Revell Hawiian Pilot Reissue - More info....

This has turned into the most interesting thread I've yet encountered on this site - which has its share of interesting ones.

I guess we now know, courtesy of Imperator Rex, why Revell chose the name Burleigh for the "militarized" reissue of the Hawaiian Pilot. I had no idea the real Burleigh and the real HP were the same ship!

The photo I found at Navsource illustrates the problem, though. To build an accurate Burleigh out of the Revell kit would require quite a bit of modification. One could, I suppose, start by lifting some parts - especially the LCVPs - out of the old Revell attack transport kit

Fascinating stuff. I wonder if there's anything left to dissect about this old kit that we haven't covered yet!

You're right Tilley, as the pieces of the kit show:

(Hawaiian Pilot) http://www.modellversium.de/kit/artikel.php?id=645&origin=cat

(Randall/Montrose) http://www.modellversium.de/kit/artikel.php?id=226&origin=cat

Thanks for this clarification, professor!

As for the Hawaiian Pilot, this is what I could find on her career (correct me if you find any mistakes) :

Burleigh (APA-95) was a Bayfield Class Attack Transport, type C3-S-A2. She was laid down (date unknown) at Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., Pascagoula, Missouri, as a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 862 (406?)). The construction was sponsored by Mrs. Dallas H. Smith. She was launched on 3rd December 1943.

Placed in reduced commission on 1st April 1944, she was taken to New York and placed out of commission there on 13th April 1944 for conversion out as an Attack Transport. Modifications were carried out by Bethlehem Steel Co., 56th St. Yard, Brooklyn, New York. The ship was recommissoned on 30th October 1944, Commander D. G. Greenlee in command.

On 3rd December 1944 Burleigh departed Hampton Roads, Virginia, and proceeded to the Pacific, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 23rd December. She became flagship of Transport Squadron 18 at San Francisco on 3rd January 1945.

During January and February 1945, Burleigh transported passengers and supplies to Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and the Russell Islands. March 1945 was spent at Ulithi, Caroline Islands, in preparation for the assault on Okinawa. Burleigh departed Ulithi, in company with Transport Squadron 18, on 27th March 1945 and arrived off Okinawa on 1st April. She remained in the area disembarking Marines and supplies until 10th April when she got underway for Pearl Harbor. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 27th April, after stopping at Guam to embark casualties. Returning to San Francisco on 4th June 1945, Burleigh embarked troops and supplies and steamed to Guam via Pearl Harbor, Eniwetok, and Saipan. She returned to San Francisco on 2nd August.

With the cessation of hostilities Burleigh was assigned to the "Magic Carpet" fleet returning veterans from the Pacific until March 1946. On 15th March 1946 she departed the west coast for Norfolk, where she arrived on 3rd April.

She was decommissioned on 11th June 1946 and returned to the Maritime Commission the following day.

Burleigh received one battle star for her World War II service and the following campaign ribbons: American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.

She was later sold to Matson Navigation Co. in 1947 and renamed Hawaiian Pilot.

On 14th July, 1953, she would meet for one last time with her sister ship Jacob Luckenbach off the Golden Gate near San Francisco.

The Jacob Luckenbach, fully laden with Jeep parts, railroad equipment, and more than 400,000 gallons of “Bunker C” oil, set sail for Korea from the Port of San Francisco, while the Hawaiian Pilot was approaching San Francisco on the last leg of her journey from Honolulu.
The weather was foggy, light air and gentle swells, the Hawaiian Pilot, proceeding at 17 knots, sighted the Jacob Luckenbach on her radar bearing to port, distance 11.8 miles and the Jacob Luckenbach, preceding at 12 knots, sighted the Hawaiian Pilot on her radar bearing to starboard, distance 7.9 miles. Both vessels had ample opportunity to plot a series of two or more bearings and ranges to determine the course and speed of the other. Neither vessel did this however.
The master of the Hawaiian Pilot assumed that the Jacob Luckenbach was the San Francisco anchored lightship and made a slight course adjustment towards her. When the vessels heard each other’s fog signals and sighted each other, they found themselves in a crossing situation with collision inevitable. To avoid collision, both vessels made course alterations. The Hawaiian Pilot put her engines full astern but the Jacob Luckenbach did not reduce speed until after the collision.
The Hawaiian Pilot suffered severe bow damage. The Jacob Luckenbach was holed and, due to progressive flooding through openings in the bulkheads between the weather and freeboard decks, sank approximately 30 minutes after the collision (0440, July 14th 1953). No persons lost their lives and only two persons were slightly injured on the Jacob Luckenbach.

