberts plans, which included both trimming existing platforms, which remain in their original gray, and installing new platforms, including a completely new flag and navigation bridge.

 

The "hat brim" stack cap on the Revell Intrepid is one of its most characteristic features - and does bear some resemblance to the famous photo of the Franklin afire, but it is still completely wrong. I replaced part of it with sheet plastic cut and carefully sanded to match the actual stack cap, but topped with the original stack covers from the kit trimmed and thinned. The Mark 37 gun directors were a little tall, so I cut the radars off and shortened their attachments, and spent some time sanding off the mold marks. I also added strips of plastic to the 5 inch 38 caliber twin turrets to improve their appearance.

 

The kit island's worst error is that the tripod mast was molded backwards so that instead of the back legs leaning towards the front, the front leg leans towards the back. I could not fix the kit part, so I scratchbuilt a new tripod mast from rod plastic, and put the kit's mast head platform on top of that. The pole mast on top of the platform is actually the kit mast chopped up. The kit mast is so overscale that I was able to cut it and use the parts for the Intrepid's configuration in the fall of 1944. The yardarms and new mainmast are stretched sprue, but could have been included with t he kit in 1967. The SK and SC radars are sheet plastic, and the SC is mounted on a bracket salvaged from the kit's stack cap. 

 

Influence of the USS Franklin (CV-13)

 

As noted above, this kit was originally released as the Franklin, and numerous details in the kit match the Franklin far better than the Intrepid.  

 

First and foremost, the kit mast is actually fairly accurate for the Franklin. After being damaged in Japanese attacks twice in October 1944, Franklin went through a refit that resulted in several changes that match the Revell kit. First of all, the topmast was still a single pole as shown in the kit, not a stepped one as in the Intrepid.  There are also indications that the kit designers had access to the bomb damage drawings of the Franklin, as they show a longitudinally aligned topmast that may have been the source for the kit's - which way the actual ship's was aligned is not completely clear in photos. The unique dog-eared deck edge elevator in the kit is also a close match for the kit. And unlike the Intrepid, Franklin did have twin 40 mm quad mounts at the stern, thanks to a late 1944 refit.

 

The Franklin may have contributed one other detail to the Revell kit. In that late 1944 refit, the 40 mm quad mounts on her port side gallery deck were all lowered to the same level as the 5 inch .38 caliber mounts, likely for stability reasons. Previously they had been at a slightly higher level, and many other Essex kits show them this way. Only the Revell kit has all of the portside mounts at the same level – even if it inexplicably has two of them with 5 inch guns instead of 40 mm quads.

 

The Franklin may be noteworthy for one other reason – many of the images of the burning Franklin taken after the attack on March 19, 1945 show her listing heavily to starboard, presenting a profile that is very similar to the shallow–draft Revell model.

 

Conclusion

 

All in all, this is the model that I always wanted the Revell Intrepid to be.  The only question is whether it'll stay gray and white to show the modifications, will get that hand painted tan flight deck and dark gray patches on the hull that I remember so fondly from almost half a century ago, or will get an accurate camouflage scheme.  I still haven't made up my mind about that one.

Midway

Parker and I went to see Midway today, and really enjoyed it.  It was technically stunning - the Enterprise and its dive bombers were flawlessly executed, and for that matter I never saw any hardware (except the sinking Lexington) that wasn't technically correct as far as I knew.  That doesn't mean the camouflage on the ships and aircraft was always correct - the movie starts on December 7, and neither Enterprise, the dive bombers or the ships at Pearl Harbor are in the correct camo for that period - but it's close enough. (There's also one overhead shot of the B-25s over Tokyo where they - inexplicably - have 1943 markings - but it's still far and away the most period-accurate WW II naval combat movie I've ever seen).

Beginning with the Pearl Harbor scenes, though, it becomes clear that this is a dramatization of the action, not a strict retelling.  At Pearl Harbor the events of the attack are sequenced differently, and the ships are arranged a little differently around the harbor, but the action sequence is good, and unlike Pearl Harbor it's consistent.  It's essentially CGI or sets that match the historical ships in CGI, so I have no real complaints. You don't have the Missouri and a bunch of mothballed 1970's destroyers getting blown up.

Along these lines, the action scenes are dramatized as well. I don't think Roi or Namur had scenic mountains, carrier task forces didn't steam at 300 yard intervals, and the Lexington wasn't a Yorktown class ship.  I understand how for dramatic reasons Halsey's Enterprise does make it to the Coral Sea to join Yorktown, but too late to do anything but watch Lexington sink. And it is borderline adorable to have Yorktown and Enterprise watching Lexington sinking at the previously noted 300 yard spacing that looks just like three cows standing together in a meadow.  But - again - they used the same Yorktown class carrier for the sinking Lexington.  Bizarre.

