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PT Boats were a variety of motor torpedo boat (hull classification symbol "PT", for "Patrol Torpedo"), a small, fast vessel used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships. The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet".

The PT Boat used in World War II was built using classic "planing-type" hull forms that were inspired by the racing boats that dominated the world boat racing circuit and set water speed records between the wars. However, the original pre-WW1 "Torpedo boats", developed in the early 20th century, were originally designed using "displacement-type" hulls rather than planing type hulls. The original purpose of both types of boats were similar to each other, namely to be an inexpensive way to deliver torpedoes which could destroy capital ships without having to spend the money to build a large ship. By WWII, the initial mission of the American PT boats was to battle destroyers, which themselves were originally created as a defense against torpedo boats. Indeed, the name "destroyer" is actually a shortening of the name "torpedo boat destroyer" from the World War One era. The Navy's impetus for building the PT boat fleet was for both economic and material reasons. Ten PT boats could be built for the cost of one modest-sized destroyer escort. Another reason was a shortage of steel, which had to be conserved for building larger ships, at the beginning of the war. Towards the end of the war, the US was able to build a massive naval fleet, and the wood construction of the PT boats enabled more steel to be used for that purpose. Later in the war, the boats were much more effective as gunboats against targets their own size, such as armored barges that the Japanese used to shuttle troops and supplies between islands.

Among the notable PT boats that were publicized during the war was PT-41, a 77 foot Elco boat commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley, who rescued General Douglas MacArthur from certain capture by the Japanese in a daring escape from Corregidor Island, Philippines. Bulkeley was awarded the Medal of Honor for his operations in the Philippines before rescuing MacArthur. This story inspired both a book, They Were Expendable, and a movie of the same name. This story of the diminutive PT boats beating overwhelming odds went a long way to prop up sagging American morale in the dark days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Several other PT Boats were publicized during the war as part of press coverage of invasions and battles. Several boats in RON2 and RON5 (PT 36,37,39,44,46,48,59,109,115,123) were featured in Life Magazine's article about the PT Boat Captains at the battles off Guadalcanal, featuring the exploits of LT Stilly Taylor, Nikoloric, Les Gamble, and the Searles brothers, Bob and John. Other PT Boats gaining notoriety during the war were PT-363 and PT-489, which were utilized by LCDR Murray Preston during his exploits in rescuing a downed aviator in Wasile Bay, off Halmahera Island where he was awarded the Medal of Honor. After the war had ended, another PT boat was made famous as part of a presidential campaign, which was PT-109. The PT-109 was commanded by future United States President John F. Kennedy.

History

In the late 1930s, the US Navy requested a competitive bid for several different concepts of torpedo boats. This competition led to eight prototype boats built to compete in two different classes. The first class was to be for 55-foot boats, and the second class to be for 70-foot boats. The resulting PT boat designs were the product of a small cadre of respected naval architects and the Navy. Henry R Sutphen of Electric Launch Company ("Elco") and his Elco designers; Irwin Chase, Bill Fleming and Glenville Tremaine, visited the United Kingdom to see British Motor Torpedo Boat designs. While visiting the British Power Boat Company, they purchased a 70-foot design (PV70) (later renamed PT-9 during the competition), designed by Hubert Scott-Paine. Other entries in the competition were two boats (PT-7 and PT-8) built by Andrew Jackson Higgins of Higgins Industries of New Orleans, and designers at the Huckins Yacht Company also came up with competing 70-foot boat class designs. The US Navy at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, came up with other designs (PT-1 to PT-6). The results of the competition found that none of the boats, as built, were up to the necessary performance specifications identified by the US Navy.

Representatives of Elco had substantial small-boat building experience, having built 550 80-foot sub chasers for the British Admiralty during WW I. Additionally, in 1921, they introduced the famous 26-foot "Cruisette", (a gasoline cabin cruiser). This success in small-boat building was followed in the 1930s with 30-ft to 57-ft "Veedettes" and "Flattops", which were gasoline-powered boats that set the highest standard in a golden era of boating. This small-boat experience helped Elco obtain a contract for 10 boats based on the 70-foot Scott-Paine Model PT Boat. These 70-foot boats were tested and determined to be too light for open sea work, but Elco got a contract for 24 larger boats based on a lengthened 77-foot design.

