Memorial Day GB 2006-2007

heres the DANFS file on the Eatons service during WWII my father did not serve on her until the 50s

USS Eaton DD-510

(DD-510: dp. 2,050; 1. 376’6"; b. 40’; dr. 17’9"; s. 36 k.;cpl. 273; a. 5 5", 10 2l" tt., 6 dcp., 2 dct.; cl. Fletcher)

Eaton (DD-510) was launched 20 September 1942 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; sponsored by Mrs. Mary Eaton Phillips, great-great-granddaughter of General Eaton; and commissioned 4 December 1942, Lieutenant Commander E. L. Beck in command.

Eaton departed Casco Bay, Me., 6 February 1943 for duty in the Pacific. Arriving at Efate, New Hebrides, 7 March, she patrolled with Cruiser Division 12 between that port and the Solomons. She also escorted convoys from Espiritu Santo and Noumea to Guadalcanal. After 10 August, from a new base at Port Purvis, Florida Island, she supported landings at Rendova, Vella Lavella, and Bayacoma. In September, she rejoined Cruiser Division 12 for sweeps against Japanese shipping in the “Slot,” sinking many barges. On 1 October she got Japanese submarine 1-20 in 07° 40" S., 157° 10" E., in the vicinity of Vella Lavella.

After a dash to Auckland, Eaton embarked Rear Admiral G. H. Fort and staff on 26 October and served as flagship for the landings on Treasury Island the following day. Prior to the landings at Empress Augusta Bay, she led fast minelayers Tracy (DM-19) and Pruitt (DM-22) through Bougainville Straits to seal off the eastern approach, on the night of 1-2 November.

She continued to patrol from Port Purvis to Bougainville. On 13 November she rushed to help screen the crippled Denver (CL-58), damaged in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. Relieved by Dawson (DD-572) the following day, she continued to escort resupply convoys to Bougainville, Treasury, and Vella Lavella, as well as to bombard coast batteries and hunt Japanese ships. She took part in the landings on Green Island on 16 February 1944 and on Emirau Island on 20 March.

Eaton sailed 4 May 1944 for the Marshalls, arriving at Majuro the 7th. Between 29 May and 2 June, she joined Greiner (DE-37) and Sanders (DE-40) in reconnaissance and bombardment of Kusaie Island in the eastern Carolines. On 11 June, she left Kwajalein for the invasion of Saipan, which began 4 days later. Eaton provided fire support, including harassing and illumination fire, against Saipan and Tinian and captured three Japanese aviators from a raft. On 12 August she sailed from Saipan for overhaul at Mare Island.

Eaton joined the covering force for the Leyte operation at Leyte Gulf, 25 November 1944. She sank an enemy freighter on 1 December and bombarded Ormoc Bay as she headed to cover the Mindoro landings in December. Returning to Manus 2 days before Christmas, she was up in Lingayen Gulf Luzon, on 9 January 1945 for screen and patrol duty. During the assault, the following night her crew destroyed an enemy suicide boat only 25 yards from the ship. The explosion killed 1 and wounded 14 of Eaton’s men. She escorted transports in ballast from Lingayen to Leyte in January, bombarded Corregidor in February, and returned to Leyte Gulf, 1 March.

Through May she continued in the liberation of the Philippines, in the landings at Mangarin Bay, Mindoro on Panay, and on Mindanao. Sailing from Subic Bay 7 June 1945, Eaton covered the landings at Brunei Bay, Borneo, on 10 June, supporting minesweeping operations, and providing fire support for the invading Australians and underwater demolition teams. Next came invaluable aid to the assault on the great oil depot of Balikpapan, 1 and 2 July. She returned to San Pedro Bay, 5 July, and her base for operations until the end of hostilities.

Eaton went north, 28 August 1945, to support minesweeping operations in the Yellow Sea off Jinsen (Inchon) in preparation for landing the following month. From 6 September to the end of October, she directed sweeping the Yangtze River approaches and acted as harbor entrance control vessel at Shanghai.

On 9 September, five Japanese vessels attempting to leave that port were intercepted and boarded by a party from Eaton; a prize crew remained on board Medium Landing Ship No. 5 for nearly a month. Joining the South China Force, Eaton was based at Hong Kong and visited ports on the 2,000-mile sweep of Chinese coast, all the way from Haiphong, Indo China, to Hulutao Manchuria, until 29 December 1945.

She arrived at New York 8 February 1946 and the following month sailed to Charleston, S.C., where she was placed out of commission in reserve, 21 June 1946.

Reclassified DDE-510, 2 January 1951, Eaton was recommissioned 11 December 1951 and joined Escort Division 22 at Norfolk, 29 May 1952. She operated as far as the Caribbean and made two midshipman cruises in the summer of 1953: the first to England, France and Italy, the second to Halifax, Nova Scotia. She sailed 28 April 1954 for NATO exercises off Londonderry, followed by a good will tour of ports in Germany Belgium, Denmark, England, and France before joining the 6th Fleet for exercises in the Mediterranean, including a mock “defense” of Turkey.

After rescuing four survivors from SS Mornackite on her return passage, Eaton arrived at Norfolk, 10 October. An African cruise between 18 March and 26 July 1957 took her by way of the Azores to Freetown Simonstown, Mombasa, Aden, and Massawa. She operated through the blistering Red Sea between Aden and Massawa much of May, then on through Suez to Mediterranean ports and Norfolk. A visit to British waters in the fall of 1957 and two to Canada varied Eaton’s Atlantic and Caribbean duty through 1960.

Eaton received 11 battle stars for World War II service.

this picture is of the Eaton in her post 1951 configuration I am planning on building her in her 1943/44 configuration below

2 More days to go !!!

well wer’e underway I’m still doing research on the Eatons colors I may have to hit the national archives for more pics

Chris here’s a good site for getting schemes and colors of WWII ships. This link is to the Fletcher class DD’s which as you scroll down the list you will see the Eaton. It shows the scheme used for 1943 and 1945. I am assuming due to 1944 being blank that she wore the same scheme as 43 there too. If you click on the link for MS21 or MS22 they have example pics and you can reference the colors in the color chips section of the site.

good luck!

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/fletcher_class.htm

I kinda like that MS22 scheme… defintiely different looking!!!

Well the gang over on the ship forum has notified me on how much of a LEMON the trumpeter Sullivans kit is and upon closer inspection the faults are rather evident so I am going to be ordering ALOT more AM stuff then at first planned about 80$ worth of weaponry and directors from L’Arsenal to replace ALL the guns and gun director mounts as well as the Gold Medal Models Fletcher detail set model ship$25 AM weapons $80 GMM detail set $20 One gift of my fathers ship to him ABSOFREAKINGLOUTLY PRICELESS!!![:-,]

Got the F-111 started. (1/72nd scale)

For the tail ID info, I was gong to get into Photoshop and make the LN that I need. Does the decal paper by Testors work pretty good from this program using an inkjet printer? I found some great photos of the base in operation on the interent.

The photos that my sister took, we can’t find!! [:(] [banghead] [BH] [D)] Too bad, I remember that she got some great photos of the cockpit and wheel bays.

I’ll try to post some progress photos later this week…

another thing you may want to try with the decals is take the sheet and the file you want to print to a Staples or Office Max type place that has a copy center and have them print it out on a hi res printer i tried it to make a Decal for my nephew’s Fender guitar then sealed it down nicely on the guitar it came out great[#offtopic][oops]

With so many other GBs going on this has a bit of a slow start I basically started on the sections not being replaced with AM parts the hull and cleaning up the basic superstructure then I need to wait for the GMM detail set to see what superstructure details are going to be replaced. More later[;)]

There may be a slight change of plans regarding my B-24 in the near future. I’ve been doing some research (ok, alot of research) and found that the 1/48 Monogram I have has the wrong nose since it’s a “J” and I need an “H” (from the Douglas/Tulsa plant). Now, Cutting Edge has a conversion kit that I can get from Great Models for around $28, but I thought I’d try something else first. So, I ordered a 1/72 MPC Profile Series B-24 ($10 on Evil Bay) because from the pics I’ve seen, it looks to have the proper nose. Or at least close enough so a little scratch building would get it. Besides, I was thinking that a 1/48 might be a little too big for my display case, so we’ll see if this will work. I’ll let you guys know more when the MPC kit gets here…

