1/72 scale German light cruiser Munich. 1940

[Haratio Fales]

The Nose is looking better.

[Haratio Fales]

I'm going to finish the foil tape on the Hull, then sand it down with 400 grit sandpaper. Paint it with primer and polish it with wax so I can cast a couple of molds for the RC version.

[Haratio Fales]

Sorry I haven't posted in a week, I finished taping the Hull and have been applying spot putty on quite a few little area's. I have to finish scuff saning it and get it ready for primer, I acctually worked teh shape of the bottom to get the form and ended up making the Upper most deck come out at 5.5 scale feet, and it needs to be 7.5 so I need to raise the highth of these slightly to put it back into scale, this wont be hard, just time consuming. I'll post more pics when they don't look redundant.

[Haratio Fales]

I miss measured on the design and the second deck was out of scale. It was 5 and a half feet in height, and I had to add bosrds to bring it to 8 foot 3 inches which is in the line drawings.

[Haratio Fales]

I need to refoil the top and sand the whole thing down with 400 grit sand paper so I can get ready to make molds from it. I think on the next one, I'm going to make it baby butt smooth and then cast the molds, then do the foil tape trick on a fiberglass, or resincast hull. I do like the effect, it is just real delicate, and the mold plug is 170 lbs, so the tape wrinkles or tears if I bump it on any surface. I think that once I get it done on here, I can set it up to mold without moving it. and leave it on its deck till I get a mold made.

Here is a trivia question. What was the only enemy aircraft to drop bombs on the mainland/ lower 48 states durring WW2?

[Haratio Fales]

It was pointed out to me that a Japanese balloon did this and that is right. I should have wrote the question different. I'm looking for the only fixed wing aircraft that droped bombs on the mainland of the continental United States during WW2 that was from an enemy nation?

[Claudius]

It was pointed out to me that a Japanese balloon did this and that is right. I should have wrote the question different. I'm looking for the only fixed wing aircraft that droped bombs on the mainland of the continental United States during WW2 that was from an enemy nation?

A Japanese floatplane launched from a submarine?

[Hauptmann]

http://www.stelzried...ml/mshwma42.htm

From Out West Newspaper

July, 1990

World War II Air Raid in

Oregon Was a Real Bomb!

-----

When Jimmy Doolittle commanded his daring

World War II air raid on Tokyo, neither he

nor other American military brass could

have imagined the bizarre counter attack

by the Japanese five months later.

-----

Enraged at the invasion of their homeland, the Japanese devised a secret plan to ignite the forests of the American mainland with incendiary bombs. And even though few Americans know it today, the failed mission was actually carried out.

Chief Warrant Office and pilot Nubuo Fujita would be called upon to lead the invasion. In fact, it could be said Fujita was the invasion.

In Japan, on an otherwise routine day in 1942, Fujita was called into the office of Prince Takamatsu, Emperor Hirohito's brother and an important military officer. The Prince informed Fujita of a plan to bomb the American mainland. Fujita was elated at the thought. He envisioned something on the magnitude of Pearl Harbor. "Los Angeles or San Francisco?" he asked, eager to learn of his target. "Oregon," answered his superior. Then Fujita was told the details of an operation the Japanese military believed could burn up a large part of the Northwest and destroy the morale of the American people. So began a mission which would propel Fujita into the history books -- a mission so secret that it was a total surprise to American military intelligence. It was so secret, in fact, that it was a half-day after the attack before anyone knew there was an attack at all!

On August 15, 1942, Fujita boarded a 1950-ton Japanese submarine for the trip to the American shore. Stored on-board the small sub was a single-engine airplane which would transport him and his navigator Shoji Okuda on their daring raid. By early September, the ship had reached its planned position off the Oregon coast. Every morning for days thereafter, the periscope would be raised only to reveal weather too foul to fly in. Dejected, Fujita would retreat to his room to wait for the next day. Finally, on the morning of September 9, the weather cleared and the sea was calm. Fujita was told to get ready. Along with his regular gear, he packed a family treasure -- a Samurai sword that had been in his family for 400 years. If he was forced down, he could use it to end his life rather than be captured by the enemy.

His 'geta' float plane was assembled and then readied, and he and Okuda boarded. Moments later, the tiny aircraft and its two-man crew were catapulted into the skies and headed toward the Cape Blanco lighthouse on a southeasterly course into enemy territory. The secret mission to bomb Oregon was underway.