The design competition and seaworthiness trials for the PT boat was nicknamed "The Plywood Derby" and took place prior to the United States entering the war, in early 1941. The Navy Department held these competition trials around New York Harbor. This was a shakedown to see which company would be contracted to build the Navy PT boats. At the completion of the trials, the Navy was impressed with all three designs, with the Elco 77-footer coming out on top, followed by the Higgins 76-footer and Huckins 72-foot boat. Although Elco came in first, the Navy saw the merits of the other two boats and decided to offer all three companies contracts. Elco received the largest share of the contract, Higgins was second (199 boats by the end of the war) and Huckins with the smallest contract (18 boats by the end of the war, none of which would see combat, being assigned to home defense squadrons in the Panama Canal Zone, Miami, Florida and in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor). Huckins was a tiny yacht-building company in Jacksonville, Florida and was unable to build the number of boats needed by the Navy. Additionally, the Navy was not happy with the Huckins design for its poor seakeeping abilities, and for this reason, it was relegated to non combat assignments during the war. Although Huckins built a few 78-foot (24 m) boats of the PT-95 class, the 80-foot (24.4 m) Elco and the 78-foot (24 m) Higgins boats became the standard American motor torpedo boats of World War II.

Elco

The Elco Naval Division boats were the largest in size of the three types of PT boats built for the US Navy used during World War II. By war's end, more of the 80-foot Elco boats were built than any other type of motor torpedo boat (326 of their 80-foot boats were built). The 80-foot (24.4 m) wooden-hulled craft were classified as boats in comparison with much larger steel-hulled destroyers, but were comparable in size to many wooden sailing ships in history. They had a 20 ft 8 in (6.3 m) beam. Though often said to be made of plywood, they were actually made of two diagonal layered 1-inch thick mahogany planks, with a glue-impregnated layer of canvas in between. Holding all this together were thousands of bronze screws and copper rivets. This type of construction made it possible that damage to the wooden hulls of these boats could be easily repaired at the front lines by base force personnel.

As a testament to the strength of this type of construction, several PT boats withstood catastrophic battle damage and still remained afloat. For example, the forward half of the PT-109 stayed afloat for 12 hours after being cut in half by a destroyer. PT-323 was cut in half by a kamikaze aircraft on Dec 10, 1944 off Leyte, and remained floating for several hours. Another was the PT-305 which had the stern blown off by a German mine in the Mediterranean and yet returned to base for repairs. Also the PT-171 off New Georgia on August 10, 1943 was holed through the bow by an unexploded torpedo which failed to detonate yet remained in action and was repaired the next day.

Hull shape was similar to the planing hull found in pleasure boats of the time (and still in use today): a sharp V at the bow softening to a flat bottom at the stern. PT Boats were intended to plane at higher speeds, just like pleasure boats. In 1943, an inquiry was held by the Navy to discuss planing, hull design, and fuel consumption issues, but no major modifications were made before the end of the war. (Wooden Boat Forum)

With accommodation for three officers and 14 enlisted men, the crew varied from 12 to 17, depending upon the number and type of weapons installed. Full-load displacement late in the war was 56 tons.

Early PT boats were armed with one 20 mm Oerlikon cannon mounted at the stern, and two twin M2 .50 cal (12.7 mm) machineguns mounted inside plexiglas enclosed hydraulically operated DeWandre rotating turrets. Later in the war, the Dewander turrets were replaced with open scarf ring type mounts. The scarf ring twin cradle mount was designed by the Bell Aircraft Company, and designated as the Mark 9 Twin 50 caliber aircraft mount. On the forward deck, some of the early Elco boats had twin-mounted .30 cal (7.62 mm) Lewis machine guns. The primary anti-ship armament was two or four Mark 18 21-inch steel (53 cm) torpedo tubes launching Mark 8 torpedoes, which weighed about one ton each. Some carried two to four U.S. Navy Mark 6 depth charges in roll-off stern racks, or mine racks. Later boats mounted one 40 mm Bofors gun aft and four launching racks, two on each beam, for 22.5-inch (57 cm) Mark 13 torpedos. Some PTs later received two eight-cell 5-inch (127 mm) spin-stabilized flat trajectory rocket launchers, giving them 16 rockets and as much firepower for a short time as a destroyer mounting five-inch guns. By war's end, the PT boat had more "firepower-per-ton" than any other vessel in the U.S. Navy. One other addition US Navy PTs had was Raytheon SO type radar, with about a 25 nm range. Since PTs operated mainly at night, having radar gave them an advantage over the enemy in being able to locate and engage them even in zero visibility. Although radar is not specifically a weapon, its use by the PT boats made the other weapons much more effective.

