Nicholas P Ferro and the USS Bluegill

[Garandomatic]

Back in June, as I sat at Subway with my wife after teaching a morning of summer school, I got a text from a buddy of mine about a submariner uniform on ebay with a sweet buy it now. I checked it out, and pulled the trigger on it (and actually a uniform from the USS Washington, too!). It began a pretty interesting period of research, and the history of the man and the ship are about as good as it gets if you like the Silent Service.

 

Nick Ferro was an original member of the Bluegill, and was present on all six of her war patrols as the firecontrolman. It's a pretty interesting thought to consider that he pretty much was the trigger man that sunk 51,000 tons of Japanese shipping, depending on what figures you look at. She had good fortune on her first patrol, sinking the cruiser Yubari on April 27, 1944. All told, I saw a record that she was the 17th highest scoring sub of the war, which is pretty significant out of the 325 or so that operated, and I also find it telling of her service that she did so from mid-1944 on. Granted, the torpedoes were better in that period, but towards the end of the war, shipping was a hard target to come by. As a matter of fact, her last two war patrols involved reconnaissance for operations in the Philippines, and on May 28, became the only US sub to single-handedly capture enemy territory when a small crew led by Aussie commandos invaded Pratas Island. There they hauled down the rising sun and replaced it with the stars and stripes after blowing up a few leftover Japanese assets from what had been a weather station. The Captain is said to have sent a message to Pearl Harbor reporting their success and requesting that an invasion medal be minted and an airdrop of baseball gear and beer be made, but apparently, COMSUBPAC wasn't amused!

 

Anyways, I'll start things off with Ferro and the Bluegill and work through my build. In many ways, it was a breeze to complete compared to the Stuart, but the airbrush was a challenge to relearn, and I find that an amazing amount of detail is usually missing from ship models...

 

Pictured is Ferro from his file, courtesy of Geoff at Golden Arrow. In almost 60 pages of records, I found considerably information to bring this man's service to light, particularly the citation for his Commendation Medal. The other picture is from the USS Bluegill website (www.ussbluegill.org) which has a nice biography of Ferro and many excellent pictures an resources.

[Garandomatic]

Here he is with the ship's battle flag. My only plans for this model include hopefully printing off a scale battle flag and pennant to add to this ship, and of possible, a tiny broom for the periscope. Alsp pictured is the Bluegill from her shakedown. I chose to model her in her earlier guise, as that was available in kit form as the USS Gato from Trumpeter. Not a bad kit, especially compared to the old Revell kit, but it left off a ton of detail in the conning tower. I also went with this guide because it shows that the Bluegill was initially armed with a pair of 20mm AA guns in the tower. Making a 1/144th 40mm Bofors is a bit more than I've got...

[Garandomatic]

This is what I used to guess at the Bluegill's camo pattern. Honestly, the way I built it won't make it much different than any other Gato boat, but I am happy with the final product, which we will get to soon. Also pictured is the first of the progress shots I will post. THere wasn't much to this model, and I basically just put it together. That being said, when I did join the deck to the hull, I had some nasty fitting issues that required about as much filling and sanding to correct as my old 1965 Impala. Take my word for it!

 

I made one mistake in this build, and that was attaching the conning tower to the hull straight away. It would have been much easier to build them to the hilt separately, paint them, and glue them as the last step. Oh well, next time?

 

Also visible here is the railing I had to make. I guess there is a photoetched kit out there for this, but I didn't know about it until after I had finished. The kit comes with the posts, and I used fishing line for the rope railing on the deck, and some enamel covered copper wire for the metal railing on the conning tower. It isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. I think fishing line is a horrible choice, though, as it appears not to stick to anything, and it retains a very annoying memory from its spool that causes some of the rope to not droop.

[Garandomatic]

I've worked on this model since late June, and really made a big push this week or so to get it done. A few days before, I primed it and painted it with Vallejo Grey Black yesterday. This is where I started this morning.

[Garandomatic]

I masked the entire hull off, of course, and hit the sides and conning tower with Vallejo Sky Gray. After I figured out the airbrush a little more, it worked pretty well.

[Garandomatic]

Here is the second portion of the mistake I mentioned above. Because I had glued the conning tower, I now had to grapple with some creative masking in addition to my mediocre airbrush skills, not having touched one since 1999 at the latest. I brush painted the deck, as I didn't want to try to mask the tower because it is only about 1/4" from the fishing-line rope rail. I also was hesitant to spray much, for fear of getting overspray everywhere, but this proved to be not much of a problem.

[Garandomatic]

I figured I could just fog the brush painted line, as shown here. Not bad, but there are some brush strokes.

[Garandomatic]

I then brought it back in the house for the final build this afternoon. Kind of got on a roll and couldn't stop. I brush painted the conning tower deck and roof, the upper surface of the deck gun, and the 20mm mounts.

[Garandomatic]

Then the weathering. I tried not to overdo it, as I was building the Bluegill during an early patrol, but it just looked pretty good. If I ha a bit more courage, I'd drybrush it with a lighter color to really make things pop. I had better add here that I was forced to carve in panel lines in the hull. In the process of sanding and sanding some more, gone were some of the lines near where the hull meets the deck sides. Figured why not. I see the pros do that kind of stuff, so I grabbed my fancy Japanese jointery file and went to town. To weather it, I used Vallejo's brown wash that came with the US WWII weathering kit that they offer, and brushed over top of that work to smear it with an old fuzzy brush. Next, I cooked up a black grime wash to fill recesses, and individually painted the holes in the hullsides, then dragged them down to smear like I had done with the brown. Created a decent effect. I also hit the decks, but it has some blotchiness to it. I figure a real boat would, so please just squint your eyes and figure that this diesel baby is just a little dirty from a war patrol.

