Thanks Ken. I remember one interesting story he told. He had a friend that was a Jug pilot and this friend offered to take my dad up for a ride. He explained that he would not wear his parachute and would fly the plane while sitting on my dads lap to make room in the single seater aircraft. Dad declined and said it was just a few days later, that while on a flight, the Jug developed mechanical problems and the pilot was unable to bail out in time before it crashed.
A person always can look back and wish they had preserved some of these stories. So many of the veterans of the Big War are gone now.
I was wondering to myself, why I put this kit aside? I remember now, it’s the 1/4" thick sprues, on both body pieces…4 each. I can see lots of putty being used.
I actually got the other side done, without too much damage. Honestly, I will have some fun doing this build. I may have to research, by watching the 1st movie again. For the 1000th time [:)]
That is fine Eric. I am not that familiar with science fiction kits. I have not built any since I was a kid. I had seen some with scales on them so I just took it for granted that they all did. I believe Cliff has built some recently, at least he did acquire the new Star Trek Enterprise kit recently.
I built the old original AMT Star Trek Enterprise kit long ago which is now long gone. It was the version with the lights. Funny, I know that kit would be worth a lot of money now!
I don’t know how many times I have watched the entire series. I was really close to buying the Blu-ray set when the first 3-D movie came out. Since I have a 3-D entertainment center I will now wait until the 3-D version comes out on Blu-ray.
Jim: Thanks for sharing with us, that’s some interesting stuff!
I wish I knew more about my uncle’s service but he never seemed to ever want to talk about it, and it’s one of those things I never knew how to bring up. When I was a kid him and my aunt used to take us to church and my sister and I would spend the Sunday evening with them. Once I had the old Monogram P-38 in 1/48th and it impressed me to no end when he told me about seeing them flying over back then. And they took us out to the battleship North Carolina once and I was fascinated with his stories of how it was to live on such a floating city. I wish I could remember more of his stories now.
I know he served as a cook and an AA gunner on a landing craft, I’m not sure which vessel though other than she fought in the Pacific - which of course narrows it down to what - a couple hundred ships? He did have some photos and memorabilia, I’m going to have to find out what happened to it.
My dad served as an orderly, he jokes about spending his time toting bed pans, hey someone has to do it right!
Eric: Now that’s a cool vintage kit! I’m afraid I was always more of a Trek geek than a Wars geek and the only SW ships I built was the Tie Interceptor from RotJ, which I think turned out ok, and the Star Destroyer, which I really messed up and ended up in the spare parts box. You might want to check around to some of the online sites like Starship Modeler and CultTVman, I’ve seen people take those old kits and turn out some really sharp work with them!
Ken: I you should find anymore photos of cars you and your dad painted I’d love to see them!
Thanks for your remembrance of the holiday, Ken, and I salute you and your father and Cliff and Jimbot and all of you as well as your relatives and friends who served and are serving. I would also like to mention my dad who served in the Navy with the CBs (Seabees) in the Pacific. I know he was at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and probably many others on the road to Japan. Like many of you, I always planned to sit down with him and ask him about his service, but time and distance always seem to intervene and it just never happened. I’ll always regret that.
Wow Russ, Guadalcanal! That was a hell hole! In fact the whole Pacific theater was horrific nightmare against the Japanese. At least with the Germans they would give up (most of the time) when it was obvious it was over. But with the Japanese, they fought until the death with very little exception. Very tough to fight an enemy like that.
What can I say Cliff, the same is true for your uncle about the Pacific theater. That had to be a tough job, an AA gunner on a landing craft. I bet he saw some intense fighting!
Yes it was. Dad wasn’t at Guadalcanal when the major fighting was going on. He came in later with reinforcements to start building a larger Henderson field. But everybody there had to constantly deal with raids by die-hard Japanese that were left on the island after their main forces pulled out. He wouldn’t say much about it though.
Guys, I did find out some more about my uncle’s ship- LST-663, from an online site I found:
During World War II, LST-663 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the following operations:
Capture and occupation of southern Palau Islands—September and October 1944
Leyte landings—October and November 1944
Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto—April through June 1945
Couldn’t find a photo of her, but did of her sister LST-662:
Apparently she was also one of the landing craft waiting off the coast of the Philippines when Taffy-3 convinced the Japanese fleet led by IJN Yamato to back off in the Battle of Samar. If they’d broken though I’d probably never known my uncle…
I’m not sure it was a matter of guts, just a weird miscalculation by the Japanese admiral. Apparently he has trying to carefully husband his forces and thought from the intensity of the attack the US Navy and land based aircraft were a lot more powerful than what was there.
In the early hours of October 25 1944 the ships of task group Taffy 3 had no idea that they were in harm’s way. The ships of Taffy 3 consisted of a force of six escort carriers,four destroyers,and three destroyer escorts. This small force along with it’s sister groups,Taffy 1 and Taffy 3 was in place to protect the beaches of General Douglas MacArthur’s Philippine landing force at Leyte Gulf.
The Japanese forces coming out of the dawn’s mist included 11 destroyers, 2 light cruisers, 6 heavy cruisers, 4 battleships,including the super battleship Yamato. The Yamato was the largest battleship ever built. The combined tonnage of all the ships of Taffy 3,were less the the tonnage of the Yamato alone.
It was a great heroic battle Cliff! And then you said they went on to participate in the Okinawa campaign, which was full of Kamikaze attacks. Your uncle saw some very intense battles!
Losing one’s nerve like Kurita did when sitting on the world’s most powerful battle group maybe isn’t a lack of guts, but it is a lack of courage. He was probably spooked after seeing what U.S. Navy Airmen did to the Musashi. The younger Japanese commanders would never have done that. Yeah, one heck of a story about courage.
I have removed the flash (or I should say chiseled) off the upper and lower hull, assembled the landing gear and the twin solar panels. I have also begun assembly, on the cockpit.
I was planning on using the Darth Vader figure, that came with the kit, but it’s scale is too large. It looks like he would be jammed in there. I will paint the figure anyway.
