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 Author  Topic: pt washes up in solomons after earthquake
  bob wallace

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of bob wallace   Send Email To bob wallace Posted on: Apr 27, 2007 - 8:22pm
hi , guys..
any body have any more information on the PT Boat that is reported by CNN to have come from the depths after the earth quake?
I'd sure would like to find out what PT boat(number) it could possibly be.
any thoughts?
thanks,
bob wallace


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Drew Cook

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Drew Cook  Posted on: Apr 28, 2007 - 1:44am
In a story datelined Wellington, New Zealand posted April 27, 2007 @ 9:55 am EDT, and preceeded by blurbs reading "World War II torpedo boat now sitting 10 feet out of water," and "Live ammo still aboard 60-year-old vessel," the Associated Press reported that Jay Waura from the National Disaster Management Office stated the people on Rannonga island showed his team the wreckage sitting on dry ground. "My team members believe that this could have been one of those U.S. torpedo boats such as the famous PT 109..." Only the boat's hull with its deadly cargo of explosives remained intact. A Solomons Islands Police Force bomb disposal unit would be sent to the island to safely detonate the explosives..."

Wow! That's a wild one! I'd sure like more info on this, but I'd doubt what they found is a PT. Probably a Japanese barge.

I remember hearing the native villages on the island of Gizo were devastated by the recent tsunami. Gizo is the larger island at the "top" of the little anchor-shaped chain of islands where JFK and the crew of the 109 were stranded after the boat was rammed and sunk.

Gizo was known to have an established Japanese garrison on it at the time, and the 109 crew worried they would send barges of troops out among the other islands looking for survivors.


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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 28, 2007 - 5:33am
To think that after 60 years one has located a Hull or deck of a wooden boat is just plain crazy in my mind. Over the years, I have recieved at least 20 reports of people finding PT Boats or seeing them. Does anyone think that wood exposed to the salt water for 60 years would still resemble a PT Boat. Folks think because they find what looks like a Torpedo that it must be a PT Boat. Now, if they said they found three 2,950 lb engines on the Floor of the Ocean or washed up on the Beach, I would tend to listen. Common sense would tell us that these items would bear testimoney to a PT Boat being in the area. It is the same thing with the so called discovery of PT 109. I never believed what they found was in fact the 109. Just because what they found in the aea was what might have been a torpedo tube, does not make a discovery. Many boats operated in those areas. My big question, SHOW ME THE ENGINES!!!! SHOW ME THE GUNS!!! SHOW ME WHAT WOULD LOGICALLY have been part of a PT Boat that you could easily describe or pinpoint after being in the water for many many years.


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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 28, 2007 - 8:28am
Yeah, hard to believe that a recognizable hull could turn up after all of these years (but with the report coming from CNN, it might be a Japanese dump truck).....

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 28, 2007 - 9:26am
Now thats funny stuff Will.......


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Drew Cook

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Drew Cook  Posted on: Apr 28, 2007 - 12:35pm
I agree with Frank about this recently discovered, so-called "PT," but I also think Ballard probably DID find one of the tubes and torpedoes of the 109.

According to everything I've read, the U.S. Navy has no record of any other WWII PT besides the 109 that was lost in the Blackett Straight/Ferguson Passage areas. The Mark 18 torpedo tube with a torpedo still inside found by Ballard was found on the ocean floor in Blackett Straight, in an area that could be consistent with the drift and sinking of the hulk of the 109.

The only thing I didn't like about Ballard's expedition was the big deal made about declaring the tube and torpedo a "grave site," and thus off-limits for further exploration. The two crew members of the 109 lost were most likely killed on impact with the Amagiri, a mile or more up the straight from the current resting place of the torpedo tube and torpedo (and whatever else is buried under the sand below them).


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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 28, 2007 - 2:11pm
One must remember that Ballard is friends with the Kennedy Family and why was this considered a Grave site? No furthur diving on the site was a mystery to me as well. Why then did they not extensively search for the engines on the actual crash site. The weight alone of those three engines and the sheer size of a Packard Engine should show up on Radar or whatever method they use to track items. Although I know finding somethng underwater that has been there for so many years is very difficult, but when you claim to be looking for PT 109, why stop at the supposed find of a torpedo tube. I always thought that by finding the engines one would find them still in whatever gear the Motor Mac had them at the time of the colision. Hmm could this be another Kennedy coverup?


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Drew Cook

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Drew Cook  Posted on: Apr 28, 2007 - 4:12pm
Never thought for one minute about a "cover up," as far as discovering the engines being in or out of gear was concerned.

For my money, the controversy over whether JFK was "guilty" or "careless" for running the boat with engines out of gear, or two engines out of gear, the night of the collision, or JFK "allowing" the crew to be lax and asleep on patrol is a non-issue. Neither hold water (pardon the bad naval pun).

PT SOP at the time was to patrol with the center engine (the deepest screw) engaged and the wing engines in neutral to minimize the boat's wake, glaringly phosphorescent at night -- a virtual lighted highway Japanese float Zeros used to fly up and bomb PTs by. This has been verified time and time again over the years by numerous PT skippers and crewmen who fought in the same area and circumstances. JFK at 26 was intelligent, inquisitive and perceptive, and known to quiz experienced skippers who had been in combat for their knowledge. He and other PT skippers constantly discussed their boats, their capabilities, and those of their Japanese enemy looking for an edge -- any edge -- to use in combat. It doesn't make any sense for JFK, his exec (Thom), or his QM (Mauer) to have "carelessly" left the engines out of gear on patrol for no reason -- and they didn't.

A PT combat patrol lasted roughly from just before sunset to just before dawn, a period of 11 or 12 hours, and it was only natural for several members of the crew who weren't on watch to doze -- in their battle gear and near their stations. In most accounts of the moments just before the Amagiri was sighted and the 109 was rammed, only three or four of the thirteen men aboard -- all not on watch -- were dozing, leaving at least nine men (McMahon was in the engine room) peering into the darkness as lookouts.

Also, consider this -- when the Amagiri was sighted, McMahon was reportedly standing between the engines, checking the manifolds and regulating the cooling system, and was climbing over machinery to check a gauge when the destroyer rammed the 109. In other words, HE WASN'T IN THE TRACTOR SEAT, AT THE GEAR LEVERS, and might not have heard the engine room telegraph or seen the indicators when JFK jammed the throttles forward.

Blackett Straight is a long way and a lot of years from Chappaquidick, and I don't think the two have anything to do with each other.

That's just my opinion.


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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 28, 2007 - 4:39pm
Right on, Drew....

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 28, 2007 - 5:01pm
Drew

I certainly agree with you as to what the standard policy was concerning those early PT BOAT PATROLS. In my many years of being involved with PT Boats, I learned a long time ago about the center screw being deeper in the water and how motor macs ran those engines. Being from Massachusetts, one can't help thinking about the many years of Kennedy involments and coverups. You are correct Sir, Politics and PT Boats have no place on this web site, and I apologize for mixing the two. However, I still stand by my thinking in that I would have liked to have seen them find the engines, guns, and other parts before claiming they found PT 109. Thanks for your comments.


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