Lost to the Deep

[RollTide]

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• Thinking About Participating
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Group Build Title: Lost to the Deep

Group Build Leader(s): @RollTide

**Group Build Description:**The "Lost to the Deep Campaign is here!!! The idea is to honor those ships, aircraft, or vehicles, either military or civilian, that were lost in either an accident or through combat actions. This will be a 12 month campaign in order to provide everyone with sufficient time to complete their build. The subject can be built as either before its sinking or after, completely up to the builder. The main point is to have fun!

General Rules and Guidelines:

• Start Date: 01 March 2022 - End Date: 01 March 2023
• Any Scale
• Military or Civilian vehicle / aircraft that was lost to the deep blue see wither through combat or accidentally
• NOTE: If subject is not a ship please provide a photo of your subject in the deep with your entry picture
• Can be displayed prior to or after its sinking
• New Kit or no more than 25% started
• Initial picture of kit and as many in-progress pictures as you want
• Provide history / circumstances of the ships sinking along with the initial picture
• Provide a picture of your completed model
• Model can be stand alone or included in a diorama
• Have Fun!!!

Completion Award:

A Note about Awards: The following text is a reminder that in order for people participating and finishing their projects to receive a badge on their forum profile, they will need to provide their account username to the group build leader by the completion date of the build. The leader will then provide this list to the site admin who will bulk award the badges to those users who have finished the group build. If you don’t provide your username or finish the project on the timetable the leader has setup you will not be able to receive an award.

[Mead93]

Think I may hop in with Academy’s 1/350 USS Indianapolis. Need to source some PE upgrade sets though! It’ll also be my first ever ship so I need to decide if the Indy is too big a project to start with

[RollTide]

glad to have you along for the ride!!

[john41492]

I’m in! Planning to do Hasegawa’s 1/350 USS Gambier Bay. My niece and I started it last month, and have just closed the hull halves, so pretty close to un-started.

[RollTide]

John - great to have you aboard!!

David

[ErnieS]

I am in, I will build the USS Scorpion from the Mikro Mir Skipjack kit.

[SGTJKJ]

Sounds fun. Time to build a ship or a plane. I have no idea which one, but I will go through the stash and see what is there

[Mead93]

Can build the model in a scheme other than the one it was sunk in? I want to build the USS Underhill which I think was in measure 22 when it was sunk, but I kind of want to do it in its earlier dazzle camo? I assume it’s good becuase the description says it can be built before or after sinking

[RollTide]

@Mead93 - yes sir, I am good with your course of action.

David

[Mead93]

Cheers! Dazzle it is!

[RollTide]

Hey everyone - so today is the day that your journey begins. I hope everyone has had the chance to select their subject and also advertised this great campaign.

Look forward to seeing what everyone is building and the story behind their build.

Enjoy the next 12 months and remember - slow is steady, steady is fast!!

David

[Mead93]

My contribution:

First off the kit. I will be building the Trumpeter 1/350 USS England kit. But I won’t be building her as England. I’ll be build here as USS underhill. I will be upgrading her with WEM PE, infini models 20 mm Oerlikons, and BCM 40 MM bofors

The ship:

As I stated I’ll be building her as USS underhill, and for this I’ve chosen to do her in her dazzle scheme.

Which she wore in late 1944 (I think). It is not the scheme she was sunk in but I think it’s more attractive then measure 22. Sometime in 44 she got retro fitted and received 4 single 40 mm bofors in place of her torpedo tubes midship, hence the BCM 40mm upgrades. I will need to scratch build the platforms for them but that should be straight forward.

Underhill served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and pacific, which is where she was finally sunk. On July 24, 1945 while on patrol off the coast of the Philippines, she detected a Japanese scout plane on radar, and then 3 submarine contacts, while pursuing the submarines, the convoy underhill was leading came across a dummy mine which underhill attempted to blow up. While engaging the mine, two Kaiten manned torpedos appeared on starboard and port. The starboard side Kaiten hit underhill taking her to the bottom. Roughly half the crew, 112 men lost their lives.

