a tribute to my grandfather, PFC Joseph E. McCaslin
i recently posted some progress shots of a sherman. i have completed it. so let me present it in the way i had intended.
i have been thinking a lot of my grandfather the last few months. you see he was a ww2 vet. he was wounded on saipan. but he also participated in two other battles in the pacific. one of those was okinawa. about two months ago i chatted with robert about building a saipan sherman, i had just sent in an order for a usmc sherman from italeri. robert told me that i would not be accurate for saipan with the version i had ordered. however, he told me that the version i had ordered was accurate for okinawa.
i do have some regrets on this build. my grandfather passed in the early sixties, i never met him. i will never know if he would have liked this build.
after much chatting and much additional research i settled on which sherman i wanted to attempt to replicate.
this is the pic robert showed me.
this is the closeup for the sherman.
you have seen the progress shots so i will not repost them. however i did not share some information. the paint i used was a mixture of model masters olive drab, testors olive drab, and tamiya olive drab. i used pastel chalk to try to weather it a bit. i also used alum and black drybrushing. the mud is a mixture of sawdust, white glue, water, and testors brown. the kit is italeri usmc sherman, 1/35.
so for my grandfather, PFC Joseph E. McCaslin,
i need to say thankyou to some individuals who were a tremendous help to me, and to whom i will be forever indebted. robert, dean(scubaboy), and rob(lobbie). i cant repay you for all the help you have been.
joseph e mccaslin