by Philip LaVoie
1/350 USS Missouri BB-63 (Tamiya)
For my summer project I wanted to build the USS Missouri during the Japanese surrender ceremony on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay. Over the last year I purchased several after market parts for the build, as this was before the new super detail sets from Lionroar or Flyhawk were released. My main sources of information were photographs and the Missouri Plan Book from Floating Drydock. I have seen other builds of this scene using PE figures, but I wanted to try using plastic figures to see how that would look. Most of them are Fujimi figures, but I also cannibalized some of the new Dragon figures from a couple ship kits plus some other odd ones I had in the parts box. Not sure how many are on there, but I would estimate a little over 1500. It is amazing how a big ship like that can swallow up so many crew figures. Although I did not use any PE figures, I did use the platforms from the Eduard V-day PE set and it also helped with some of the crew placement details. Hopefully I captured the general feel of the scene.
Here's some of the additional items used, not including what I dug out of the parts boxes:
