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 Author  Topic: MTBSTC BOOK
Frank J Andruss Sr

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank J Andruss Sr   Send Email To Frank J Andruss Sr Posted on: Apr 1, 2011 - 4:17am
I received my MTBSTC Book authored by Charlie Jones. Guys I must tell you, the research that Charlie did for this book is mind boggling, and the information contained will keep you busy for hours. I find that I have not been able to put the book down, and the photo's are outstanding. There are some great color shots that were used to show artifacts, which really enhance the book. I would highly recommend purchasing this book. It is another look at a subject never really touched on. Super job Charlie.........................


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Donald Shannon

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Donald Shannon  Posted on: Apr 1, 2011 - 3:26pm
Yes I have to agree Bravo Zulu on this book it is definitely now the ultimate reference resource on RON-4 MTBSTC

Donald Shannon

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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: Apr 3, 2011 - 7:16pm
Charlie:

What a compliment to be considered the "ultimate reference resource". Congrats!!

Allan


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TGConnelly

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Apr 6, 2011 - 5:54am
MTBSTC
Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center
By Charles B. Jones

This book, published by Nimble Books, LLC was written by the man who is currently the President of PT Boats, Inc., which is the US national veteran association for personnel who served as crew, officers and base and support personnel in World War II. Whereas Mr. Jones is a former US Navy officer, he has no ties to the boats, outside of being a scale modeler and now, as a historian.
Being the President of the organization which is the ‘depository’ of all things PT puts Mr. Jones in a very good and enviable position of having ready access to data and photographs enough for him to a very good job on this book. Which is, exactly, what he did do and this book will be a welcome addition to any library which contains a section on PT boats.
The book gives the reader an insight into an aspect of the PT boat which few outside of the small PT boat community has any inkling existed. That is, thanks to Mr. Jones, until now. He gives a brief history of the Training Center. I learned something that I was never aware of, and that is even though the official history of the Training Center began on February 17, 1942, the Secretary of the Navy signed the letter which called for its establishment a year earlier.
It was located in Melville, Rhode Island.
The Squadron at the Training Center was officially known as MTB Squadron 4. Originally, the training course at the Center was proposed as a one-month long course and would consist of two weeks of classroom studies and two weeks of practical training. At the beginning, each class in the course would have twenty officers and eighty enlisted personnel. A new training cycle would start every two weeks.
He describes what contracts were issued and what was built on the base under these contracts. Mr. Jones also describes the construction of the famous Quonset huts. The warehouses were covered in the book as well.
The layout of the base was discussed, in detail. This of course, gives the reader a good idea of the disposition of the buildings and just how massive the base actually was. Buildings were also discussed in detail. For instance, the base’s Post Office, was covered.
I learned that, in the three years the base was in operation, the post office was located in four different locations on the base and were operated between three to seven men.

The base had a police and a fire department.
He covered how the Training Center fitted into Task Force 23 and the Center was designated as CTG 23.4. This encompassed The MTB Repair Training Unit, whatever USN training ships assigned to the center, Squadron 4 and the Training Center.
The chain of command of the Training Center was also covered in detail, and I learned the bios of a few of the officers who “ran the show” and Mr. Jones even discusses how John F. Kennedy was an instructor at the center and even had command of the seventy-eight foot Huckins PT-101. This was of course, before he assumed command of PT-109.
The center had a football, basketball and baseball teams which played against different colleges (like Harvard). It had a swing-band and a marching which toured in the region.
The Center closed in 1945 and its squadron, Squadron 4 was placed out of service in 1946. The base became a fuel depot after the war and then, in the 1970s up through to the present day, became a marina and industrial complex and many of the original buildings are still there and in use. However, recently a fire destroyed one of them.
For me, the book brought back memories for me of when I would have my parents take me there when we would visit my older sister at Salve Regina (then, a college, now an university) and I would sit there and imagine the boats entering and exiting the lagoon there and also seeing PT-617 being restored.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in PT history. My only gripe, not enough photos of the boats.

T. Garth Connelly



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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: May 11, 2011 - 12:52pm
Just an update on the book for you. The price of the book through AMAZON.com and barnesandnoble.com has been reduced. It is now $72.

Thanks.

Charlie

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Jerry Beasley

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Beasley  Posted on: May 11, 2011 - 3:27pm
Is it available on Kindle format yet? Spoke with Amazon when it first came out and they told me they would love to have it available but it was the publisher's decision.

Jerry Beasley

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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: May 12, 2011 - 6:20am
I know he (publisher) was looking into it but don't the status. I don't have one of those but I'm curious on how does with pictures?

Charlie

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Jerry Beasley

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Beasley  Posted on: May 12, 2011 - 11:41am
They do an alright job with pictures and they are even better on an iPad, but I have another reason for asking - in the case of Kindle you can have several devices registered to the same name, so one of the items I have is my PC (software to read the books is free for each different device) and I have found that with the pictures being in digital format they are beautifully detailed on a good monitor,and magnificent on my 27" HD wide screen monitor. In the past 6 months I have begun adding Kindle versions of every research book I can get my hands on, especially the ones authored within our PT Boat family. If you are doing modeling and want a really good way to look at the pictures this is the only way to go.
Jerry

Jerry Beasley

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