The Sea Hawks

[renrich]

Just finished reading "The Sea Hawks" a book about MTBs during the New Guinea campaign and the Phillipines invasion in 44-45. Not a really well written book but lots of information about relatively obscure campaigns. One thing I never knew about the armament of the PT boats late war was that they carried a lot of guns. The 80 foot Elco boats had a 37MM and two 20MMs on the bow. Two twin mount 50 cals amidships and a 40MM on the stern. In addition, they carried four torpedos, two depth charges and a smoke generator. They would be sent on recon missions to determine if a certain prospective landing beach was well defended and if they thought they could compete they would try to wipe out shore batteries with their gun armament. Pretty brash.

 

[Capt. Vick]

They would be sent on recon missions to determine if a certain prospective landing beach was well defended and if they thought they could compete they would try to wipe out shore batteries with their gun armament. Pretty brash.

That IS pretty Ballsy. I like it!

 

[renrich]

It was pretty gutsy, especially in a wooden boat. They did have speed and maneuverabilty.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

I'd love to see someone do a book about the earlier phase of MTB warfare. During the initial Phillipine and ABDA campaigns and in the Solomons. Looks like all I had o do was visit Battleship Cove when I lived in Massachusetts and check out the museum store. PT Boats, Inc.- BOOKS - Ship's Store

American PT Boats in World War II,
by Victor Chun
Illustrated study of development, construction, tactics, combat actions.
Over a 180 photographs
(Book Style: Hardback)

 

[Glider]

I have just finished looking at a book on the 80ft Elco boats and they often ditched the torpedo's and replaced them with 16 rockets which in later stages were behind the bridge and swung out for firing, far more handy for taking on island based defences. The 37mm came off P39's which were surplus to requirements in 1944/5