1/400 HMS Illustrious 1944-45 (Heller)

I was commissioned to build this for a chap whose uncle, Lieutenant John Empson, was Air Radio Officer on the ship with the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) in 1944-45.

In-depth research revealed a dearth of photographic evidence of the ship during this period, although there is an abundance of it during her early career and post-war. Sources included British Aircraft Carriers, design, development and service histories by David Hobbs, The Aircraft Carrier Victorious by Ross Watton and Warship Profile No. 11. For the latter I am eternally grateful to Louis Carabott, together with the photos and article he supplied me with of his build of HMS Illustrious in her Mediterranean guise.

With so little information on the ship’s appearance while with the BPF I had to draw heavily on the drawings and photos of the Illustrious’s sister ship Victorious in Ross Watton’s book. As a result my build is more Victorious than Illustrious and inevitably a hybrid between the two. So I make no claim that this is an historically accurate portrayal of the Illustrious in 1944-45.

I couldn’t resist a bit of historical licence by incorporating the single Swordfish as an object of curiosity for the ship’s company – I think it makes a fascinating comparison with the Avengers on board.

The 1:400 scale Heller kit was a useful source of raw material (principally the hull and flight deck) and although I did a lot of work on these parts to remedy the worst inaccuracies, the customer’s budget didn’t allow me to go as far as Stephen Allen’s work. Nevertheless I did cut down the height of the aft 4.5-inch gun sponsons because otherwise the turrets would have way too high relative to the flight deck. I think Stephen’s review is commendably thorough and does not to bear repetition here.

The island structure is completely scratch built using a ‘bread and butter’ approach of MDF cut from templates using my scroll saw, interleaved with styrene sheet for the deck levels. This ensured no deck platforms had to be attached separately and gave a very solid structure.  Ship’s boats as supplied in the kit were thoroughly reworked and reshaped.  I’m not too happy with the photo-etch figures, but these were all I could get in 1:400 scale. They do look worse in the photos than on the real model - high-resolution digital photography is dreadfully unforgiving.

For detail parts I used all the usual sources such as Tom’s Modelworks for photo-etch, L’Arsenal for  AA and Carley floats and Sovereign Hobbies for Colorcoats paints.

I'm pleased to say the customer understood and accepted the compromises and was delighted with the model.

Gallery updated 12/14/2016

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