Woody Harrelson does very, very well as Admiral Nimitz, and Etsushi Toyokawa does likewise as Yamamoto. In fact, the whole cast is good, and while I've heard others have issues with the script, neither the script itself nor the dialogue bothered me. Patrick Wilson is also really good as Nimitz' intelligence officer Edwin Layton.

The best thing about the movie to me was the constant parade of historically correct easter eggs that were used to propel the story along. It sounds like terrible writing to have Layton telling Nimitz the exact date, time and bearing of the Japanese attack, and Nimitz then complimenting him later for being "5 minutes, 5 miles and 5 degrees off" - but it's almost word for word what Rochefort and Nimitz actually said.  And Bruno Gaido saving the day at the Marshalls and getting the plane he was in cut in half by a Japanese bomber that nearly misses, and then he comes back later in the movie to play an important role is just over the top screenwriting - but that's exactly what happened. Gene Lindsay getting banged up landing his TBD, Wade McCluskey getting switched to dive bombers - all this stuff is in there. The way the "AF is short on water" story is told is original and funny.  Again, much of the story is dramatized - Halsey put himself in the hospital, but it plays better to have Nimitz have to order him off under protest.  Hirohito being hustled off to his bunker during the Doolittle Raid was a terrific touch.

The accuracy extends to the technical details of the attacks on Kaga and Akagi.  McCluskey mistakenly leads his squadron and almost all of Best's down on a single target, and misses - and so do others before the bombs start hitting home.  Then the most critical attack of the battle is portrayed pretty accurately. Best, accompanied by only his two wingmen, went after the Akagi, but were forced to attack from abeam, meaning they had hit to the ship from the side.  They're shown flying through massive AA fire when Best told us at a seminar in 1992 that there wasn't a gun on him during his run (see comments re: dramatization above) but the actual effects of the attack are shown accurately. His two wingmen both barely miss the ship (one jams the ship's rudder, which would later make salvage even less likely), but Best drops his amidships - and actually at the worst possible point where his bomb not only could damage the ship with its explosion and the secondary explosions - he also fatally damaged the water main system and because he hit around the elevator, the damage extended to both the hangars.  One bomb - one ship.

Oh, and then he came back four hours later and scored a hit on Hiryu as well.  Perhaps not in as dramatic fashion as the movie displays, where he lands his SBD on the Hiryu, engages Admiral Yamaguchi in hand to hand combat, and then takes off again, dropping his bomb through the hinomaru in the forward flight deck on his way off, but still.  (I am only exaggerating slightly).

It's a great war movie, and it's a great and largely accurate retelling of the first six months of the Pacific war - one where the Enterprise is depicted flawlessly (okay, other than not having Ms 1 camo on Dec. 7/8).  And they gave us Midway pins at the movie theater. What more could you ask for?  Oh yeah, a historically accurate Lexington. But other than that, not much.

Midway, Dick Best and Me

A very pleasant surprise about the new Midway movie is that the Enterprise's Bombing 6 skipper Dick Best is the lead. I met Mr. Best at a Nimitz (now Pacific War) Museum symposium in 1992, and for reasons that now escape me, I had packed up a framed R.S. Smith print of his run on the Akagi that my parents had given me for graduation in a pillow case and brought it with me, along with a few books for signatures.

At the time I honestly didn't realize his significance in the battle - I just recognized he was one of the Enterprise dive bomber pilots Walter Lord had written about.

After listening to his portion of the panel discussion I realized I should probably see if he'd sign my print. Oh boy, did he. When he handed it back to me, it said:

          Dick Best

C.O. Bombing Six

U.S.S. Enterprise

Midway, 4 June 42

As the seminar was about three months after I finished law school, I was still in the habit of taking copious notes, and in light of the movie, I thought a few might be worth putting here:

On Dive Bombing

He said he's often asked what it's like to be a dive bomber pilot. "It's like a rollercoaster," he said. "You come in at 20,000 feet, go 'over the top' and stand on your rudder pedals. At 3,500 adjust and drop at 2,500 - pull out at 1,000." He said the bump going over the top was the 'old hat' part of the dive. "The excitement is what you can do at the bottom."