Occasionally, some front line PT boats received ad hoc outfits at forward bases, where they mounted such weapons as 37 mm aircraft cannons, rocket launchers or mortars. One example of a field modification was Kennedy's PT-109 which was equipped with an Army M3 37 mm anti-tank gun that her crew had commandeered, removed the wheels, and bolted to the fore deck just the night before she was lost. After numerous other PT crews had cannibalized from crashed P-39 Airacobra fighter planes on Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, the weapon that gained widespread use as the war progressed was the 37 mm Oldsmobile M4 aircraft automatic cannon. After having demonstrated its value on board PT Boats, the M4 (and later M9) cannon was installed at the factory. The M4/M9 37mm auto cannon had a relatively high rate of fire (125 rounds per minute) and large magazine (30 rounds). These features made it highly desirable due to the PT boat's ever-increasing need for a larger "punch" to deal effectively with the Japanese daihatsu barges, which were immune to torpedoes due to their shallow draft. By the war's end, most PTs had these weapons.

Higgins

Higgins produced 199 78-foot boats. The Higgins boats, built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana, were 78-foot (24 m) boats of the PT-71 or PT-235 or PT-625 classes. The Higgins boats had the same beam, full load displacement, engine, generators, shaft power, trial speed, armament, and crew accommodation as the 80-foot (24 m) Elco boats. Numerous Higgins boats were sent to the USSR and Great Britain at the beginning of the war, so many of the lower-numbered squadrons in the USN were made up exclusively of Elcos. The first Higgins boats for the US Navy were used in the Battle for the Aleutian Islands (Attu and Kiska) as part of Squadron 13 and 16, and others (RON15 and RON22) in the Mediterranean against the Germans. They were also used during the D-Day landings in the English Channel on 6 June 1944. A somewhat odd footnote is that even though only half as many Higgins boats were produced, far more survive (seven hulls, 3 of which have been restored to their WWII configuration), than do the more numerously-built Elco boats, thus seemingly demonstrating the superior construction of the Higgins boat. Of the remaining Elco boats only three hulls (one restored) are known to exist at this time.

Others

The Canadian Power Boat Company produced five PT boats for the US Navy.

The British-designed 70-foot (21 m) Vosper Motor Torpedo Boat, 146 of which were built for Lend Lease, carried 18-inch (457 mm) torpedoes. Oddly, very few (approximately 50) were used by the Royal Navy, and most were passed to other countries.

Packard engines

All US PT boats were powered by three 12-cylinder gasoline-fueled engines. These engines were built by the Packard Motor Car Corporation, and were a modified design of the 3A-2500 V-12 liquid-cooled aircraft engine. The 3A-2500 was an improved version of the 2A engine used on the Huff-Daland XB-1 Liberty bomber of World War I vintage. Packard modified them for marine use in PTs, hence the "M" designation instead of "A". (i.e., 3A-2500 then 3M-2500). The three successive versions of these engines were designated as 3M-2500, 4M-2500, and 5M-2500, each of which had slight improvements over the previous version. Their aircraft roots gave them many features of aircraft engines, such as superchargers, intercoolers, dual magnetos, two spark plugs per cylinder, and so on. Packard built the Rolls Royce Merlin aero engine under license alongside the 4M-2500, but with the exception of the PT-9 prototype boat brought from England for Elco to examine and copy, the Merlin was never used in PTs. The 4M-2500s initially generated 1200 hp (895 kW) each, together roughly the same power as a Boeing B-17 bomber. They were subsequently upgraded in stages to 1500-hp (1,150 kW) each, for a designed speed of 41 knots (76 km/h). The final engine version, the Packard 5M-2500, (late 1945) had a larger supercharger, aftercooler, and power output of 1850 Hp. This much power could push the fully-loaded boats at 45 to 50 knots. However, using the older 4M-2500 engines, increases in the weight of the boats due to more weaponry offset the potential increase in top speed. Fuel consumption of these engines was phenomenal; a PT boat carried 3,000 gallons (11,360 liters) of 100 octane avgas. A normal patrol for these boats would last a maximum of 12 hours. The consumption rate for each engine at a cruising speed of 23 knots was about 66 gallons (250 l) per hour (200 gallons (760 l) per hour for all 3 engines). However, at top speed, consumption increased to 166 gallons (628 l) per hour per engine (or 500 gallons per hour for all 3 engines). At the top design speed of 41+ knots (rarely possible in service .), the 3,000 gallons of fuel would be used in only about 6 hours.