It was peaceful in Brookings, Oregon. Fishermen were slowly sailing out of port, and the citizens were sitting down for breakfast. The sound of a small plane flying overhead didn't alarm anyone. Little did the people of Brookings realize that they were in the midst of an air attack -- the first-ever manned aerial bombing of the American mainland.

Fujita and Okuda proceeded east past Brookings and prepared to drop their load -- two 160-pound incendiary bombs. An hour after leaving the sub, they were nearly in position.

Back in Japan, military leaders anxiously awaited word on the mission. Would the bombs explode and ignite the forest into flames as planned? Would the fire spread to the cities -- burning homes and factories and sending the American people into panic and depression? They could only hope -- and wait.

While they pondered from afar, Fujita was at 8,200 feet over a heavily wooded forest. He ordered Okuda to drop the bombs. Then they watched as they fell to earth. But they didn't wait around to see what happened. Instead they set a course to the ocean and the sanctuary of their sub. They landed the pontoon-equipped plane and it was soon disassembled and stored away on ship. Everything was going perfectly -- that is, until the Americans appeared. They had spotted the enemy sub from their airplane, and minutes later they were directly above and attacking with bombs! But, sadly for the Yanks, they were too late. The Japanese sub slipped below the ocean surface, and even though it was slightly damaged, it successfully hid on the bottom and eventually escaped.

About the same time, a little past noon, Mt. Emily fire lookout Howard Gardner radioed in a fire report. Then, on foot, he set out to find it. So did Keith Johnson from his lookout at Bear Wallow. At 4:20 p.m., they located the blaze -- a few small and easily-extinguished fires that involved only seven trees. But, more importantly, they determined that the fires were not caused by lightning as they had originally suspected, but by bombs from an enemy aircraft! Excited, they radioed in their finding. Within hours, the U.S. military, the FBI, and other government agencies were on the scene -- trying to piece together clues as to how an enemy plane could have invaded and then escaped American airspace without a trace. Fortunately, weather conditions were not favorable for a forest fire on September 9.

Johnson, an 18-year-old forestry student at the University of Nebraska, would be kept on by the Forest Service for three months for questioning, missing his fall semester.

Back on ship, Fujita, Okuda and the rest of the sub crew waited patiently off shore, preparing for another attack. It came 20 days later -- this time in a grassy area east of Port Orford. But unlike the previous attack, when one of the two bombs exploded, this time both fizzled. To this day, neither bomb has been located.

Their mission accomplished, Fujita and company sailed back to Japan. Okuda was later killed in action, but Fujita survived the war to become a successful businessman. In 1962, twenty years after the attack, he returned to Brookings as a guest of its citizens. To make amends for his attack, he presented the city with his cherished Samurai sword. "It is the finest of Samurai traditions to pledge peace and friendship by submitting the sword to a former enemy," he said through a translator. The sword was placed in the mayor's office, where it remains today.

This May, Fujita, 78, returned again to Brookings. He brought along his granddaughter. It would probably be his last chance to show her where he made history as the only flyer ever to bomb the United States mainland.

]Look, up in the Sky... It's a Bird... It's

a Plane... It's a Japanese Submariner!

-----

The Japanese Admiralty clung tenaciously to the desire to attack the continental U.S. Of course the responsibility to execute such a feat of daring fell to the Japanese submarine force. At the start of the war, 11 of the Japanese submarines in commission were outfitted with deck hangers to carry single-engine, catapult-launched, 'geta' float planes that were capable of flying 1.5 hours to target and back or 3 total hours of reconnaissance. These small craft had a top air speed of only about 115 miles per hour (185 km/hour). They were stored for transport in 12 separate pieces and assembled just prior to launch. Recovery took place when the aircraft returned to the mother ship, landed nearby on its floats, was disassembled and re-stowed. These aircraft were called 'geta' because of the resemblance of their floats to a common Japanese clog-like shoe of the same name.

While originally designed to assist the host submarine in long range reconnaissance missions for the fleet, a resourceful submariner eventually concluded that by attaching a few bombs to the aircraft, the 'geta' might be put to a more lethal use. This idea is attributed to Warrant Officer Nubuo Fujita, who was then stationed aboard the Japanese submarine I-25. Fujita’s original idea was to arm the 'geta' for use in assisting attacks upon U.S. surface ships in fleet actions - he believed that by doing this he could not only find the ships but attack them as well. When the Japanese Admiralty got wind of the idea, it had a grander mission in mind.

