The Little World

I can be no more complimentary than to refer to this Airfix landing craft as a barge. I admire barges.

My whole family admired them – so much so that we built them for years for service on Canadian rivers and lakes. To our credit, none of them ever sank.

The LCVP kit from Airfix is undoubtedly meant to be for D-Day dioramas. I shall adapt it for a model seaplane base in the Caribbean. The US Navy would have used Higgins boats wherever it was moving cargo.

The kit is a 5-Day Wonder…and none of the 5 days a busy one. As with most modern Airfix ( red patches in the instruction sheet ) it fell together with no flash or trouble. I will correct myself – there was a little warpage on one side of the hull, but it yielded to hot air and clamping.

Once past that, it was just a case of assembly and painting in dull colours. The brightest part are the life preserver rings. Utilitarian, but then the cargo – oil drums and machine crates – demands no more. I just hope I can find a sailor figure to man it.

Like my Uncle Jack. He piloted one of these or similar barges through any number of Pacific island assaults. He was an ammunition carrier but never got blown up.