Doolittle Raid

Left (I think he was referring to) on April 12 on Enterprise with a fast fleet oiler and were on heading of 335 degrees - a direct course to Tokyo, and they worried for two days. Launched at dawn (probably referring to a patrol he flew) and saw Hornet. But he said he couldn't make out her deck load - there were a lot of engines and jumble and deck tractors. He said he was envious of Doolittle that he got the "first shot at Japan."

Midway

Left for Midway on May 28 with Task Force 16. The next day Spruance met with them and laid out the plan. He said the details were incredible - they had divisions by numbers, and names of the carriers and battleships. he said he asked what if they were wrong and the Japanese did something different - was told "well, we just hope they won't." He wasn't told how they knew. (Alvin Kernan said the code breaking was common knowledge on Enterprise during the battle - if it was, Best didn't mention it during the panel).

On June 3 heard about the attack on the Aleutians - I wrote two quotes here which may be something he said or something he recounted someone else saying - "We're going to show them a surprise this time," and "behind the garden gate with a bat."

He remembers VB was back in the landing wires because were heavier, and was airborne by the time he reached the island. VS launched first - he noted the torpedo bombers apparently went first (as well). (This is garbled account and incomplete of who launched when, but I won't take time right now to complete the launch sequence using other sources - this is just what he recounted. And it's possible I wrote VS when I should have written VF).

His account of the attack is just about exactly as the movie relates except he said something about "never a gun on him." That might mean he was never hit, but I think it was that he was never fired on. He remembered seeing a Zero go through his gunsight as he dove - there were planes launching from the stern, and his bomb hit "in planes warming up." He described the flight deck as red-orange with a bright red ball, and later described the attack on the Hiryu as well - said his dive was steeper and his rear seat man said they got a hit. Said he's often asked how he recalls the details of the missions so well, and said it's easy because it was the last day he flew a plane, due to the caustic soda incident.

I can't help but think he'd have been a bit indignant at being portrayed as a cowboy who got promoted by Halsey, because he'd been a squadron leader for a while. But he'd have liked the way they redid the final bomb drop on Hiryu. Actually he probably would have just smiled and refrained from actually grumbling about how that wasn't the way it happened, and how several got hits.

 

 

Dauntless: The Battle of Midway

Dauntless: The Battle of Midway is a “mockbuster” - a low budget film that’s intended to capitalize on the publicity surrounding a blockbuster movie by a large studio.  Even the trailer indicated that the special effects were not quite ready for the big screen, but since I’d go to Des Moines to see a community theater production about the drama involved in loading torpedoes, of course I was going to get the Blu-ray, which is the only release this howler will ever have.

The set consisted of three rooms, two aircraft fuselages, a pool and the ocean, and the speaking cast was 13 people.  (I counted both).  Astonishingly, most - maybe all - of the movie was filmed in the director’s back yard using green screen, and the extras show the director and three buddies building the SBD fuselage. I thought it looked pretty good until Parker noticed something that was pretty obviously a 2 x 4 cross-section.  Everything else - and I mean everything - was special effects.  Picture Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  It’s like that.

I’m not exaggerating, nor am I condemning.  When the live action is combined with the special effects, the result is pretty good.  The lighting is way off, which has a tendency to spoil the effect, but the detail in the CGI is remarkable.  The Enterprise, in particular is - until next month - by far the best screen representation of the ship, and it is quite accurate - although it mixes the ship’s appearance during different periods.  The Hornet is often seen sailing less than a thousand yards beside it, and although the camouflage scheme has the usual error - which I have yet to avoid - of not using Haze Gray above the flight deck, it’s still pretty good.  Until you see that the two carriers sport giant flight deck numbers - a black 6 on Enterprise and a white 8 on Hornet.  

That’s one of the disappointing things about the movie.  Low budget notwithstanding, it gets so much right, both in story and detail, then misses equally accessible details.  The SBDs have the correct markings, but the wrong propellor tips.  The captions accurately identify all the squadrons and events - then a pilot will refer to meeting up with “VB-6”, when I’m pretty sure they always referred to the squadrons as “Bombing 6”.  (At least that’s the caption Dick Best put on my Midway print in 1992 - he signed it “CO Bombing 6 USS Enterprise 4 June 1942” so I assume that’s what it was referred to at the time). And the aircraft are scattered on the deck, rather than in a tight deck pack prior to launch, which I found grating - and inexplicable. How could so much attention to detail go into the effects and then have easy errors like Mk 37 gun directors and a giant flight deck numeral 6 on  an Enterprise that is otherwise almost exactly accurate for June 1942. Literally the only other error I saw was a missing catwalk on the starboard side of the stack - which was a post-Midway change.

It’s also jarring when the dramatic launch of the SBDs from the Enterprise is accompanied by Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets.  The attack on an under detailed but accurate Kaga is accompanied by Mars before the music segues into something broadly similar, but which I didn’t recognize.  Not bad, but ... jarring.  But it is really fun to watch things happen during the flight that match up with the historical record, even when it doesn’t contribute anything to the movie.  

But if you watch it on a small enough screen that the effects don’t distract, it does tell a couple of good stories.  Judd Nelson as Admiral Raymond Spruance spars with C. Thomas Howell as Captain Miles Browning and they replay various generally accurate confrontations, mostly after the 4 June attack.  For example, the “turn the lights on” scene (Spruance did it at Midway two years before Mitscher at Philippine Sea) and the “I’ll do what you pilots want” scenes are accurate as long as you’re not checking precise dialogue. Nelson handles Spruance well, and he provides the narrative for the movie, explaining in a couple of sentences of dialogue what the tiny movie could never have shot (if only because the director’s back yard wasn’t big enough). At this level, the story is spot-on. 

The heart of the movie - which to its credit it makes hard to watch - is the ordeal faced by downed pilots who drifted in the ocean for days, and in some cases weeks waiting for rescue. The movie tells the story of two specific pilots from the Enterprise who ditched after bombing the Kaga, and long after I’ve forgotten the inaccurate effects or bad writing I’ll remember the insight it gives watchers into the special hell that must have been.

In the end, if you dream of seeing an almost perfectly accurate June 1942 Enterprise filmed cinematographically launching its strike on the morning of June 4 - this movie is for you.  But I’ll understand if you want to wait till next month.  I just couldn’t.

 

Revell angled deck Essex - bow "knuckle" & flight deck installation

One of the characteristics of the SCB-125 Essex class carriers was a prominent crease or "knuckle" at the bow which marks where the class' original open bow was plated in from the forecastle deck to the gallery deck. The knuckle disappears where it meets the hurricane bow, which was all-new construction, and this is approximately where the anchor is located.

On the modern carriers there is no crease - it's a smooth curve up to the flight deck - but on the modernized Essex class ships there is a distinct line.

The 1943 Essex model above shows the "lip" at the forecastle deck.  The lower edge is what would become the "knuckle" in the postwar refits.

Unfortunately, when I measured the kit's version of the knuckle - which is really just a bulge - it was significantly below where it needed to be.  The correct location is the upper pencil line, and the kit location was the lower.

So I sanded the existing knuckle down with the Dremel (ignoring the fact that as I've noted previously, the hull is a little wider than it should be here anyway), and glued strips of angled plastic.  That white strip will tell me where the curve changes, and provide a sharp line that will hopefully match that on the real ship.

I did a little more work on the gallery deck and port sponsons before realizing that it was time for the big step - reattaching the flight deck. I double checked that all the gallery deck sponsons were sanded down properly, and marked the parts that needed plastic cement and the ones that needed super glue (the resin hangar deck needs it where it attaches to plastic).
Next step is the one I've been looking forward to for a long, long time - puttying the bow into the gallery deck - now with an accurate "knuckle" to guide the sanding. The selfie at the top is the current status with two applications of putty (too thick and it won't dry properly) - with the lower (hull) section getting a sanding in between.  The upper (forecastle) part will need a couple more applications before I can start shaping it.

 

 

 

Revell angled deck Essex - gallery deck pt. 2 - gun platforms and sponsons

The Revell angled deck Essex is a little like the AMT Star Trek Enterprise in that I’ve looked at the models hundreds of times more than I have even photos of the real article, so sometimes it’s a surprise that the familiar arrangement of the kit doesn’t match the real ship.

One of the examples of this is the gallery deck platforms for the modernized carriers’ 5” .38 cal. guns.  This became a consideration when I decided that the platforms were far enough off - primarily that they were .04" too low - that I would rebuild them to match the 1966 plans and contemporary photos.

The basic plan was to sand the existing platforms flat and place new correctly elevated and shaped platforms on them, then rebuild the sponsons as needed.  That ended up being a bigger project than I initially anticipated.  (These photos are taken while I'm still sanding and fitting parts together, so the appearance is not final).

Port - forward

The platforms on the port side are original to the ship’s construction during World War II, but there’s a major difference forward.  While the shelf supporting the mounts looked fine at first glance - after all, I’ve been looking at it for 40 years and never noticed anything - when I checked my 1993 photos of the Yorktown I was surprised to realize that the platform doesn’t sit on a shelf at all - it rests on a sponson that’s smoothly faired into the hull. Can’t imagine how I missed that.  