Briefed by no less a personage than Prince Takamatsu, the Emperor’s brother, Fujita was instructed to test his theory’s effectiveness on the American mainland itself! However daring this mission would be, it quickly became one of strategic convolution -- rather than a direct attack on one of the many targets of significance along the U.S. west coast, the orders given to Fujita were, incredulously, to bomb the forest approximately 75 miles north of the California border, in Oregon!

The reason for the Japanese Admiralty’s decision was recorded as "Rather than inflicting limited damage on industrial targets, since the northwestern U.S. is full of forests, we will start a blaze in the deep woods. The resulting forest fire will be very difficult to stop. Whole towns will be destroyed and it will create panic among the population."

After many months of training and fitting out the 'geta', the I-25 began its slow transit of the Pacific. It arrived off the coast of Oregon in the waning days of August, 1942. Ten days were spent on station by the anxious crew, with seas too high to launch the float plane. Finally, it calmed sufficiently to execute the mission. On September 9, 1942, Warrant Officer Fujita and his observer, Petty Officer Shoji Okuda, boarded their 'geta' and set off on a heading to inland Oregon.

Flying 50 miles inland undetected, Fujita and Okuda did, indeed, become the first and only enemy mission to successfully bomb the continental U.S. during WWII. They returned safely to the I-25 to report that "both bombs exploded perfectly and two large fires are spreading." However, what Japanese intelligence either did not know or failed to account for was that the target area in Oregon had been saturated with several weeks of recent rains. The fires were quickly put out with negligible damage to the forests and none to any population centers or industrial targets. The bombing was a closely kept secret in the U.S. and had virtually no effect on the American population.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Hauptmann

[Haratio Fales]

Wow You guys are above and beyond, seriously, on 5 other forums eveyone guessed the baloon, and only one member guessed the Glen, and he did look it up on wikipedia. but his post goes no where to the article You have here. I don't remember if it was on this post or another, I saw some good builds of the I 400's I THINK IN 1/350 scale. real detailed to. The work on the cruiser has been a bit slow as of late, I'm working small areas of the hull to work out the damage I hade to cause to the suface tape at the top, when I raised the second deck level. and added the layer of plywood. Im dressing teh split line with spot putty and will run another course of foil tape at the top so I can blend it in. I do notice that teh more I do the better it has been getting, and the faster I want to see it done, is when I mess it up. So the Joke I tell myself is, Dont worry if it takes a year to get the Hull right, just do it right. Oh and on the Plane up top, that is a Uniqe photo as the tail is different then on the model I have of the Glen.

[Haratio Fales]

I was planing to building the IJN yahagi in 72 scale, but I'm still scaling plans. I have plans scaled for the KMS Graf Spee for 72, so I might start on a hull for her, and start applying the lessons learned from the cruiser so It doesn't take me 3 months to build it. Anyway as soon as I have some appricable progress on teh Munich, I'll post some more pics, and If I start a new project to the parralelle Ill start a new post.

[Hauptmann]

We try.

Keep in mind that so many variations would have likely been made over time that slight differences like the difference in the tail are to be expected. Here's a bit more... including pic of Fujita by his plane and closeup of Fujita:

http://en.wikipedia...._submarine_I-25

Also HIJMS Submarine I-25: Tabular Record of Movement

http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-25.htm

Other than this and the balloon bomb there was also the incident involving the I-17 shelling a refinery in Ellwood near Santa Barbara, Ca:

http://www.militarymuseum.org/Ellwood.html

Dan :cheers:

[Haratio Fales]

That Is so awsome, as I didn't find anywhere near the info You have provided, just basic stuff like the claim that teh plane had the distinction of being the only one to acheave the mission. Nothing about the acctual mission, the people, the Sub, so Im glad I asked teh question here, as I got a serious History lesson in reply. Thank You again. Now back to my cruiser. I have to do a bunch of spot putty to repair damage I did when I raised the top deck, and to break the line it created. So I'll throw on a few pics, but not a bunch as it is all the same process. when I'm done repairing and rescribing it, it should be ready for molding, and I will get some good pics of that.