Service

PTs would usually attack under the cover of night. The deck houses of PT boats were protected against small arms fire and splinters. Direct hits from Japanese guns could and did result in catastrophic explosions with near-total crew loss. They feared attack by Japanese seaplanes, which were hard to detect even with radar, but which could easily spot the phosphorescent wake left by PT propellers. Bombing attacks killed and wounded crews even with near misses. There are several recorded instances of PT boats trading fire with friendly aircraft, a situation also familiar to U.S. submariners. Several PT boats were lost due to "friendly fire" from both Allied aircraft and destroyers.

Initially, only a few boats were issued primitive radar sets. In the Battle of Blackett Strait (where PT-109 was lost), only three PTs (the section leaders) had radar, and they were ordered to return to base after firing their torpedoes on radar bearings. When they left, the remaining boats in the section were virtually blind and without verbal orders, thus leading to more confusion. This may have contributed to the events that resulted in PT-109's loss. Later in the war, as more PTs were fitted with dependable radar, they developed superior night-fighting tactics and used them to locate and destroy many enemy targets. The boats would lie in wait to ambush a target from torpedo range (generally about 1000 yards {914 m}), but once their position was given away by the torpedo launch, they would have to lay down a smokescreen from stern-mounted generators, to help conceal their escape from ship-mounted searchlights or seaplane-dropped flares, illuminating them for heavy-caliber guns, which PTs lacked. Depth charges were sometimes used as a last-ditch confusion weapon to scare off pursuing destroyers. Gunboat versions mounted extra armor, though tests showed this was not very effective. A small liferaft was normally mounted on the forward deck, though it was occasionally displaced by guns.

PT boats lacked the refrigerators of larger ships to store meat, milk, butter, and eggs, so crews depended on the ingenuity of their cook, who might also be quartermaster and signalman, and what he could do with Spam, Vienna sausage, and beans. Crews would trade with other ships for supplies, or sometimes even fish by aiming rifles or tossing grenades into schools of fish.

Originally conceived as anti-ship weapons, PT boats were publicly credited with sinking several Japanese warships during the period between December 1941 and the fall of the Philippines in March 1942. Attacking at night, PT crews may have sometimes failed to note a possible torpedo failure. Although the American Mark 8 torpedo was troublesome and did have problems with porpoising and circular runs, it could and did have success against common classes of targets. The Mark 3 and Mark 4 exploders were not subject to the same problems as U.S. submariners were having with their Mark 6 exploder on their Mark 14 torpedoes.

After the war, American military interviews with captured veterans of the Imperial Japanese Navy, supplemented by the available partial Japanese war records, were unable to verify all the PT boat sinking claims were valid. Like many other victory claims by all parties involved (aircraft pilots, surface ships, submarines) this unclear verification was due in part to the incomplete nature of the Japanese records.

The effectiveness of PT boats in the Solomon Islands campaign, where there were numerous engagements between PTs and capital ships as well as against Japanese shipborne resupply efforts dubbed "The Tokyo Express" in "the Slot", was substantially undermined by defective torpedoes. The Japanese were initially cautious when operating their capital ships in areas known to have PT boats, since they knew how dangerous their own Type 93s were, and assumed the Americans had equally lethal weapons. The PT boats at Guadalcanal were given credit for several sinkings and successes against the vaunted Tokyo Express. In several engagements, the mere presence of PTs was sufficient to disrupt heavily-escorted Japanese resupply activities at Guadalcanal, but this tactical advantage did not last long. Afterwards, the PT mission in the Solomon Islands was deemed a success.

Throughout World War II, PTs operated in the southern, western, and northern Pacific, as well as in the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel. Some served during the Battle of Normandy. During the D-Day invasion, PTs patrolled the "Mason Line", forming a barrier against the German S-boats attacking the Allied landing forces. They also performed lifesaving and anti-shipping mine destruction missions during the invasion.

