PT (Patrol Torpedo) boats were small, fast boats. They were designed for short-range scouting and armed with torpedoes and machine guns that were used to disrupt enemy supply lines. There were 43 PT Squadrons, each with 12 boats, created during WW2 by the U.S. Navy. The operations duty was very dangerous and the squadrons had high loss rates.
By 1938, the Navy had received 24 design proposals for PT boats. Contracts were awarded, and building started in 1939, with extensive testing and evaluation following.
The “Plywood Derby“ took place in 1941. The Derby was a grueling, high-speed sea trial on the open sea. It was conducted by the U.S. Navy on the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. The Navy ran the vessels in heavy seas to evaluate speed and their durability. The Derby began at the mouth of New London Harbor (CT) and ran around the eastern end of Block Island and looped the Fire Island Lightship to finish at Montauk Point. There were nine different prototype boats from companies such as Elco, Higgins, and Huckins. They were run fast and hard to prove which boats could survive in the ocean. The winner turned out to be the Elco 77-foot design (PT-20).
The “PLYWOOD DERBY” was a misnomer, as construction was advanced, lightweight techniques for the time.
Mahogany planks (1” thick) were diagonally layered with glue-impregnated canvas in between. Thousands of bronze screws and copper rivets were also added to keep things together. The boats were powered by three Packard V-12 aircraft engines. The boats were able to reach speeds up to 50 knots (57mph).
During the war, there were a dozen manufacturers of these PT boats. They constructed boats for the U.S., Canada and Great Britain navies.
The two builders, Elco Motor Yachts and Higgins from New Orleans, were the dominant builders. There were two different types built for combat. The 80-foot-long “Elco” boat and a smaller 78-foot“Higgins” boat. Elco purchased a Scott-Paine motor torpedo boat from England. It was dubbed PT-9. America’s first PT boat. In 1939, Elco tripled its ability to build PTs. They produced about one boat every 60 hours. By the end of the war, 399 Elco PTs had been built. Higgins Industries, based in New Orleans, was a small company owned by Andrew Jackson Higgins. They built PTs and Landing Crafts; historians often say the beach landing crafts used in Normandy and Iwo Jima were simply “Higgins” boats.
The best-known PT boat was skippered by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy. It was an 80-foot Elco. The PT109. It was operating in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. It joined up with other PT boats for a nighttime ambush of enemy destroyers and the supply ships of Japan’s “Tokyo Express.” During the confrontation with confusion and darkness at sea, Lieutenant Kennedy saw a vague shape coming at him. Assuming it was a sister PT boat, it turned out to be a Japanese destroyer. He tried to place his boat in a position to launch a torpedo but wasn’t fast enough. The enemy hit the 109 at full speed, causing extensive damage. Kennedy and the survivors swam about three miles to an island. They survived a week with the help of the Solomon Islands locals. They were rescued by the PT 157.
The remaining PT boats were the Higgins-built PT-658 and PT-305. In 1945, the PT-658 was built by Higgins in New Orleans. It was slated to join Squadron 45, assigned to the Pacific fleet. However, as the war was ending, it never saw action. In 1958, PT-658 was sold to a private person in the Oakland and Alameda, California area. The boat was renamed Porpoise. PT Boats, Inc was a nonprofit organization of WW2 boat veterans who bought the boat and restored it between 1995 and 2005.
The PT-658 is now afloat and operational today. It is on the north bank of the Willamette River and housed in a custom-built boathouse in Portland, Oregon, at the PT-658 Heritage Museum located at the Swan Island Industrial Park. It was added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historical Places in 2012.
The PT-305, The Suden Jerk, is also a functional PT boat restored by the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, where its keel was laid down in 1943. The boat was assigned to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 22. It saw duty in Italy, France, and the Mediterranean. It sank a German Flak lighter, a German F-lighter, and an Italian MAS boat.
It was restored in Italy in July 2016. It underwent sea-worthy tests with the U.S. Coast Guard and was later removed from the water.
PT-796, one of the last Higgins boats, was deployed at the end of the war. It saw temporary post-war duty, part of the MTB Squadron 1. It was based in the Caribbean and the East Coast. In 1961, she participated in John F. Kennedy’s inauguration and was repainted as PT-109. The boat was decommissioned in 1970. The veteran’s group PT Boats, Inc, bought it and restored it in 1975. PT-796 is on display with her sister ship, PT-617, at a privately run non-profit museum, Battleship Cove. She was nicknamed Tail Ender.