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.)
Russia returned lend lease PT boats to the USN at Kiel Germany in the summer of 1956. The Weser River Patrol at Bremerhaven Germany sent 2 or 3 boats to Kiel to meet them and I went as the radio operator. I was station in Bremerhaven Germany at Comm. Unit Eight (NGB). There were one or two more trips to Kiel to receive all PT’s that were part of the lend lease program. For more info e-mail me at
robertbobbyedmond@hotmail.com
Robert EX USN RM2