Perhaps the most effective use of PTs was as "barge busters". Since both the Japanese in the New Guinea area and the Germans in the Mediterranean had lost numerous resupply vessels to Allied airpower during daylight hours, each attempted to resupply their troop concentrations by using shallow draft barges at night in very shallow waters. The shallow depth meant Allied destroyers were unable to follow them due to the risk of running aground and the barges could be protected by an umbrella of shore batteries. PTs had sufficiently shallow draft to follow them inshore and sink them. The efficiency of the PT Boats at sinking the Japanese supply barges was considered a key reason why the Japanese had severe food, ammunition, and replacement problems during the New Guinea and Solomon Island Campaigns, and made the PT Boats prime targets for enemy aircraft. Using PT boat torpedoes was ineffective against these sometimes heavily-armed barges, since the minimum depth setting of the torpedo was about ten feet (3 m) and the barges only drew five (1.5 m). To accomplish the task, PTs in the Mediterranean and the Pacific (and RN and RCN MTBs in the Med) installed more and heavier guns which were able to sink the barges. One captured Japanese soldier's diary described their fear of PT boats by describing them as, "the monster that roars, flaps it wings, and shoots torpedoes in all directions"

Though their primary mission continued to be attack on surface ships and craft, PT boats were also used effectively to lay mines and smoke screens, coordinate in air-sea rescue operations, rescue shipwreck survivors, destroy Japanese suicide boats, destroy floating mines, and to carry out intelligence or raider operations.

In 1943 in the Solomon Islands, three 77-foot (23 m) PT boats, PT-59, PT-60, and PT-61, were converted into "PT gunboats" by stripping the boat of all original armament except for the two twin .50 cal (12.7 mm) gun mounts, and then adding two 40 mms and four twin .50 cal (12.7 mm) mounts. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy was the first commanding officer of PT-59 after its conversion. On November 2, 1943, PT-59 participated in the rescue of 40 to 50 Marines from Choiseul Island and a foundering landing craft (LCVP) which was under fire from Japanese soldiers on the beach. Later on, in 1944, several 78-foot Higgins PT boats (PT-283, PT-284, PT-285, and PT-282) were converted into this type of gunboat, so PT-59, PT-60, and PT-61 could be transferred back to the training school in Melville, Rhode Island.

The Battle of Blackett Straights and the loss of PT-109

See main article PT-109.

One notable incident in the Solomon Islands campaign was when a force of 15 PT Boats, including LTJG John F. Kennedy's PT-109 were sent into Blackett Strait to intercept the Tokyo Express on 2 August 1943. In what National Geographic called a "poorly planned and badly coordinated" attack, 15 boats with 60 available torpedoes went into action. However, of the thirty torpedoes fired by PT boats from the four divisions not a single hit was scored. Patrolling after the action, PT-109 was run down on a dark moonless night by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, returning from the supply mission. The PT boat had her engines at idle to hide her wake from seaplanes. Conflicting statements have been made as to whether the destroyer captain spotted and steered towards the boat. Members of the destroyer crew, believed the collision was not an accident, though other reports suggest the Amagiri's captain never realized what happened till after the fact.

Remarkably, the survivors were found by two Solomon Islanders who had been dispatched in a traditional dugout canoe by an Australian coastwatcher. Though his boat was sunk, for his actions of towing a wounded crewman to an island (and later to a second island) and assisting in his crews subsequent rescue, Kennedy would be awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (for Lifesaving). The incident would later become a well publicized part of Kennedy's political campaign. In the 1960s, the story of PT-109 was told in the form of magazine articles, models, toys, hardback and comic books, a hit record, and a major motion picture; it also inspired several television shows, starting with McHale's Navy. What some say was the wreck of PT-109 was found in 2002 by Robert Ballard. There has been some doubt shed on whether this finding is in reality from PT-109, since two other PT Boats were lost in this general vicinity at other times. Ballard was reluctant to dig into the sand beneath the tube to verify if it was indeed still attached to the wooden hull of the boat. He also never found the three engines which should have been nearby, nor anything else. Ballard's basing the discovery of the wreck of PT-109 upon the finding of a single torpedo tube has cast doubt upon the entire affair.

PT boats today

At the end of the war, almost all surviving U.S. PT boats were disposed of shortly after V-J Day. Hundreds of boats were deliberately stripped of all useful equipment and then dragged up on the beach and burned. This was done to minimize the amount of upkeep the U.S. Navy would have to do, since wooden boats require much continuous maintenance, and were not considered worth the effort. The level of gasoline consumption relative to the boat's small size also made their operational expense impracticable for a peacetime navy. Much of this destruction activity occurred at PT Base 17, located on the island of Samar, Philippines, near Bobon Point. A total of nine PT boat hulls still survive to this day in the USA. Two are on static display in the PT Boat Museum at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts: an 80-foot Elco boat PT-617 and a 78-foot Higgins, PT-796. Both of these boats are located inside, protected from the weather, and up on blocks. Both are also available for public viewing, and have portions of their hulls cut away to display the cramped interior of the crew's quarters. An interesting side note is this Higgins boat, PT-796, was used as a float during John F. Kennedy's inaugural parade to represent PT-109, with the PT-109 hull number painted on the bow, and several of the PT 109's surviving crew members manning the boat. These two boats are owned by PT Boats, Inc., which is a WWII PT veterans organization headquartered in Germantown, Tennessee (a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee) are both non-operational and configured as museum displays.

Perhaps the best example of a surviving 78-foot Higgins PT Boat is the PT-658, which has been completely restored to its original 1945 configuration during the years 1995 to 2005. PT-658 is now fully functional and afloat, using the original three 1850 Hp Packard V12 5M-2500 gas engines. It is the only 100% authentically restored U.S. Navy PT boat that is operational today in the world. The PT-658 is located in Portland, Oregon at Navy Operational Support Center Portland's Swan Island Pier. (9 minute video of PT 658 underway )

There is also another non-operational restored 78-foot Higgins PT boat, the USS PT-309, "Oh Frankie!" located at the Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, which was restored by the (now defunct) Defenders of America Naval Museum. The USS PT-309 is currently inside a static diorama display without engines installed. Its external restoration was completed by the Texas group in 2002, and is to a high standard. The PT-309 saw action against the Germans in the Mediterranean as part of RON22.

Other former USN PT boat hulls that can possibly be restored have recently been located in the United States.

One is the PT-48, a 77-foot Elco and possibly the last surviving 77-foot ELCO, in need of major restoration, after having been cut down to 59 feet and used as a dinner cruise boat. Because of this boat's extensive combat history, having survived 22 months in the Combat Zone at Guadalcanal, (more time in combat than any other surviving PT Boat) Mr. Rob Ianucci of upstate New York has obtained this boat (June 2008) and transported it to Kingston, NY, for eventual repair.

Another surviving PT Boat Hull is the ex-PT-305, "USS Sudden Jerk" a 78-foot Higgins (which was previously cut down to 65 feet during its use as an oyster seed boat in Crisfield, MD) originally obtained by the Defenders of America Naval Museum group in Texas, and then sold in May 2007 to the New Orleans WWII museum. Restoration has begun on PT-305 to become a permanent display in the Higgins Wing of the National WWII Museum located in New Orleans, LA. The PT 305 also saw action in the Med as part of RON22 against the Germans. (video and website of PT 305 restoration )

PT-486: In February 2002, an 80-foot Elco boat, ex-PT-486, now called Schumann Sails Big Blue, was discovered operating as a sightseeing boat out of Ottens Harbor in Wildwood, NJ.

PT-459: Originally a 78 foot Higgins PT boat, ex-PT459 is now located in Rondout Creek, (near Kingston, NY) and has also been obtained by Rob Ianucci for possible restoration. It has been cut down to 65 feet and is highly modified into a fishing trawler. He plans to try and restore it after further study.

PT-615: Rob Ianucci also has obtained another former PT Boat, ex-PT-615, originally assigned to RON 42, which was commissioned after the war ended. The PT-615 was returned to Elco after being sold and was heavily modified into a yacht. The 615 was then leased to actor Clark Gable. He named the boat Tarbaby VI and used it through the 1950s. The boat was serviced by Elco and stored there when not being used. The boat was later sold a number of times. In the 1990s it was for sale again, now known as Gable's Dreamboat. PT-615 was eventually obtained by Rob Ianucci for possible restoration. It is also located at Rondout Creek, near Kingston, NY. All of these boats could possibly one day again be restored to their original PT boat configurations, although much work remains to be done.

PT-657 is another 78-foot Higgins, and has been converted into a charter fishing boat. The ex-PT-657 is located in San Diego, CA and renamed the Malahini.

Recently destroyed PT Boat Hulls

PT-308: "La Dee Da", which was unaltered and was still 78 feet long and in 1946 stripped condition, was found beached on the bank at Franklin Timmons boatyard in Dagsboro, DE, and was originally targeted for restoration. The effort was put to an end when the property owner seized the boat and had it destroyed, because it was deemed an eyesore for the new condo community being built. The PT-308 Restoration group who were working on the boat at the time were only 3–4 weeks away from moving the boat to a new location. The cabin of PT-308 was removed and transported to Texas to be used as a template/pattern for PT-309's cabin.

