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 Author  Topic: Nightly Patrols
CJ Willis

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of CJ Willis  Posted on: Apr 30, 2012 - 12:40pm
Our Squadron 19 and PT 242 made our first patrol out of Vella La Vella on Nov 1st, 1943. Our crew was relieved of duty from 242 at Green Island on about Nov 5th,1944. In that span of time of a year we made either 85 or 87 nightly patrols. That was the most of any boat in Ron 19. Our Exec Lt.JG Bill Raney was a stickler for always having our boat ready to go on patrol. Mornings when we would get in from patrol about 9 AM we had to get the boat refueled, clean all the guns, replinish any ammunition used,get water , the engineers check over all the engines and have the boat ready to go back out on patrol before we could put up the tarp and get our cots out for any sleep. It seemed 242 was always available for patrol. Consequently we were called out more. We were lucky (or unlucky) depending, that we were one of the few boats in Ron 19 that never run aground on a reef so was never out of commision for any length of time. In that year we were only out of commision when we got shot up off Bougainville and was sent to Tulagi for repairs, Mk 13 torpedoes and new engines. We were at Tulagi about 3 weeks. All of Ron 19 was out of commission about a month when half of the crews went ot New Zealand for R and R. I would like to hear from some other PT crew members just how many patrols they made.

C. J. Willis

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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 30, 2012 - 5:50pm
C.J.

Boy that's a large amount of patrol time. Just curious though, how many times would you say you encountered enemy action during those 85 patrols. What was a typical patrol for your boat...............


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CJ Willis

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of CJ Willis  Posted on: Apr 30, 2012 - 7:09pm
Frank: A typical patrol for us- we would leave the base between 3;30 to 5;00 pm depending on the distance to our patrol station to arrive at dusk. We usually went as a two or three boat section with a section leader riding the lead boat. On station we would patrol idling at our desiginated area searching for any enemy activity until daylight when we would leave for the base and the air patrols took over during the day. I can think of at least eight times we encountered some type of enemy action either shore batteries, barges,or float planes bombing. We never encountered a capital ship to fire a torpedo. Many times we would see lights on the Jap shore and we would create our own activity by idling in close then lobbing about 5 mortar rounds in the air. When the first one hit the beach we would open up with all guns for a few seconds then get the hell out of there before they had time to recipicate. It depended on the section leader how adventurous we were. Some were more so than others.

C. J. Willis

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Will Day

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Will Day   Send Email To Will Day Posted on: Apr 30, 2012 - 10:27pm
Great stuff, C.J. Thanks!

Will

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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 30, 2012 - 10:38pm
Thanks so much CJ. It seems like it was hours of boredom, followed by minutes of terror. I can only imagine what it must have been like being fired on by shore batteries.


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Nuge210

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Nuge210   Send Email To Nuge210 Posted on: May 1, 2012 - 1:24pm
Yes, I agree, thanks for those memories , C. J. Very interesting indeed.

I'm not sure that I ever knew that the 242 was shot up at Bougainville. If you wouldn't mind, I, for one, would like to hear a little about it.

Steve

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CJ Willis

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of CJ Willis  Posted on: May 1, 2012 - 3:26pm
Steve: If you search "Barge Hunting" here on the message board you will find an account I wrote several years ago of this encounter with Jap barges.

C. J. Willis

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TED WALTHER

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of TED WALTHER   Send Email To TED WALTHER Posted on: May 1, 2012 - 4:01pm
C.J.
With your PT 242 total of 85-87 patrols in a 12 month period, it would not surprise me, thanks to your Exec, that your boat has the all time record of patrols. If your boat doesn't have the all-time record, I bet she is in the top 5! At least for Pacific based boats. That averages out to a patrol every 4 days!
Maybe the RON 15, 22, and 29, Med based boats are up there too.
I wonder if there was some kind of records kept by other Squadrons. I can figure out how many PT 48(RON 2 and RON 3(2)) made, thanks to everyone who has sent me copies of her logbook pages, but I fear to find out the all-time top 5(both in a 12 month period, and all-time patrol leaders in boats entire career), we would have to go through each individual boats logbooks, what a monumental task that would be!
Take care,
TED


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newsnerd99

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: May 2, 2012 - 1:11am
I think CJ and the 242 would best all the Med boats...I think the 204 has the record for Med boats for the most patrols...and I don't think its more than that. Steve, do you remember?

The number of patrols were lower comparatively in the Med (I think) because of the shared duties with the Royal Navy, the addition of extra squadrons in the same area later in the war and the lack of combat areas at the end of the war. A lot of the early patrols were mixed RN/USN boats and later patrols were mixed Ron15/22/29 boats.

Grandson of James J Stanton
RON 15 PT 209 and RON 23 PT 243
Check out: www.pistolpackinmama.net

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Nuge210

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Nuge210   Send Email To Nuge210 Posted on: May 2, 2012 - 6:16pm
Jim,
I don't know about the 204, but I'd wager no Ron 15 boat came close to
C.J.'s 242 patrol total. It has me interested in looking at the Ron 15 War Diary
to compare, as they were alone in the Med for about a year prior to the arrival of
Ron 22. I'll research a bit.

Steve

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