In danger of sinking, the Hawaiian Pilot limped back to port, arriving 1330, July 15th 1953.


In 1961, she was being sold off to Oceanic Steamship Company and renamed “Sonoma”.

Sold in 1970 to Pacific Far East Lines; resold in 1972, renamed “Mona”; scrapped in Taiwan 1973…

Very interesting - but with one rather large mistake. The attack transport kits (issued under the names Randall and Montrose) most definitely are NOT based on the C-3 freighter kit (i.e., the Hawaiian Pilot/Dr. Lykes) The attack transport kit is completely different.

My father was an assistant boat group officer on board an attack transport of the same class as the one represented by the Revell kit. The appearance of the kit was a major event in our household. It's a product of its time - with all the crude detail and simplification that implies - but it's a reasonably accurate representation of a Haskell-class APA. The Revell Burleigh is, indeed the Hawaiian Pilot with guns added. I have no idea why Revell picked that particular name for it; the real Burleigh didn't look much like that. She was a Bayfield-class attack transport (not a cargo ship). That class was based on the C-3 freighter hull all right, but some of the cargo space was converted to crew berthing compartments and the superstructure featured big davits for landing craft.

Here's a picture of the real Burleigh: www.navsource.org/archives/10/100309501.jpg

In fact I didn't scan the box covers... but found them here:

http://members.aol.com/billbayer/boxtop.htm

under "Revell Authentic Kit", then
-> "Picture Fleet Series" (for USS Burleigh), or
-> "Navy and Merchant "S" Ships" (for the Hawaiian Pilot - you'll also notice the J.L. Hanna, aka Esso Glasgow), or
-> "Collectors Gift Sets" (for the Merchant Fleet Set)

According to this other site "specialized" in model kits history ( http://www.quuxuum.org/rajens_list/shiprevs.html ),

"There were apparently two versions of this kit [Hawaiian Pilot (Matson Navigation C-3 Freighter) [1/400] {H-315} (WW2) FH]: the original civilian version and a later militarized version (APA). This kit has been issued at various times as:

Hawaiian Pilot (kit H-315)
Doctor Lykes (kit H-335)
Burleigh (APA-95) (kit H-341)
Montrose (APA-212) (kit H-452)
Randall (APA-224) (kit H-329)

Revell Germany plans to re-issue this kit as the Hawaiian Pilot in 2005."

It doesn't tell when the kits were issued, nor how many times... Sorry!

Imperator Rex - Many thanks. You can see what I mean about the recycling of the original Eidson artwork.

The absence of that silly red banner from the Burleigh painting is interesting. I gather you scanned it from some source other than the actual box. Or was the kit issued more than once - with and without the "Revell models are FUN!" logo? No second release is mentioned in Dr. Graham's book. I remember (I think) the Mission Capistrano (i.e., the "navalized" J.L. Hanna) appearing in the Revell/Monogram "Special Subjects" program during the eighties, but I don't recall such an appearance by the Burleigh.

My appetite for the German reissue of the kit continues to be whetted. A two-and-a-half-hour drive to the nearest well-stocked hobby shop is in my future.

Maybe some picts would enlighten this thread...

Hawaiian Pilot, 1956


Merchant Fleet Set


USS Burleigh, 1963

I have been trying to find the REVELL/Ger RVG5236 "C-3 Freighter Hawaiian Pilot, since April....haven't been able to find it in my local Hobby Store, or, on the Web-Stores. Anybody know if it has been released by REV/GER in the last year or so ? (I need a couple real bad).

