USS John Paul Jones DD-932
by Paul Helfrich

1/330 USS John Paul Jones DD-932 (Revell)

This is another one of the great old Revell kits. I remember building this one when I was a kid (got the kit as an Easter present when I was 8 or 9) and this was also the first destroyer model I built when I started building again in the late 1980s.

The model languished on a shelf in my garage for years because, as one of my very first builds, I was no longer very happy with its appearance. I was actually thinking about throwing it out, but then I realized the kit hasn't been on the market for some time and I really needed to find a way to save it. So I decided to re-do it. As her namesake said, "I have not yet begun to fight!"

This is the result. It's shown here completely repainted and with a few lost parts replaced with bits from my junk box. It's really a very nicely detailed kit. Yes, it does have molded railings, which could be removed and replaced with PE, but I've left them in place. My version is basically an out of box build, plus the new base and mounting pedestals, of course.

The John Paul Jones was the second ship in the "Forrest Sherman" class of destroyers, the first post WWII destroyers built for the US Navy. Built at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, she was launched in 1955 and commissioned in 1956. She served throughout the 60s and 70s (she was converted to a DDG in 1967) and decommisioned in 1982. In January 2001, she was sunk as a target.

The final picture I'm including shows the John Paul Jones in real life, in the configuration Revell attempted to capture in the model. She was definitely a beautiful ship, with those classic destroyer lines. Later in her career, when she was a DDG, the tripod masts were replaced with huge lattice masts. I prefer this configuration.