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 Author  Topic: Melville, RI
C Marin Faure

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of C Marin Faure   Send Email To C Marin Faure Posted on: Aug 4, 2009 - 11:05pm
Is there anyone on this forum who attended PT school at Melville to become a motor mac? If so I would be very interested to hear their overall impressions of the school and what sort of classes they took during their training.

Also, how did they get to Melville, and how did they leave? Bus, train, etc? Upon graduation, how did they get to their first assignment?

It's interesting to see that the Melville PT basin is still there, complete with fuel tanks and what look like some of the original school buildings, but it is now a yacht marina.

Thanks much,

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, WA

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

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29navy

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of 29navy  Posted on: Aug 6, 2009 - 5:50am
Although I did not go to MTBSTC (way too young), I am writing a book on it (should be finished this year). Here is what I’ve found to answer some of your questions.

In general, after boot camp, they were sent to a school to learn their rating, i.e., quartermaster, radio, etc. Many of the motor macs went to one of the Navy’s diesel school. When they finished school and were assigned to PT Boat service, they were sent to the Navy’s Receiving station in Boston. The building was known as the Fargo Building. They were assigned to the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Detail, which was on the fifth floor. Once there, they waited for MTBSTC to send a request (orders) for the next class consisting of x-number of this rating, Y-number of that rating. Once that group was put together, then they (usually) were put on a train from Boston to Providence, RI. From there, they were bussed down to MTBSTC.

In addition, for those sailors at the Fargo Building waiting for their class to start (a new one started every month), MTBSTC sent instructors to the Fargo Building and began the training reviews before they were sent to MTBSTC. This was to give them a heads up on what they were supposed to be learning in MTBSTC, or what they should have learned at boot camp and at their rating school. Some were also sent to a Camp in Suncook, NH, which MTBSTC had set up for some physical training other classes.

For Motor Macs, since you asked, in the early days, MTBSTC sent them up to the Packard Engine School in Detroit. Once MTBSTC got everything set up, the Packard engine training was held at MTBSTC.

After they finished their training at MTBSTC, again, back on the busses to Providence to catch a train to head off to their assignments. For those going to new squadrons with ELCO boats, they usually went to New York or to Bayonne, NJ to join the new Squadron and pick up their boats. In most cases, except for the winter months, they returned to MTBSTC with the new squadron to conduct shakedown tests. In the winter months, shakedown was conducted in Miami.

For those not going to new sqaudrons and were replacements, they made their way to teh Por to Embarkation and headed to wherever the ships took them.

This in how it was set up "in gerneral" for those coming out of boot camp. I know that there are some that did not follow this pattern as there are always exceptions. For those sailors that were already in the Navy and rated and transferred to PT Boats, it was basically the same...still should have gone through the Receiving Center in Boston. But there are always exceptions and deviations.

Hoped this helped.

Charlie

Charlie

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Aug 6, 2009 - 7:29am
Charlie: Do you have any information about men being transported direct to Melville from Boston by train? I can't state for certain, but upon return from New Guinea a group of us may have traveled by train from South Station to Melville.

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29navy

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of 29navy  Posted on: Aug 6, 2009 - 10:34am
No I don't. The train tracks go along Alexander Road. But I believe that was all freight. Haven't seen any references to passengers on the train. I've seen references to the trains going by in the newsletters, but nothing about passengers. Not to say that it didn't maybe at some point or at one time or another, but I have no documentation on it. I would imagine if there was, there would be references to getting the train tickets somewhere. But all I've seen are bus ticket references.



Charlie

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Allan

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Allan   Send Email To Allan Posted on: Aug 7, 2009 - 6:53pm
Regarding train service from Boston through to Melville, I offer the following: I have no information that it was ever the case, but I can tell you that there indeed was passenger train service from the mainland through Tiverton, R.I. that came down through Fall River. I do not know were it originated but it was above Fall River and could have originated in Boston or above. The service ran over a rickety old quarter-turn RR bridge that lay just south of the State Pier at Fall River and connected Tiverton with Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island. It may still be there and would now lay in the shadow of the Sakonnet River Bridge which connectd the same two points, having been built after the Old Stone Bridge was destroyed in the 1954 Hurricane Carol. Of course, Middletown lay south of Portsmouth and Newport lay at the southerly end of the island. So- the train service was there. Was it used for US Navy personnel from Boston to MTBSTC? I couldn't speak to that.