Gerald T. "Jerry" Robinson (in Duluth, MN)

I think Mark Partis and Aquitania have the story straight - with one tiny clarification. John Steel - a truly remarkable artist and, it seems, a most interesting, if unhappy, man - did the box art for the issue of the C-3 freighter kit as the U.S.S. Burleigh, in 1964. The original box art for the Hawaiian Pilot, as it appeared in 1956, was by Scott Eidson.

My source here, as usual, is Dr. Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits. That wonderful volume contains photos - in color - of all the boxes in question. They're rather interesting.

The original (1956) Hawaiian Pilot painting shows the ship steaming past Diamond Head in a blue sea under a blue sky, with a palm tree and some colorful tropical flowers in the left foreground. In the "Merchant Fleet Gift Set" artwork, also by Mr. Eidson, the scene has changed to San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge is in the background). The Hawaiian Pilot and Jay L. Hanna are alongside each other in a slip; the freighter has her starboard anchor out, and the tanker appears to be getting under way. The tug Long Beach is steaming past the tanker's bow. What's especially interesting about this painting is that the view of the Hawaiian Pilot is identical, in terms of perspective, color, and detail, to the one on the original 1956 box. It looks like Mr. Eidson traced, or otherwise copied, his original painting, making only a few changes: the removal of the ship's wake, the addition of the "up-and-down" anchor chain - and the presence of the Jay L. Hanna's masts in the foreground. Otherwise the Hawaiian Pilot is identical in the two pictures. Even the flags seem to be identically rippled.

In both cases the stack is yellow, with a black (or maybe dark blue) M. The funnel cap seems to be the same color. I don't know whether that's right or not . I do have a vague recollection that those were the Matson line colors in the fifties, but I could well be mistaken.

The picture on the box of the Dr. Lykes is a black-and-white photo of the model, posed in a background that looks like it might be real water (with, perhaps, some retouching). In Dr. Graham's book it's shown adjacent to the box of the S.S. Argentina - a reissue of the S.S. Brasil kit that came out in the same year (1962). The picture on the Argentina box is a black-and-white photo of the real ship. I wonder how many purchasers noticed the distinction.

The Burleigh painting (1964) is vintage John Steel: grey ship, amost black sea, and rather dull blue sky. The ship is shown from a dramatic angle, low off the port bow. A burning plane has just flown through the upper left corner, leaving a trail of smoke. The overall effect of the picture, unfortunately, has been sabotaged by the marketing department. By this time Revell apparently had given up on the "boxtop painting you can frame!" approach that it had used with Steel's earlier "Picture Fleet" works. This one has a big red banner bearing the words "Revell models are FUN!" plastered across the upper righthand corner. No wonder Steel quit working for Revell.

I think those are the only boxes in which the kit appeared - except for the new German one. I haven't run across one of those yet; it's on my shopping list for the next time I get to a well-stocked hobby shop. Unfortunately the closest one is over a hundred miles away.

I just took a look at the Revell Germany website. The Hawaiian Pilot picture shown there appears (though it's too small for me to examine in real detail, at least on my monitor) to be a modified copy of the original Eidson painting in reverse. Both Eidson paintings showed the ship from the starboard side; the German version shows the port side. The venue still seems to be San Francisco, but from a decidedly different angle. (I think that's supposed to be the Bay Bridge, running from Frisco to Oakland, in the right background.) Interestingly, the good old tug Long Beach seems to have just crossed the Hawaiian Pilot's bow - and the bow of another ship, which could conceivably be the Hanna, is sticking into the right forground. Since I haven't gotten my hands on the German kit yet, I have no idea whether this picture actually ended up on the box. On the basis of Aquitania's post, it sounds like it didn't.

Fascinating stuff.

the kit of the hawaiin pilot was reworked and reboxed as the us navy cargo ship uss burleigh.the additions to the original kit were gun cupolas on the foredeck and stern and numerous machine guns. the colour scheme of the hawaiian pilot was superstructure and derricks were tan, the hull was all black with antifouling red below the waterline, and the funnel was black with a red band.all you have to do is leave all the guns and cupolas off, fill their mounting holes, and paint to the guide shown above. the scale mentioned id 1-400 so it is a nice size and fairly accurate model. i hope this bit of info is of interest to you. happy sailing. i think you will find the original box art was done by john steele who was known for his use of dark colours.