Geoff I know what you mean on the size issue I have to figure out where to display my 1/72 B-52 Stratofortress and B-36 Peacemaker for the"size matters GB"! I see much fishing line in my future [;)] Just let me know when your stuff arives and I will adjust the list then [:D]

Oh BTW I fixed the broken links to the Eatons photos at the top of this page[:slight_smile:]

I’ve been itching to get started on my B-25 but with one more thing in the build pile for another Gb am trying to hold on a bit longer for patience sake. I think I am going to buy the interior and bomb bay PE sets for this… I might break open the kits and see what the seats are like, if lacking get the Aries interior set if for the seats alone! (usually they are the weak link in the interior) I also want to see how the glass looks on this thing, I am doing the Hasegawa He111 right now and it looks like there won’t be much to see on this thing once it’s all closed up, not enough to worry about all the detail anyway. (the kit I will be doing is the Hasegawa B25-J, which is why I am wondering if the glass is the same as their He111)

Anyway, maybe a week or so and I will be ready!!!

most decals except for the stencils will be handmade, the Nat’l insignia will be AM decals… it’s amazing the only decals out there for the B-25 are for 3 squadrons of 1 Bomb Group that served in the Pacific… seems like there should be a little more variety! Especially since there were at least 4 BG’s that used the B-25…

PunzerWulff

I defer to you for a ruling

Decasl do not exist for Harry Stewart’s aircraft and I just don’t have the time to try and custom make some at this time. But I have completed a Tuskegee aircrat as a direct result of that lunch. Will this be accepable?

More pics here:

http://www.finescale.com//CS/forums/640069/ShowPost.aspx#640069

Close enough for me WOW that bird came out Beautiful BTW you are the first to complete the build as well.I myself still need to get alot of the AM parts I need for the Eaton so far I just have the L’Arsenal 5"gun turrets the other weapons and the gun directors will be ordered as funds allow and the GMM detail set is in the mail and should arrive by this weekend. once again Great Job[:D][wow]

I must chime in here on this one…awsome work Marc! That is one fine looking Stang! Bravo!

Well my He-111 is almost done for the Battle of Britain GB… I am waiting on the goodies I ordered from greatmodels for the B-25 I will be building. I got the resin tires, interior detail set from eduard, the canopy masks and hmmm something else I forget what… OH!!! Nat’l insignia for that period of war in 1/72 scale.

I will be building a generic aircraft of the 42nd BG, custom printed decals for the BG insignia, maybe some other stuff… hopefully I will be able to start next weekend…

See yall then!!!

panzer, geoff… thnaks very much.

Marc - I see I forgot to add my comment on your build… awesome job on the NMF!!! and a very good build overall!

Thanks to eBay, I wound up with 3 kits of the same Revel 1/72nd F-111. I am building all three “assembly line”. The best of the three gets finished for basing at Lakenheath returning from ‘Gulf War 1’ (when my sister was stationed there). The other two, I have not yet decided upon the finish. (Leaning toward doing one from the ‘Lybian Raid’ in the early 80’s). Found a source for some decals that already have the Lakenheath info, so I have those on order. [:)] Need to find the website again that had a great collecton of photos of the F-111 operating from Lakenheath from the mid-80’s thru the end of the Gulf War.

Well I got the PE and such for the B-25, I’ll probably start this Friday… hopefully this will turn out as good as it already has in my mind’s eye!!

Tom & Mph Sounds great guys my model,GMM detail set,L’arsenal 5in gun set & 40mm bofors twin mount set are safely stored in a 5gal rubbermade tote awaiting my purchace of the 20mm set and the 2 sets of gun directors I need before assembely can really begin [:D]

Tom I joined the Figure GB and will be using the new airbrush on my entry (as soon as I replace my verlinden SS Sniper with something a little pair of hands got ahold of the"Army Man" and it is now MIA outside somewhere DOH[D)] ) TTFN

Chris - cool! I hope it works out for ya!!! And like I said if there are any questions feel free to ask! Have you had a chance to play with it yet?

And yeah… I know the thing about little AND big hands… I built a P-47 for a class at one of the schools in the district where I work… I went in a day or two ago to get pics of it for the GB I am in with it (I had forgotten to take pics) … my coworker picks it up and says “Hey!! does this…”

I almost screamed it to him… “Don’t touch that propellor!!!” He even had his index finger at the ready to try to spin it…

Good luck!!!