U.S.S. Talladega APA-208

Here are two more pics:

You did a great job, now let us know his reaction when you present it to him.
Scott

My father served on board a sister ship, the Bollinger (APA-234) during WWII.  I gave him a model of her, based on that same old Revell kit, for Christmas one year. 

The following probably isn't relevant to the Talladga's postwar fit, but I found it interesting.  One of Dad's many stories about life on board the Bollinger concerned the routine of scrubbing, scraping, and painting.  ("If it moves - salute it.  If it doesn't move - chip the paint off it.")  During the war, perhaps due to a shortage of lead for the traditional red primer, the Navy issued its ships (at least ones like the Bollinger) with a zinc-chromate-based primer.  Dad described it the color as a sickly, slightly-greenish yellow.  Part of the normal routine for the deck force consisted of chipping paint off whatever surfaces the chiefs ordered, applying a coat of primer, letting it dry, and finishing up with a coat of grey.  Just about every metal part of the ship was subjected to that process at one time or another.  The only exception was the exterior of the hull, which was off-limits while the ship was under way.  So at any given moment, certain small areas of the ship, varying in size up to a few square feet, would have that primer showing.

The look on Dad's face when he put on his bifocals and saw those tiny little spots of yellow primer all over that model was more than worth the time it took to build it.

That's a cool story, Wish I knew about the primer beforehand. I didn't want to ask any questions of Dad about the ship, so as not to raise any suspicions. He has said before that the instant the last Marine went over the side, the Cook broke out the good food!

Scott-Thanks! I sure will let you know how he reacts. Got another month to go, though. His birthday is 24 May, two days after mine!

I'm not at all sure that yellow primer would be appropriate on a model of a ship in post-WWII configuration.  I have a general impression that the zinc-based primer was a wartime economizing measure - but I honestly don't know for sure.

I'll take the liberty of offering one suggestion to anybody who has a relative, friend, or acquaintance who served in the military during WWII - or any other interesting period.  No matter how hard it is to talk that individual into it, get his or her recollections down on tape. 

I've been making the students in my modern U.S. military history course do oral history interviews for more than twenty years now (51 papers are waiting for me to read them right now, as a matter of fact), but I've also committed the cardinal sin of ignoring my own advice.  My father never came close to getting into combat, but the six months he spent as a junior boat group officer on board the Bollinger provided him with a source of human-interest anecdotes that lasted 45 years.  He was an extremely perceptive man, with a sense of humor.  The stories he told were the sort that don't normally make it into the history books.  I wish I could remember all of them.  But I can't because, though we talked about it several times, I never got around to doing a recorded interview with him.  When he died, in 1990, that fact made the grieving process even worse.

On the other hand, I remember a conversation I had with one of my students some years ago.  She decided to do her required oral history interview with her father, an Army Air Forces vet who was stuck in a nursing home.  She spent about three hours one afternoon taping his recollections, and she said she'd never forget the happy look on his face when she left the room with the cassettes in her hand.  He died the next day.

According to the last statistic I saw, American WWII veterans are dying at a rate of between 1,000 and 2,000 per day.  If you have the chance to do a recorded interview with one of them, do it.

I also served aboard the USS Talladega from 1962-64 in the Radio shack!  Who is your father-in-law?  I was also an Assualt Boat Coxswain during 1-Alfa, drove LCVPs and the Boat Group Commanders LCPL.  Great times!  Have attended 4 ship reunions.