PT-659:, a 78-foot Higgins, formerly located in Vancouver, WA, has been scrapped as of May 30, 2008. Parts of it, including the aft 20 feet from the stern, were taken by members of the WW2 Museum in New Orleans for use in helping restore the ex-PT-305. The boat and her cradle were cut up into smaller chunks and transported by truck to a warehouse in New Orleans. Sadly, an Elco 80-foot boat, PT-761, was originally scheduled for restoration by the Defenders of America group, but was destroyed at the storage facility in February 2006.

Some may remember the Vosper boat that starred in the McHale's Navy TV show, the fictional "PT-73". Up until the mid-1990s, this Vosper boat hull that was used in the TV show existed in private hands in Wilmington, CA. The owner kept it sea-worthy and ran it around from time to time. Unfortunately, while awaiting transit to San Francisco, the boat broke loose of its mooring in Santa Barbara and washed up on the beach and was destroyed.

Vosper and other types of PT Boats

During WW2, the Vosper Boat Company of Great Britain arranged for several boatyards in the United Stated to build 70 foot Vosper Motor Torpedo Boats under license to help the war effort. These boats were built for export to the other Allied powers such as Canada, England, Norway, Russia etc. They were never used by the US Navy in any PT Boat squadrons. There are three of the 70-foot Vosper boats that still exist today; two of these boats were built in England and one is in the US.

PT-728: A surviving Vosper boat, built under license at the Annapolis Boat Yard in Maryland bearing the number PT-728, was restored by Bill Bohmfalk in Key West, FL. Bohmfalk reconfigured the deck house to partially resemble an 80-foot Elco boat instead of its original Vosper 70-foot configuration. Later, the boat was obtained by business entrepreneur Rob Iannucci, who has moved it from Key West up to Rondout Creek, in Kingston, NY, on the Hudson River. There PT-728 serves as a tourist attraction, giving up to 49 tourists the chance to ride on a "PT boat". This boat is the only U.S. Coast Guard regulation-approved boat that is licensed to take passengers for hire, and is the only surviving U.S.-built Vosper design.

The two Vosper boats in England were built by Vosper itself, and the first is in fairly good condition at the Royal Navy Base in Portsmouth, England. The second UK built boat is in private hands, floating on a canal north of London and being used as a private residence, though it is remarkably intact in its WWII configuration.

It is worthy of note that two of the experimental PT-Boats also still survive, ex-PT-3 in Pennsylvania and ex-PT-8 in Louisiana. The PT-8 was built entirely from aluminum but did not pass the speed acceptance criteria for use as a PT Boat for the U.S. Navy due to its weight. It was reclassified as a harbor patrol boat for the duration of the war. PT-3 was a 59 foot barrel back boat that was also rejected by the US Navy during trials in 1941 after being deemed too short to carry 4 torpedoes.

PT Boats in Argentina

Ten Higgins PT Boats were delivered in 1948 for use in Argentina's navy during the late 1940s up until the late 1970s. All of these boats are now retired from their Navy, with two still used today as sightseeing boats on the River Plate: the "Leonardo da Vinci" #8 and the "Mar de la Plata" #9. The other six boats are in various states of disrepair or sunk or scrapped.

Other boats mistaken for PT Boats

The 1963 movie PT-109 used what appears to be five 80 foot Elco boats. The engine telegraph shows the Elco name, and while at first, or even second glance the boats look like real 80-foot Elco boats. In fact, the boats were converted from 85 foot Air Force Crash Rescue Boats, due to the unavailability of surviving operational WW2 PT Boats. The 85 foot boats were built with only two Packard engines where as all PT boats have three engines.

In the 1997 movie remake of "McHale's Navy" 63 foot Air Sea Rescue boats were used.

Occasionally modern Vietnam era, (Trumpy or Nasty) PTF or "Patrol Torpedo Fast" type boats are sometimes mistaken for WW2 PT Boats. Several PTF boats can still be found around the country, including PTF-3 in Florida, PTF-19 in Chesapeake Bay and PTF-23 in California. These should not to be confused with WW2 PT Boats, as they differ in several key features, such as length, width, equipment, engines, crew size, material of construction, and armament.

