by Ed McDonald
1/350 USS Iowa BB-61 (Tamiya)
This is USS Iowa BB-61 as she appeared on the morning of August 29, 1945 entering Tokyo Bay second in battle line astern Missouri, for the Japanese surrender. Well, it is an accurate depiction of her outfitting and painting on that day, but the manning of the rails and the Marine color guard on #2 turret are just speculation.
This was built from Tamiya's 1/350 scale USS Missouri (BB63) plastic kit, with Gold Medal Models Iowa class photoetch standard and high detail sets plus numerous other Gold Medal Models generic WWII detail photoetch sets. There are also numerous custom and from scratch enhancements in order to make the Missouri kit become Iowa. By 1945 Iowa's bridge had been modified to match Missouri's. But, many scattered differences remained. The Tamiya kit makes an excellent starting point for the building of any WWII Iowa classer. All four were always just a bit different and the major effort is to discover what those differences were at any particular moment in history.
