Greetings, all.
Does anyone know of any available model of the USS Utah, or any plans for one? My late father, a Pearl Harbor survivor, was stationed on board the Utah, and managed to escape and swim to shore as it was capsizing. With all due respect to the USS Arizona, it has always bothered me that a kit on the Utah has never seemed to be available....or am I wrong?

Thanks!
Rory

No Mate, you're not wrong...as of this writing, there isn't a designated Utah kit on the market...but building her is not an impossibility...a set of plans, some research, and a bit of sctratchbuild modifications should get you where you want to go!

I heard this past weekend at a model show in Roanoke, VA that Commanders has a 1/350 scale resin kit designed, but they haven't started production work on it.

Utah was a prewar ship. At Pearl HArbor I think she was down to being a target puller or some other non-combat task. It is difficult to find any other prewar battleships other than the Arizona / Penn class. Resin kits of the California and the rest of the cage masts as well as the Texas and New York are readily available , but they were war participants. You might find the Utah in 1:1200 scale. Check into ALNAVCO web-site as they carry a pretty broad range of ships.

The Utah was commissioned in 1911 as a Battleship (albeit rather smaller than many of it's counterparts), but by the time of "Pearl" (as my dad called it, they way one might say "Frisco" for San Francisco), it had been designated as a target vessel, as well as a gunnery training ship. However, had it not been sunk, I suspect it would probably have likely been updated, and put back into action as a battleship once the war started. Just a guess. Sixty four men died on the Utah on December 7; my dad was one of 461 survivors.

I don't think Utah was all that small compared to others of her era. 10-12 inch guns on 21000 tons was about average.

I doubt she would have been converted back into a BB if she had survived. Of the six roughly similar 12 inch gun armed ships in the USN, Delaware, North Dakota, Utah, Florida, Arkansas, and Wyoming, of the first four only Utah wasn't scrapped, and both Utah and Wyoming were converted to other duties. Only Arkansas stayed a BB.

Utah's conversion to target ship might have led to her death. One theory is that the large beams that covered her decks convinced the Japanese pilots that she was a carrier. That and the fact she was moored on the side of Ford Island where the US carriers were normally moored.

Rory did your Dad ever mention how along with the crew that was entombed with the Utah at Pearl there are the ashes of a little girl? One Chief Yeoman had brought the ashes on board in order to bury them at sea. http://www.ussutah.org/2002_Dec8_Starbulletin.htm

One last thing. A while back Martin Quinn mentioned something about one of the large resin companies doing special order ships. You may be able to commission a USS Utah. Of course the price would be pretty steep.