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 original pre-World War I torpedo boats were designed with "displacement-type" hulls. They displaced up to 300 tons and the top speed was 25 to 27 knots.
The PT boats used in World War II were built using the planing-type hull form developed for racing boats. They were much smaller (30-75 tons) and faster (35-40 knots).
Both types were designed to strike at larger warships with torpedoes, using relatively high speed to get close, and small size to avoid being spotted and hit by gunfire. They were also much less expensive than large warships. However, the motor torpedo boat was much faster, smaller, and cheaper than the conventional torpedo boat.
During World War II, American PT boats mostly engaged enemy destroyers. PT boats also operated as gunboats against enemy small craft, such as armored barges used by the Japanese forces for inter-island transport.
Many PT boats became famous during the war.
PT-41 , commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley, carried General Douglas MacArthur in his daring escape from Corregidor Island, Philippines. Bulkeley was awarded the Medal of Honor for his operations in the Philippines before rescuing MacArthur. Bulkeley's story inspired the book They Were Expendable , and a movie of the same name.
Life magazine published an article about the PT boat captains in the battles off Guadalcanal, featuring the exploits of Lieutenants Stilly Taylor, Leonard A. Nikoloric, Les Gamble, and Bob and John Searles; the article mentioned many boats in RON2 and RON5 ( PT-36 , -37 , -39 , -44 , -46 , -48 , -59 , -109 , -115 , and -123 ).
Other PT boats gaining fame during the war were PT-363 and PT-489 , the boats used by LCDR Murray Preston to rescue a downed aviator in Wasile Bay, off Halmahera Island, for whichh he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
After the war had ended, another PT boat was made famous as part of a presidential campaign: PT-109 , commanded by future President John F. Kennedy.
History
In the late 1930s, the U.S. Navy requested competitive bids 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 for 55-foot boats, and the second class was 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 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. Navy designers 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 Navy.
Representatives of Elco had substantial small-boat building experience, having built 550 80-foot sub chasers for the Royal Navy during World War 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 in early 1941, before the United States entered the war. 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. The Elco 77-footer came 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).
Huckins received the smallest contract: 18 boats by the end of the war, none of which saw combat. They were 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 unhappy 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 boats of the PT-95 class, the Elco 80-foot and the Higgins 78-foot 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 Navy used during World War II. By war's end, more of the Elco 80-foot 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 she was cut in half by a destroyer. PT-323 was cut in half by a kamikaze aircraft on December 10, 1944 off Leyte, yet remained floating for several hours. Another was PT-305 , which had the stern blown off by a German mine in the Mediterranean and yet returned to base for repairs. PT-171 was holed through the bow off New Georgia on August 10, 1943, 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 Dewandre 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 Navy PTs had was Raytheon SO type radar, with about a 25 nm range.
Occasionally, some front line PT boats received ad hoc outfits at forward bases, where they mounted such weapons as 37 mm aircraft cannons, rocket
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