This will be my first ship build and I’m very excited for it!

[RollTide]

@Mead93 - Sir glad to have you aboard for this journey - looking forward to watching your first ship build.

For me I will be building the 1/350 Hasegawa IJN Submarine Depot Ship Heain Maru.

This will be part of a bigger diorama that will include six submarines but for the purpose of the campaign I will focus on the IJN Heian Maru.

HISTORY

After Heian Maru returned to Japan in August 1941, NYK was informed that due to rising tension between Japan and the United States, the liner would be converted to military use. On 3 October the ship was formally requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and designated as an auxiliary submarine tender with the Yokosuka Naval District. Two weeks later conversion was begun at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Kobe. Amongst numerous other alterations, four 15 cm/50 41st Year Type naval guns, two dual-mount 13 mm AA guns, two searchlights, and a rangefinder were installed.

Early the following morning, 18 February 1944, Heian Maru got underway as the American aerial attacks resumed. Shortly after 0300 she was struck, in quick succession, by two pairs of bombs; fire engulfed the bridge and threatened the hold containing the remaining torpedoes. The wounded ship began sinking, and at about 0500 Captain Tamaki gave the order to abandon ship. Most of the crew, including Tamaki, reached the shore safely, but a total of 18 men were killed, and 25 wounded.[1]

At 0900, Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers from USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) attacked the still-burning Heian Maru, a torpedo striking her amidships on the port side. She sank soon after, coming to a rest on her port side in about 110 feet of water.

On 31 March 1944 the Heian Maru was officially removed from the navy list.[1]

I have already started the kit by gluing the hull together, drilling out the port holes and working on the foredeck.

My work on the IJN Light Cruiser Tama is about to conclude and once that is done this ship will be the main focus.

Look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

David

[john41492]

Hi All,

Looks like we’re off to a great start! I’ll be attempting Hasegawa’s 1/350 USS Gambier Bay, with White Ensign Models PE set, and the airwing set (though doubt much will be used from it).

This will be the first aircraft carrier I’ve done in 45 years, so I hope that my skills have improved since then! My niece helped me to glue the hull together, aside from that nothing has been done except a lot of reading, getting the paints ready, and looking for some decent rigging line.

I plan to run the history of the ship as I build along with all sorts of fun facts!

The USS Gambier Bay, a Casablanca Class Escort Carrier of the US Navy. She was laid down on 10 July, 1943 at the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company, Vancouver, Washington.

[RollTide]

@john41492 - Glad to have you aboard, look forward to watching this build.

David

[McRunty]

I find myself in a quandary. I have 9 ships which could work for this. The issue is most of them are capital ships (which take time).

Still, I do have time to make my choice since I will only be starting once I clear my desk of current kits (2 AFV’s, 1 submarine and 1 littoral combat ship, HMS Dragon)

[McRunty]

After a lot of pondering I have decided to go with ICM’s 1/350 SMS Konig who currently resides at the bottom of Scapa Flow.

I had originally planned to build her for the burning coal campaign but that unfortunately didn’t happen. 2021 was a bit of a bugger for me when it came to ship building. I got as far as cleaning up the mold lines on the bottom of the hull and that was it.

I have a basic set of PE for her and turned brass barrels for the main battery of 30.5cm guns. I have 2 IFV’s in the paint shop and a half built LCS on the desk. Once they are done and the slip ways are cleared I will get cracking on her.

[RollTide]

@McRunty - great choice, cant wait to see this build begin

David

[john41492]

Rory,
Great job of addressing the bench issue! Looking forward to seeing what you do with that kit.

[McRunty]

Now that the slip ways have been cleared with the completion of USS Independence, I can move onto the Konig.

Small start, reviewed the instructions and started hull prep. The plastic is very soft and flimsy on this kit so I went ahead and stiffened up the hull with some sprue. I salvaged the sprue from another kit with much harder plastic.

I will be doing a build log on this ship over on the Ships section of the forum.