In his East Wareham home, Tugboat Captain John Charlebois stood next to a model of the U.S.S. Arizona, one he built and assembled piece by piece, recalling that the ship never left Pearl Harbor.

“The bombing was so bad that all of the hatches and everything were destroyed and they couldn’t get to the men,” he said. “Over a thousand men are still entombed in that ship. That’s why I wanted to make that.”

For some, Memorial Day is simply the start of summer. For Charlebois, remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice happens every time he works on model ships from World War II.

“It’s something that should never be forgotten,” he said. “A lot of men lost their lives saving this country and these ships did their job.”

That’s one of the main reasons why Charlebois does it.

His fascination began when he was a boy visiting Pearl Harbor with his father. His father was a World War II veteran who served on ships during the war and the one who introduced him to building models. With an entire room dedicated to housing the models he’s built over the years, he has no plans of stopping any time soon.

Charlebois orders model building kits from a store in North Carolina and has it shipped up to him. The scales on each vary. As he explained, a 1:1 ratio would be the ship itself. His kits usually come as a 1:200 ratio, or a 200 scale.

After receiving the parts, putting the ship together is rigorous and time consuming.

“I spent years building these [ships],” he said. “[The] 200 scale takes at least four months to build. Detail is very important on these ships.”

Each piece of the ship had to be done with precision: hand-painted and glued onto the ship. He even had to melt the rigging over a fire, pulling the plastic apart as it melted, then cut and measured each line.

The kits come with a detailed history of each ship – where it served in the war, the details of its crew, what it carried and ultimately its fate.

One example is the U.S.S. Enterprise, which won 20 battle stars during the war and had become the most decorated ship. Having served in the Pacific Theater without sinking, it was eventually scrapped after the war.

Charlebois lamented that fact. “They should’ve kept that,” he said.

By building each model from the inside out, he’s developed a personal connection to the ships’ histories and has pieced together their roles in the war to paint a collective picture of the fleets.

“When you build these ships, you get to know these ships. You get to know what it’s like,” he said.

Charlebois doesn’t build only American ships though; he’s filled entire walls with Japanese, German and English ships that served during the war. He said all it’s all in commemoration of those who lost their lives in the war, not just American soldiers.