USS CV-8 Hornet Aircraft Carrier (USA)


	USS CV-8 Hornet Aircraft Carrier (USA) by Dan Hamilton


	The seventh USS Hornet (CV-8) of the United States Navy was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier of World War II, notable for launching the Doolittle Raid, as a participant in the Battle of Midway, and for action in the Solomons before being irreparably damaged and sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. Hornet's planes attacked the fleeing Japanese fleet on 6 June 1942, and assisted in sinking Mikuma, damaging a destroyer, and left Mogami aflame and heavily damaged; hits were also made on other ships. Her attack on Mogami ended one of the decisive battles of history. Midway was saved as an important base for operations into the western Pacific. Of greatest importance was the crippling of Japan's carrier strength, a severe blow from which she never fully recovered. Additionally, the four large carriers carried with them to the bottom some 250 planes and a high percentage of Japan's most highly trained and battle-experienced carrier pilots. Hornet under attack at the battle of the Santa Cruz IslandsThe Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands took place 26 October 1942 without contact between surface ships of the opposing forces. Planes from Hornet severely damaged Shokaku and Chikuma. Two other cruisers were also attacked by Hornet aircraft. Meanwhile, Hornet was attacked by a coordinated dive bombing and torpedo plane attack. In a 15-minute period, Hornet took three bomb hits from Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers, another bomb hit (followed by the Val itself crashing into the deck), two torpedo hits from Nakajima B5N "Kate"s, and one more Val crashing into the deck.At 01:35, 27 October 1942, the gallant carrier finally sank. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register 13 January 1943, but her name was revived. -- Wikipedia

As to making the model itself, the Trumpeter kit provides only enough aircraft parts to make two B-25s, two fighters, two dive bombers/scouts and two torpedo bombers. Hence, because I wanted to do the Doolittle raid, a supplemental kit containing a set of 10 extra B-25 parts are not enough – I needed two sets -- which left me with many more extra B-25’s than I needed to canabalize for all the microscopic parts that disappeared when they slipped out of my fingers.
There were few decals needed for the ship, though the ship’s name on the stern seems to have been in the wrong color according to dry dock pictures in Warship Pictorial # 9 at p. 45 (white instead of back). The decals for the planes were good for the carrier based aircraft, but a major headache for the B-25’s. This is because only some of the serial numbers reflected those on the actual planes – while the majority were made up numbers! You would expect a kit designer either to not care and make them all up, or try to do everything authentically (like Accurate Miniatures kits). But why did the Trumpeter designers put in the effort to be right on some serial numbers (e.g., Doolittle’s, Ted Lawson’s) and simply pretend about the others? No photo-etch parts are included in the kit and in this scale they are needed. Hence I used a set from Tom’s Model Works which were great and, though not as detailed as others that I lusted after, they were far more reasonable in cost – especially as the total costs of this massive project (for me anyway) added up.


				This model has not been used in any story yet




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