Allan


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Dick Listro

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Dick Listro  Posted on: Aug 13, 2009 - 7:47pm
I asked my father about Meliville. He was in Newport at Quartermaster school. He saw the PT boats zooming around Naragansett Bay and he thought that it would be much better to be on top of the deck on A PT instead of below the deck on a larger ship so he put in for PT. From Newport it was just a short ride to Melville. So he can't answee the question about how everyone got to Melville.

He told me an interesting story today. He said that when he was in the Pacific in the Solomons or near Treasure Island his boat would go out to the destoyers etc and get better chow. One day his captain called him up to the bridge of the destroyer they were visiting. When he got up to the bidge his Captain introduced him to the Captain of the destroyer and Dad was advised that by his PT Boat Captain that the destroyer needed a QMC. Dad thought about it for a second and then in strong terms said no way.

A few weeks later that Destroyer had a kamikaze hit to the bridge and killed everyone on the bridge. Including their new QMC.

Dick Listro


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C Marin Faure

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of C Marin Faure   Send Email To C Marin Faure Posted on: Aug 13, 2009 - 10:51pm
Charlie---


Thank you very much for the information. I have been working, first research and now writing, on a book about a specific PT mission that was described to me in the early 1970s when I lived in Hawaii by four of the crewmen who were on the mission. But while I know the basics of the mission and its outcome, I have to create most of the story from scratch. So I guess you'd call it a "based on a true story" novel.

I did a lot of research during the 1990s including interviewing PT crewmen, crawling around for hours on the Elco boat at Fall River, and getting my hands on every PT book I could find from an original copy of "At Close Quarters" through the various picture books to a copy of the 1,145 page "Bluejackets Manual" of 1943.. I I have a copy of the movie "They Were Expendable" and a color video produced by Elco during the war about the construction of their 80' boats. My wife and I attended a Bull Session in Portland where we went out to the yard where their Higgins they were going to restore was cradled, and then a few years ago went back and rode on the restored boat. My story takes place on an Elco but I wanted to hear first-hand what the Packards sound (and smell) like.

But I was working on my previous book during the 1990s ("Success on the Step: Flying with Kenmore Air') and so deliberately did not begin on the PT story as I didn't want to become distracted from the Kenmore book.

But with that book in print, I have now started on the PT story. A lot of detail information has been generously supplied to me, much of it from members of this forum, on everything from how to start a Packard to what sort of slang was used on the boats.

But one gap remained and that was how to get my main character from his short leave after boot camp to Melville. I have a copy of the 1944 book, "PT Boat: Bob Reed Wins His Command at Melville" but while this book has lots of good information about the school it is written from the perspective of a PT officer, not a crewman.

So I REALLY appreciate the information you have provided. I look forward to reading your book on the school when it is published.

Thanks again,

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

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29navy

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of 29navy  Posted on: Aug 16, 2009 - 5:39am
Thanks for the encouragement. Over the past week or so as I look through my data, I've been looking for anything that may indicate a train service/stop at Melville. I have found none. The only transportation references in the newsletter are for bus tickets. In fact one reference mentioned bus tickets that will get you to the train station in Providence.

In the Navy's admininistrative history of the 1st Naval district (Newport area specifically), they identified the transportation problem and there was no mention of passenger train service.

Charlie

Charlie

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C Marin Faure

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of C Marin Faure   Send Email To C Marin Faure Posted on: Aug 17, 2009 - 11:19pm
An interesting item in the 1943 Bluejacket's Manual is the fact that the Navy paid five cents a mile as reimbursement when servicemen had to travel to get to their next school or base, home on leave, etc.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm | IP Logged


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