Aoshima 1/700 Yawatamaru

The Yawata Maru 八幡丸 named after a Shinto Shrine. Built in by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. at Nagasaki. Laid down December 14, 1938. Launched October 31, 1939. Owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line (NYK) as a cargo and passenger vessel.

Departed on her maiden voyage on July 31, 1940 providing service to the United States including San Francisco until 1941. At the start of the Pacific War, requisitioned by the Japanese Navy. Initially, the ship was assigned for transporting prisoners of war.

Rebuilt at Kure Naval Yard as a Taiyo class escort carrier during November 25, 1941 - May 31, 1942 with a flight deck 490' × 75' and was equipped with two elevators, no island, catapults or arresting gear. Capable of carrying 9 fighters and 18 bomber aircraft. Armed with 4 x 140mm guns and 8 x 25mm anti-aircraft guns, then upgraded to 14 x 25mm anti-aircraft guns. Renamed the Unyo, she served until sunk by the USS Barb while sailing near Hong Kong in September 1944.

I got back into modeling in 1973 when stationed at NAS Atsugi. There was a little shop in a nearby town of Yamato that was packed to the gills with model kits. At the time, I was drawn to the 1/700 ship collection for a couple of reasons. One is that they had ton of them and other is that thanks to the excellent dollar to yen exchange rate (at the time around 300yen to the dollar), my pittance of a paycheck could buy a bunch of these, especially as the destroyers were less than a dollar each.

At the time, my knowledge of kit quality was almost non-existent and this was especially true of Japanese kit companies as one simply didn't get much in the way of Japanese kits in the early 1960s when I was building a lot of car kits. I soon learned that there was a hierarchy of the four companies involved in the waterline ship business. The best was Tamiya, followed by Hasegawa, Fujimi, and Aoshima. Of course that is no longer the case as all four companies now produce superb kits.

This kit was provided by IPMS Gateway for an upcoming build competition called 'Free shipping'. They got a box full of waterline kits and we each got to pick a couple for the build. The kit is still sealed, despite its age, but none of the kits came with instructions. Fortunately, Scalemates has some of the instructions in their data base so there is something available to help.

The kit is molded in white with the flat waterline plate and the nameplate in red. There is also a large weight for the waterline section. The upper hull is a single piece with two sprues that contain the rest of the superstructure along with the various cargo cranes and the life boats with their davits.

Probably the most difficult part of the build will be painting the decks as portions of the deck also include some superstructure bits. I'm thinking that a lot of prepainting will be needed, unlike most of the combat ships which are often an overall dark grey. The instructions I copied are for the sister ship, but they appear to be identical in terms of parts so should not be an issue. What may well be an issue are the decals which are quite old and may not be viable. I guess only time will tell as getting replacements will be difficult at best.

This will be an interesting build as it has been a very long time since I've built a ship that was not a submarine. This kit has been reissued at least half a dozen times so if you see one and like ships, it might be worth the effort.  

https://pacificwrecks.com/ship/maru/yawata.html

March 2025

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