[MichaelS]

I am not a historian like our illustrious Don B. but rather a follower of history. One of the things that has always amazed me is why some events go down in history and others are hardly remembered. One of these instances is the USS Ward on December 7th 1941. For some reason we all remember the USS Arizona that was sunk almost without firing a shot yet few people know of the exploits of this little “tin can”.

This little 314’ long obsolete “4 piper” destroyer did what much of the rest of the US fleet did not do on that day. In the best traditions of the US Navy the captain, LCDR Outerbridge, who had only been in charge of his ship for a day, followed in the footsteps of John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, David Farragut and all the other great men of the US Navy’s past. He took action.

He was also lucky enough to have probably one of the best trained crews in the US Navy at that point. They were all reservists from the same area of the US Midwest.. They had all been together on their little piece of floating Minnesota prairie for a year. They were the personification of a “well oiled machine”.

At roughly 06:30 Outerbridge attacked without hesitation and sank a Japanese midget sub in the entrance of Pearl Harbor. He knew he would either get a medal or a court marshal! He reported his actions and also in the tradition of so many military machines this report was promptly ignored. If someone of LCDR Outerbridge’s calibre had been on duty that day the story that we now know of the Japanese attack might have been very different.

Since I have started building paper models this little ship has been my Holy Grail. I do hope I do her justice. If not I bought two so I would have a “do over” ;-)






Tack glued the keel to my building board. Then cut out keel and two sides. Looks OK to me thus far. If anyone sees any errors please let me know.