[Haratio Fales]

The Starboard Fore area. As You can see I have allot to go.

[Haratio Fales]

I have done more sanding to the Hull, but not enough to reflect a difference in teh photos. I let teh putty cure for a day before I sand it. in between I have started peliminary work on my next project. I will make a seperate post for it as I get enough work started on it to warrent it. I plan to work on it when I cant on teh cruiser. or in parralell, however I dont want it to take over the cruiser project. Here is a sneak peak. 1/ 72 scale Graf Spee.

[Claudius]

Great stuff. Keep the photos coming!!

[Haratio Fales]

Here is a couple pics of where I am retaping the top after spot putty where I did so much damage when I added th height.

[Haratio Fales]

I have been re tapping the hull, and teh second layer looks good over teh first pattern.

[Haratio Fales]

The whole hull retaped for the second pattern, ready to sand and prime.

[TacHel]

I don't understand exactly how you're doing this...

Isn't the metallic tape there to represent the armour plates? If so, what on Earth are going to be sanding down? I'm confused. :wacky:

[Haratio Fales]

I am going to scuff sand the tape surface with 600 grit sand paper, like you would a car surface, before painting. It will hold the line detail but look more like steel, than a chrome bumper, and the paint will adhere much better. I am going to apply several coats of release wax to it and make some molds from it for other projects, then use this hull for more detailing, like portholes to make a static model. So there is quite a bit of processes that it will go through in the near future, but it will end up being my main display model when finished. I plan to make a sheet mettal, or fiberglass copy from the mold for Remote Control applications otherwise I would already be adding portholes and wouldn't have made this hull so heavy.

I hope this sheds light to your question, and I do appriciate teh post following and interest into this project. I also appriciate how Knowledgable your members are about Millitary history and have added to the post, it makes it much more interesting to veiw.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Haratio Fales

[TacHel]

Aaaah... Now THAT makes sense!! I didn't know you were making molds of the hull.

A day where I go to bed less stupid than when I woke up is a good day in my book.

[Haratio Fales]

I really like Your sense of Humor. I am on about 6 forums, this is the only one that is a millitary Forum. The rest are all Model building forums. The Jolly roger shipyard. SSM IMPS Malta. Model Ship World. Resin Illuminati, which is about Si Fi models but they have a section for Millitary models. This forum here, and The Ship Model Forum.

I have tried to post on some others but ran into problems of some sort, like they complained that I had to many pictures, or I set up a pasword on a RC forum and it wouldnt let me log in, and wouldn't resolve the pasword so I just didn't mess with them any longer. Anyway feel free to browse the other sites. You dont have to be a member to veiw them. My project is always in the Scratch Build Log sections of these sites. Some of these sites have 100's of projects. The Jolly Roger Shipyard has only 4 scratch build projects, of which 1 is mine. I ussually give that websight to people who I have told about what I'm doing because its real easy to look up My project there. I have tooted the Horn about this site to many millitary history types, and people who just like anything millitary because of your diversity in interests, IE uniforms/Badges/emblembs.

I became Highly motivated about working on this ship in this scale after veiwing some projects on these sights. like The KMS Sharnhorst, and Bismarck in this scale. One is 13 feet long and one is 15 feet. One is cardboard and one is fiberglass.

[TacHel]

Regardless of construction material, those are incredible!! I've built well over 500 plastic model aircraft of all scales from 1/72 to 1/24 in my younger days, but people like you that do this from scratch are true artists IMHO!

Edited August 17, 2012 by TacHel

[Haratio Fales]

TY for the kind comments. I do know allot about what I'm doing but things I don't know I either figure out, copy some other project or dive in head long and do it wrong, then re do it right. I am learning quite a bit on this project, and I don't think the next one will take as long. I think I threw a few pics on here about it. It will be only about 4 inches longer than this one but the hull is wider.

I have a pic of it above however here are a couple more to show the deck plan. The last pic is a turret made from cardboard and teh metalic tape. I made it about 4 years ago and measured it from a 1/350 scale model and increased the measurements till i got to 72 scale.http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_08_2012/post-14039-0-96081200-1345280044.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_08_2012/post-14039-0-85199300-1345280058.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_08_2012/post-14039-0-70449400-1345280071.jpg

Edited August 18, 2012 by Haratio Fales

[TacHel]

It's been a while... Where's the München???