[Garandomatic]

Here's a closeup of the weathering.

[Garandomatic]

After that, it was pretty much done, and I did remember to throw the props on at some point in the process tonight.

[Garandomatic]

Lookin' for a Maru...

[Garandomatic]

Here it is with Nick's uniform. It came stripped, all but for the dolphins on the sleeve. I think it was fairly recently done, as you could still see the outline of a firecontrolman 1st class rate imprinted into the custom-tailored fabric. I imagine it is framed on the wall of a relative's house with his actual ribbons, as these are Wolf-Brown replacements. I only stitched this one on the corners for display. Also for display is the cheap-o patrol badge. I haven't found a real candidate yet, let alone one I can afford.

 

JoshB on here bought his whites, and I shared Geoff's research and what I came up with for a set of the whites with his name, which helped me out a bunch because these blues weren't named, being private-purchase. I had taken screen shots of all the auctions to try to preserve the provenance, but it really helps to have a named piece of the grouping.

 

The next plans for this uniform and model will involve copious amounts of walnut to make a lovely base with rests built into it to hold both the uniform and the model.

[Garandomatic]

Last is a shot of Ferro on the far right, and his buddies, happy to be alive. I'm not sure where this one is, but it is after their final patrol. I think he may be wearing the blues that I now own. In my research, I found a memoir written by a crewman or two, and it mentioned some of their wilder days. Priceless stuff.

[ArtyScout]

Nice work on that sub. That is a great tribute to the men of the Silent Service.

 

Semper Fi.

 

Manny

[Garandomatic]

Thanks man!

[ggent001]

Very cool Josh! Great work on the sub and I really like all the additional photos you located as well.

 

Geoff

[Proud Kraut]

Outstanding work. I like the way you "animate" the monotone look of the ship with excellent weathering steps. Well done and a very good addition to the soldier's unifom exibition. Thanks for sharing!

[Garandomatic]

THanks for the compliments, fellas. I have been looking at more pictures, and I think I did OK for an earlier paint scheme on the Bluegill. I ordered some number decals as well, but am debating as to whether or not they should be used. Most pictures I have seen of the Bluegill show a pretty sterile boat. One shows Japanese kill flags on the tower and large numerals, but I think it might be a post-war shot as the conning tower has been cut down and all of the rope railings are in place, not just the top one. I don't know. I'd like to build her in her last patrol someday, but I'm not sure where to find a 1/144th Bofors. One thing I learned about submarine modeling, is that when you jump up a notch in terms of scale, there is an explosion of detail. I think there is a sub model out there that is around 5 feet long, I bet it's impressive.

[Ray175INF]

When I was a kid my dad took me on the lionfish and nautilus, that and him talking about working on the Ohio class subs at EB after the air force basically kick started my interest in anything silent service. So this model totally speaks to me, the detail is amazing man outstanding work I love it, Thanks for sharing some history, great tribute!!!

 

Ray

[Garandomatic]

Thanks man! There are a couple of WWII subs within a couple of hours of me, but I've never been on one. I'd sure like to. Knew a sub vet a while back, but he's gone now, just something I've always been fascinated in, and I figure building models of the vehicles the guys in my collection were on is a more productive hobby than playing World of Tanks! I also like the extent to which it forces me to really be observant in my research to get the look right. There is one shot of the Bluegill that shows her camo line, and I think I did a pretty good job of making a reasonable guess, but there are so few really good shots that show it, and so many different appearances on her 6 patrols, that it's not as accurate as I'd like. I think it was a much more simple straight line where the deck rolls over the side later on. The more I look at it, the happier I am with it, so I figure that's good!

[Josh B.]

Wonderful job Josh

[Ray175INF]

Your welcome bro! Seriously set aside a day or weekend if you can and go check out one, stepping inside like being transported back in time, and that smell...musty/diesel fuel smell...it's awesome lol, I drool every time I see the m1 helmets and carbines, Thompsons sitting behind glass. The history of the ships is amazing. Lol world of tanks is ridiculous, they did a good job researching specific engine sounds, gear/machinery sound. Even the sound of breech operating is pretty good, I thought that was a nice touch ...Honestly from the archive photos I've looked at of weather/rust/wear and tear from patrols you nailed it man. You got the gift dude don't lose that. It's crazy how they kept modifying the conning tower from metal reduction and mast arrangement. There's a pretty good movie called BELOW Suppose to be a thriller fails in that respect but it takes place on a baloa called the stingray in fact they actually used the pampanito pretty good shots of interior and the portrayal of sailors and officers is pretty good considering story plot.

 

Ray

[jguy1986]

Josh,

 

What scale of model did you use for this? You did a wonderful job on it. I have something from a sailor on the USS Redfin, and although I haven't made any models in years, I am seriously tempted to put one together in this scheme:

 

[Garandomatic]

I had to think... It was a 1/144 trumpeter, which was pretty nice overall. It is amazing, though, how exponentially more detailed things get when you bump up a scale, compared to the little Revell 1/180 Lionfish. I started that one, but don't I finish it. Anchor is on the wrong side, etc. The trumpeter kit was pretty nice.