Notable PT boats

Some examples of famous PT boats:

• PT-34: Part of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three
• PT-41: Flagship of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three (RON 3), based in the Philippine Islands 1941–1942 (PTs 41,31,32,33,34,35). Commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley USN
• PT-59: Commanded by Kennedy after PT-109
• PT-73: See McHale's Navy
• PT-105: Commanded by Dick Keresey at the time of the loss of the PT-109. Keresey wrote a book by the same name.
• PT-109: Commanded by Lieutenant, junior grade John F. Kennedy USNR
• PT-617, a U.S. National Historic Landmark at PT Boat Museum in Massachusetts
• PT-658, the only 100% authentically restored, floating and operational 78ft Higgins PT Boat in the world, located in Portland, Oregon Save the PT Boat USS PT-658 website
• PT-796, a U.S. National Historic Landmark at PT Boat Museum

See also

Other WWII torpedo boats:

• Steam Gun Boat
• Steam Torpedo Boat early development
• Motor Torpedo Boat British MTBs
• British Power Boat Company Producer of the PT boat prototype
• Fairmile D motor torpedo boat British "Dog Boats"
• Torpedo boat general history
• E-boat German Schnellboote
• German torpedoboats of World War II
• Fast Attack Craft modern classification

References

General printed references

• Breuer, William (1987). Devil Boats: The PT War Against Japan. Novato, California, U.S.A.: Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-586-6.
• Robert J. Bulkley, At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962)
• Victor Chun, American PT Boats in World War II: A Pictorial History (Schiffer Publishing, 1997)
• T. Garth Connelly, Don Greer, Tom Tullis, Joe Sewell, Pt Boats in Action (Warships, No 7) (Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc., 1994)
• Michael Green, PT Boats (Land and Sea) (Capstone Press, 1999)
• Keresey, Dick (2003). PT 105. Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A.: United States Naval Institute. ISBN 978-1557504692.
• Angus Konstam, PT-Boat Squadrons - US Navy Torpedo Boats (Ian Allan Publishing, June 2005)
• An excellent compendium of information about the Elco PT Boats can be found in "Allied Coastal Forces of World War II" Volume II by John Lambert and Al Ross. ISBN 1-55750-035-5. This book has a detailed history of the development of the various Elco boats, with numerous drawings and photos. It also has sections on PT Boat construction, as well as chapters on the Packard engines and typical weaponry used aboard PT Boats.

PT-109 story printed references

• Robert J. Donovan, PT 109: John F. Kennedy in WWII, 40th Anniversary Edition, McGraw Hill (reprint), 2001, ISBN 0-07-137643-7
• Richard Tregaskis, John F. Kennedy and PT-109 (Random House, 1962) OCLC 826062
• Robert D. Ballard, Collision With History: The Search for John F. Kennedy's PT 109 (National Geographic, 2002)
• Haruyoshi Kimmatsu, "The night We sank John Kennedy's PT 109" appeared in Argosy Magazine December 1970, Vol. 371 #6
• Tameichi Hara, Japanese Destroyer Captain (Ballantine Books, 1978) ISBN 0-345-27894-1
• Duane T. Hove, American Warriors: Five Presidents in the Pacific Theater of World War II, Burd Street Press, (2003) ISBN 1-57249-307-0
• James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific, Fawcett Crest Books, (1947) ISBN 0-449-23852-0

Notes

1. Naval Ordnance and Gunnery. NAVPERS 16116-A, Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946, pp. 212–213
2. "Hot Straight and True", PT Boat Commanders anecdotes of WW2 by LCDR Russel Hamachek, New York, N. Y.: Houghton-Mifflin, 1989, pp. 27–28
3. Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, pp 176-184.
4. Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, pp 95-99.
5. Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, pp 73, 100-107.
6. Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, pp 60, 61, 100.
7. Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, pp 105, 108, 109.
8. PT Boats, Inc.- Museum
9. Winter Texan Resources for South Padre Island, Brownsville, Harlingen and the Rio Grande Valley
10. PT 761 Restoration Project
11. WWII Motor Torpedo Boat PT 728
12. FlotadeMar

http://www.wintertexansonline.com/nimitzmuseum.htm

External links

• www.pt728.com—Home of PT 728, a fully restored 72 foot Vospor.
• An example of daily life aboard a PT boat, recorded in the deck logs
• PT Boat Museum website
• Save the PT Boat USS PT-658 website,
• Project video
• PT-617 Photos of the Elco PT boat PT-617 in Fall River, MA
• PT-796 Photos of the Higgins PT Boat PT-796 in Fall River, MA
• PT-235 Photos of life on board a PT boat in the Pacific in WWII by PT Boat Veteran Milt Donadt of PT-235
• Electric Launch Corp records
• Website dedicated to PT Boats
• PC game about PT Boats
• HNSA Ship Page: PT Boats to visit as museums and memorials

• Boat types
• United States Navy patrol boats
• PT boats