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DD-557 USS JOHNSTON was a Fletcher Class Destroyer laid down at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipyard on 6 May 1942 and Commissioned on 27 October 1943. The USS JOHNSTON earned the name GQ Johnny by its crew because the ship was constantly called to General Quarters by its tough skipper Comdr. Ernest E. Evans. The day the JOHNSTON was commissioned, Comdr. Evans made a speech to the crew: "This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm's way, and anyone who doesn't want to go along had better get off right now."

The USS JOHNSTON participated in many of the Pacific Campaigns during 1944 including Kwajalein, Bougainville, Guam, and Palau. It was at Leyte Gulf on October 25th, 1944 where she took on an entire Japanese Task force. On that fateful day, USS JOHNSTON, along with her sister ships DD-533 USS HOEL, DD-532 USS HEERMANN, and Destroyer Escorts DE-339 JOHN C. BUTLER, DE-341 RAYMOND, DE-405 DENNIS, and DE-413 SAMUEL B. ROBERTS encountered a Japanese task force consisting of 4 battleships, 7 cruisers, and at least 12 destroyers attempting to reach the invasion force at Leyte Gulf.

USS JOHNSTON along with the other Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts attacked the Japanese task force with Torpedoes, guns and just about anything else they could throw at them. In a furious battle, the DDs and DEs attempted to keep the Japanese ships from breaking through and reaching the Escort Carriers of TAFFY III. During the battle, USS JOHNSTON was pummeled by 6 inch, 8 inch, and 14 inch shellfire. Her bridge was wrecked and many crewmembers were dead or wounded. Cmdr. Evans continued to attack the Japanese task force until his ship lost all power and propulsion. As she lay dead in the water, the Japanese pounded the ship to pieces until she rolled over and sank. USS HOEL and USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS as well as the Escort Carrier CVE-73 USS GAMBIER BAY were also sunk by gunfire during the battle. In a pitched battle lasting approximately 2 1/2 hours, JOHNSTON with the other DDs and DEs managed to keep the Japanese task force from destroying the Escort Carriers of Taffy III and reaching the invasion fleet anchored at Leyte Gulf.

DD557 USS Johnston and Fletcher Class DD Resources

Warship Perspectives #1
Fletcher, Gearing & Sumner Class DDs in WWII
By Jeff Herne

Fletcher DDs in action
Warship Number 8
Squadron Publications

Fletcher Class Destroyers
Warship Design Histories
By Alan Raven

The Battle of Leyte Gulf 23-26 October 1944

By Thomas J. Cutler

The 1/350th scale Blue Water Navy kit of the USS Johnston is a re-issue of their earlier USS Kidd kit. This kit was originally released back in 1992. This re-issued kit has been upgraded with new resin and white metal parts. The Photo-etch fret has been completely re-drawn with all new artwork. The kit also provides several extra resin parts that allow you to create just about any of the square bridge Fletcher class DDs. The kit comes as a two-piece full-hull kit split at the waterline so you have a choice of waterline or full hull to display your model.

The resin castings are of excellent quality which is what you expect to find with all Blue Water Navy kits. All of the resin parts are nice and crisp, with no air bubbles, voids, or flaws that required any repairs. You will need to be very very careful when handling the resin parts as some of the shields and bulkheads are quite thin and can break if mishandled. All of the resin parts have casting plugs that need to be removed prior to assembly. Most of these plugs can be removed with a razor saw and cleaned-up with a 150-220 grit sandpaper.

The White Metal parts are the usual assortment of small detail parts. All of the parts were cleanly cast and displayed a very fine amount of detail. A few parts required a minimal amount of cleanup with a file. None of the parts were miscast or showed any flaws that would require them to be replaced.

The Photo-etch fret is the real beauty of this kit. In it you will find the fine detail parts such as the radar antennas, 20mm guns, floater net baskets, etc. All of the deck railings have very fine netting on the lower two rungs; nice touch. The other interesting thing is that Blue Water Navy's railings come already made to the correct length to where they fit. The down side to these types of railings is if you lose a piece, you will be scrambling to find a new piece. On this fret, there was enough leftover railing to use as a replacement should you lose a section of railing to the carpet monster or whatever trans-dimensional vortex that hovers around your workbench. The one task I really hate when building a resin ship model, is cutting and bending the railings to fit the deck edges. I always end-up bending, test fitting, and re-bending to get a good fit. With pre-cut lengths of railing the task of bending and fitting is greatly simplified.

The instructions for this kit have been completely revised and are now a multi-page booklet with detailed drawings showing part placement by using profile and top-down drawings. A common criticism about Blue Water Navy (and just about all resin ship manufacturers) is that their instructions are the weakest part of the kit. Looking at Blue Water Navy's new instructions, it appears that they listened to customers and greatly expanded the instructions with more detail and clarity in regards to where everything goes.

It is interesting to note that Blue Water Navy decided to re-release their square bridge Fletcher kit in light of the fact that Tamiya currently produces an injected-mold kit of the same class of Destroyer. The main difference between the two kits is that the Tamiya kit represents the early war round bridge version of Fletcher Class DD and the Blue Water Navy Kit represents the mid-to-late war square bridge version with increased AA fit. You could convert the Tamiya kit to a square bridge Fletcher by purchasing the conversion kit made by Tom's Modelworks. By the time you buy the Tamiya kit, the conversion kit, the photo-etch kit, and take the time to actually convert the model and correct all of the flaws with the Tamiya kit, you could have saved the time and effort and simply purchased the Blue Water Navy kit in the first place!

I would highly recommend this kit to anyone who wants to build a Fletcher Class DD. I really wanted to add a square bridge Fletcher DD to my ever-growing fleet of 1/350th scale ship models and this kit fits the bill nicely. If you have any questions about this kit, please feel free to contact me at: jrsheridan@steelnavy.com and I will be happy to answer your questions.