I haven’t posted in all of 2018. A lot has happened, but now that I have allegedly retired, I’m going to try to be more religious about posting.

Let’s see if we can do something with current projects.

Richard Latture, Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. Naval Institute‘s Naval History magazine, is working on a project to be printed in conjunction with the release of a new Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound, about destroyer combat in the North Atlantic during World War II. The film uses the destroyer Kidd (DD-661), which is on display in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as part of the setting. Although Fletcher-class destroyers served almost exclusively in the Pacific, there are no extant examples of the Gleaves and Benson classes, which would be representative of the Atlantic destroyers.

Former USS Kidd (DD-661) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

My assignment was to do a cutaway drawing of the Kidd. This is by far my most intense project. First thing is I knew it would not be 100 percent. That goes completely against the way I want to work, but it is a reality. That is simply a given when a deadline is staring you in the face along with little details such as time and money. The goal is to get the important parts right and live with representations or approximations for those that aren’t. Bottom line: it is not a photograph.

In starting a project, I collect as many base drawings as possible. This is, sadly, where the first compromises enter the project. Drawings simply do not match up. I have a fairly extensive collection of books to rely on for the initial search. I know which authors to trust and how much Kentucky windage needs to be used on other authors’ work. (One, whom shall not be named, has a great reputation for plans and models, but his plan view lines do not link with his profiles and sections. Where did he got that rep?) I check their sources, if  available, for additional information.

Less than a tenth of my collection.

I also have a decent collection of drawings that I’ve obtained from various sources primarily the National Archives and the Library of Congress. I was fortunate in this instance to trip over a collection of several hundred drawings on microfilm of the Fletcher-class. However, another caveat creeps in.

Fletchers were built at 11 different yards. And they were not identical. The plans I found were from the Bath Iron Works in Maine. Kidd was built by Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Kearny, New Jersey. I know the two sets of plans are not identical. I just don’t know what is different and where.

Even though I have these great drawings, they provide another three caveats.

1. Bath built at least three, and possibly four, different sets of Fletchers, known today as “flights.” There are detail differences between each. Assuming the same for Federal, which flight would match most closely to Kidd?

2. Even within these set of Bath drawings, the profiles, sections, and plan views do not match among flights for general outlines. I assume this is because of the microfilming process.

3. Many of the drawings needed to be combined; i.e., there were multiple frames of one drawing. Again, in linking these, there were dimensional differences and adjacent images would not be 100 percent in alignment.

The first three images need to be combined to form one complete drawing.

So, just in selecting whcih drawings tomwork from forces a number of decisions to be made, each of them getting the result farther from what is accurate.

Bottom line: I am not building a destroyer.