Posted on 11/22/2016 7:01:59 AM PST by DFG
A historic World War II boat that survived dozens of operations -- and a few near-misses -- on the other side of the Atlantic is finally heading home to the waters where its journey began more than 70 years ago.
PT-305, fresh off a multi-year restoration project at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, is traveling atop a barge set to reach the Industrial Canal near Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain by midday Tuesday.
“This is a big deal for all of us, but especially for the men and women for the last ten years who put blood, sweat and tears into the restorations,” Stephen Watson, museum executive vice president and COO, told FoxNews.com Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I was born and raised near the Industrial Canal and had to cross the bridge on Gentilly Highway near Higgins every day when the weather was good. I always saw the Higgins water tower. My dad was always mentioning Higgins but never said exactly who he was or what he had done. As far as I knew, he was a boat builder and nothing more.
I did not find out about his contribution to the war effort until a recent story on the Military History channel.
Gee...the pictures and the transport rig on this are so dam big.....I didn’t realize this big. Certainly doesn’t comport with those PTs showcased in “They Were Expendable” of decades long ago. Did they get bigger during the war?
The ones in the movie had four tubes and one or two M2 emplacements on them.
IIRC the hulls were marine type plywood.
Why not use the highly maneuverable PT-109? Oh, that’s right. A physically-unfit JFK allowed PT-109 to be run over by a Japanese destroyer.
They were expendable...
https://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Expendable-Philippines-Bluejacket/dp/1557509484
In case anyone else is wondering about who Andrew Higgins was:
Andrew Jackson Higgins (28 August 1886 – 1 August 1952) was the founder and owner of Higgins Industries, the New Orleans-based manufacturer of “Higgins boats” (LCVPs) during World War II. The company started out as a small boat-manufacturing business, but later became one of the biggest industries in the world with upwards of eighty thousand workers and government contracts worth nearly three hundred fifty million dollars.[1] At the end of the war, more than ninety-six percent of US Navy ships were “Higgins boats”.[2] General Dwight Eisenhower is quoted as saying, “Andrew Higgins ... is the man who won the war for us. ... If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.” Even Adolf Hitler recognized his heroic war efforts in ship production and bitterly dubbed him the “New Noah.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Higgins
In Lt. (jg) Kennedy’s defense, he was operating at night, without radar, in the Slot.
Stuff happens in war.
Yes, I know all of that now.
PT boats were 80’ long. That’s a fairly sizeable craft.
As reference, the riverine PBRs were 35’ and the PCFs (swift boats) were 50’.
I was talking about what was shown in the movie.....
I almost bought one of those in the 80’s, wish I had.
If you’ve never been to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, I highly recommend going. It is a national treasure.
IIRC, what “made” Higgins was he saw the war coming and knew there would be a giant demand for small vessels that could be made efficiently amy inexpensively. He went to the Phillipines before the war started and bought something like their entire annual production of mahogany to make PT boats and landing craft. D Day could not have happened without his boats.
It's worth noting that in hundreds of encounters between Japanese, Italian and German vessels and American PTs or British MTBs, the PT109 was the only one I know of destroyed by ramming.
Higgins boats weren’t considered as good as the Elcos.
They were somewhat slower and the Elcos were better on the ocean.
Oddly enough, although there were fewer Higgins built, there are more of them left than the Elcos.
Today is the 53rd anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.
The hull size didn’t change much during the war but the armament did. The first boats had 4 M2s and 4 21 inch torpedoes. As the war went on and the Japanese stopped running supplies in destroyers and switched to using barges ad subs, the PT’s role changed from attacking major combatants to mostly barge busting. Their armament changed too - more machine guns, 20, 37 and 40mm cannon, even mortars. Some boats had 2 of their torpedo tubes removed and sometimes carried depth charges though I don’t think they ever had any sound gear.
Thanks
Dittos. I was going to post this, but you beat me.
I also recommend geting tickets to the theater there. I saw the WWII show, and it has all kinds of point of view shots, with the seats swaying to the landing boats approaching the Normandy beaches, etc.
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