At the end of the war many PT Boats were lashed together, doused with gasoline, and set ablaze. They could not be mothballed because they were made of wood. What a shame.
US Navy PT’s surviving World War II were auctioned and sold by the Maritime Commission. Unfinished boats were in various states of completion at the end of the war. Some of these were completed even though Navy contracts were canceled; these would not have been finished out as combat-ready boats. Boats in “theater” were disposed of in sales to other countries or destroyed. China is have thought to have gotten some. Some were given to Yugoslavia, Cuba appears to have gotten at least one somehow. Others have turned up in Finland, Great Britain, Argentina, and the Philippines.
Some Lend-Lease boats that went to the USSR were returned in Turkey; but dates and places are unknown. Others stayed in Russia; but because of the Cold War, tracing them was impossible. Four were given to the Republic of Korea. The ROK Navy gave one of those, PT 619, to J.M. Newberry, founder of PT Boats, Inc., in 1969. He arranged for her transport back to the States and brought her to his home in Memphis where the boat was cannibalized and then destroyed in the mid-80’s.
http://www.ptboats.org/20-01-05-ptboat-010.html
According to “At Close Quarters”, 99 were losses of one kind or another, 121 were burned at Samar in the Philippines, after decommissioning of squadrons. Some Lend-Lease boats, which included Vospers as well as Elco and Higgins, were destroyed by Great Britain. (Boats in the US Navy were Higgins, Huckins and Elco.)
I heard that the McHale's Navy PT-73 was the chase boat for THE flight of the Spruce Goose.
Tim Conway just happened to be promoting an appearance yesterday, and said that a lot of the boat shots were on cardboard sets.