Now the 40mm quad that it once held aft of the 5" mounts was on a shelf, as shown in this February 1, 1943 photo of Essex newly commissioned, and maybe that was the origin of the kit’s configuration, but by 1968 the Essex’ had been removed.  One difference between the kit gun platforms and the real thing was that the former didn’t recess under the flight deck as they should have, so that adds some shadow detail to the model - as shown in this 1968 picture taken during the Apollo 7 recovery operation - precisely the period I am building the ship to.

I built the sponson up using putty, and after cutting out essentially the entire hangar and gallery deck of the kit in this area, I reconstructed it using sheet plastic, and left an opening for the new platform.

Port - aft

The aft platform was correctly shaped, but extended significantly too far out, so I cut the sponson back, sanded the existing platform flat, and added the new platform on top of that.  Kudos to the designers of the original 1957 kit here - after studying a Yorktown photo closely I noticed that the forward edge of the sponson was slanted slightly as a result of the hull being slightly wider here after the SCB-27A conversion.  Sure enough, the kit’s sponson is slightly slanted the same way.

Starboard

The starboard sponson was new to the Essex class ships, but reminiscent of the same platform on the older Yorktown class ships and appears to be the same as the existing port sponson , although the platform somehow extends further from the flight deck, and the recessed area is less.

But in studying the photos it became clear that the sponson extended significantly further back than the model - so I added sheet plastic platform deck and framing and puttied it in. As the existing platform stayed in place it shows how much had to be built up.  I then placed the new platform on top of the old.

More sanding next, and finishing up the hull and getting the platforms glued in place, then I'll prime everything to make sure it's good.  Then it's time to start adding railing to the platforms.

BTW there is also a completely new sponson on the starboard side aft - it's already had railings added and been painted, so it doesn't show up as well as the three new platforms.

When the flight deck is added, there will be yet more extreme puttying and sanding, of almost everything forward of the sponsons, so we're a long way from starting detailing still.  But I thought I'd bring out the 3D printed gun mounts for the overall picture at this stage.

Revell angled deck Essex - gallery deck pt. 1

The whole reason for this resurrection build of the 1957 Revell kit I first built in 1981 was to get the hangar deck walls - which were originally the outer hull of the ship all the way down to the waterline - to line back up with the flight deck. The Revell kit has the hangar wall inset, as shown at right in a picture of this kit as CV-31 before I took it apart to start this build.

As the above photo next to the 1/700 1943 Essex shows, the flight deck is finally aligned (there's now a tab near the stern that holds it in the right position) so that the hangar sides match it exactly.  This alignment will be even better when the flight deck is glued in place, but then obscured when the catwalks are added, but it's rewarding to see it now.

With  the flight deck aligned, the next step is adding the gallery deck around the sides of the flight deck.  I measured the precise height using the FDD plans and cut strips of plastic the appropriate widths, keeping in mind that the flight deck is approximately .06" thick already, generally over a third of the finished height.

The starboard side needed an additional 5" gun gallery aft so after a couple of false starts on the measurements I finally got that built into the hull with a recess in the gallery and flight deck above it. 

Next was the very odd shaped section over the forward hangar deck opening (the white plastic in the photo to the left below).  The photo to the right, taken shortly after the Essex' SCB-27A modernization, showed the shape of the gallery deck, which in most photos is obscured by the catwalk. With this photo as a guide, I was able to locate the right lines on the blueprints and duplicate them in the right scale. Again, it'll be obscured by the catwalk, but it'll be right.

Essex (CV-9) off Japan or Korea - Summer 1952

 

 

Setting the correct elevation for the new 5" gun tub on the starboard side made me realize that the two forward 5" tubs would need to be raised slightly - in fact completely rebuilt - so for a change of pace I moved to the port side and did the corresponding weird forward section, as well as some initial bracing for the angled flight deck sponsons as I start to figure this area out. 

The thing about the gallery deck is that contrary to how almost every Essex carrier model is built, the gallery deck needs to be full height all the way to the hangar deck walls (in most cases it runs all the way across the ship) and not just a flat panel hanging off the side of the flight deck. So once I had the outer face in place I put spacers and a bottom all the way back to the hangar deck - which is why the above photo is from below.  This ended up being a lot easier than I had feared, so when I got a few minutes later in the day I went back and added the same thing for most of the aft starboard side as well.

 

Essex (CVS-9) in Hamburg - 1968

As this (right-side up) photo from the Essex' 1968 visit to Hamburg shows, this area will be covered with a lot of detail once the catwalks and life rafts are in place.