WWII PT Boat Tossed up From Ocean Floor [by earthquake/tsunami]

Military.com/AP ^ | 4-29-07

[sgtbono2002]

By the way I belieev you are mistaken.

Mahogany was much too hard to get during the war to use it en masse on these boats.

[.44 Special]

Kaiser Aluminum also made Aluminum hulled PT boats

[sgtbono2002]

My apologies , I went looking for more info and found you were correct. The boat hulls were double planked mahogany as you said.

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Wilson_032805,00.html

[AFreeBird]

I was just about to post the same thing. Plywood wouldn’t last that long.

[sgtbono2002]

Out in my garage I have a boat called a Whirlwind. It was made in Cockeysville Md. in 1958. It is molded mahogany plywood. and its as good today as it ever was. Of course its garage kept ,,to keep te sun off the varnish and I only use it 4 or 5 times a year and its only 16 feet. They were tough little boats and beautiful. They stopped making them in 1962 when fibreglass took over.

[OESY]

"Mother Nature swift-boated me to the top.
It's not nice to do Mother Nature.
I'll leave her for Bobby to do."

.

[Non-Sequitur]

JFK, the PT boat commander, was decorated for his wartime exploits in this incident ... mostly at his father's insistence.

I think the decoration was more for his actions in keeping his surviving crew alive and together for 6 days without being captured until they were rescued. Give the man credit for that at least.

[blam]

"My Father-in-law's brother went down on the USS Barton (DD 599) off Guadacanal in the night action of November 13. This was also the battle where the Juneau (CL 52) of Sullivan brothers fame was crippled and later later sunk. At the same time my uncle was a Marine on Guadacanal."

The battle for Guadacanal was crucial, the Japanese wanted to isolate the American supply ships from the Australians. Control of Guadacanal would have given them the ability to do that.

[P8riot]

Could it be?

[Freeport]

Interesting; three different PT designs in one image. I didn’t know they were so diverse. Or are the differences due to drew mods?

[Leisler]

On your picture, see the flag? Above the flag is radar. The PT-109 Captain before Kennedy said that he had Radar installed on the PT-109. The radar would have been operated by the radioman at his radio station down below. The radioman was reported as on the bridge talking away with Kennedy. Furthermore other men were asleep below. I kind of get the feeling that Kennedy and crew thought they were invisible and were at reduced security stations. How a destroyer saw them, and they didn't see it, hasn't been answered.

Radar ontop of the A frame mount.

Anyways, if Kennedy didn't have a working radar, he was ordered to stay in radio contact with PT boats that did. Hard to do though when your radioman is not at his station and up top gabbing with the master of Hyannisport, playboy, rich kid skipper. "Instructions were issued to Lt.(jg) Jack Kennedy, captain of PT 109, to follow closely on PT 162's starboard quarter, which would keep in touch with the radar equipped PT 159 by TBY. [Portable radio equipment of low power used as emergency for TBS.]"

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from April 29, 2007. Thanks SJackson.

Wreckage from a World War II torpedo boat was tossed up from the sea in the Solomon Islands after a powerful 8.1 earthquake hit the area in early April, an official said Friday. Jay Waura of the National Disaster Management Office said the explosive-laden boat was exposed when reefs were pushed up three meters (10 feet) above sea level by the April 2 quake, which caused a devastating tsunami in the western Solomon Islands that killed 52 people... Waura said people on Rannonga island showed his team the wreckage sitting on dry ground. "We were amazed by this finding, as previously this wreckage had long been sitting under the sea and rusting in peace without anyone knowing about it," New Zealand Press Association quoted Waura as saying. Only the boat's hull with its deadly cargo of explosives remained intact, he said. Waura said a Solomon Islands Police Force bomb disposal unit would be sent to the island to safely detonate the explosives.