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 Author  Topic: Torpedo Firings in Narragansett Bay June-Sept 45
Andy Small

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Andy Small  Posted on: Aug 1, 2014 - 8:13am
All,

With Jerry's mentioning the Mark 13 Mod 2 variant in his newly posted PT 658 YouTube tour video, I started my usual internet search and found the Mark 13 manual on the Historical Naval Ships Collection with a 1942 date. This has me thinking about the info I found, within the PT 100 deck logs just two week ago, when down at the National Archives (thanks to all who assisted me on this great adventure).

Ron 4 PT 100 fired just over a hundred torpedoes (I assume Mark 13 variants) between mid June 45 until mid Sep 45. They would pick up either two and fire, or pick up two- fire then pick up another two and fire during the day. Unlike other entries which would specify picking up students for training, there was no mention of this, so I believe these were directed at collecting information for the Torpedo Facility in RI, or testing some new modifications. Entries would sometimes include "exercise" with the torpedo firing, and at least one deck entry included "experimental" in the actual entry. PT 99 also fired eighteen torpedoes on different days, with both boats occasionally conducting these firings on weekends, indicating to me that there were probably many other boats involved in this daily massive shoot period. Since I had limited time, and my focus was on the Huckins PTs (so I did not have a chance to check out the other non-Huckins Ron 4 boat log entries), does anyone have any thoughts, info or hunches as to why these launches were taking place, or knowledge of other boats involved? I can only assume it was related to the invasion of Japan and maybe coming up with data on how best to attack small suicide craft, but that's just a WAG. They might have been working on a Mod 3? Just another WAG. Any pointers would be appreciated! I'm sure there is some extensive report on all this somewhere. I have to say that the PT 100 crew were probably Aces in the torpedo launching category by the end of the war.

Thanks!
Andy


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Frank Andruss

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank Andruss   Send Email To Frank Andruss Posted on: Aug 1, 2014 - 11:11am
Andy, I E Mailed you, as I was having trouble putting my response here on the message board. I tried a few times, but no luck. I am now able to leave a message, must have been my Computer. Please note that what I sent to you is just an educated guess, as I have no concrete evidence.


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Andy Small

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Andy Small  Posted on: Aug 1, 2014 - 12:03pm
Thanks Frank, just received your response. I have a couple instances where another Huckins was used as a "target" boat during some of the exercises. I agree that the best guess is the shallow water and shallow targets, and I think add fast moving and anything else the US thought the Japanese would throw out there during their homeland defense. May have even been how to do this with waves of landing craft hitting the beach, again just a WAG, but a very difficult scenario. Maybe someone somewhere will have an important lead.

I kind of fell out of my chair at the archives when I started finding page after page of Torp-Ex log entries for PT 100 at the end of the war and in the end I had counted 101 actual launches, in the 3 month period, with a couple where they couldn't complete the exercise due to weather or radar failure (interesting). These were on top of the boat's many previous firings that went all the way back to its Ron 14 roots. Must have been great to be a part of the PT 100 crew in 45, having just returned from being a co-star in the movie as "PT-31".

My work on the Huckins PT Boat model kit (and book) continues and with my archives trip, I now believe I have the various configurations of the boat nailed down including a few surprises. The one area I still need help is the special underwater muffler system that was built into PT 257. Unfortunately I haven't found any photos (lots of documentation though), so I have no idea what this system even looked like.

Cheers,
Andy




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Frank Andruss

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank Andruss   Send Email To Frank Andruss Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 2:14am
I went through all of my Huckins Factory photo's and could not find any evidence of their muffler system on the boats. I am glad you got my E Mail, I was having trouble with my Computer, which has now been fixed. As I mentioned to you, PT-100 had to have been a test bed for what ever the Navy was working on at that time. Again my guess would have been shallow water testing.


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John Sullivan

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of John Sullivan   Send Email To John Sullivan Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 7:08am
Hello, My name is John Sullvan. I'm trying to get some information about PT boats. I served in the Solomon Islands. Any help would be great and thank you.


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Andy Small

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Andy Small  Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 9:44am
Hi Frank, It wasn't a factory install but one added to PT 257 shortly after its arrival in Pearl in early 44.


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Frank Andruss

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank Andruss   Send Email To Frank Andruss Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 5:04pm
Andy that is what I was looking for in my Factory photos, which include a few photos of the boats in Hawaii, I think I may have sent these to you already.


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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: Aug 2, 2014 - 5:39pm
Andy;
Your WAG might not be as far off the mark as you think. Shallow water testing makes sense for other reasons: Submarine nets and log booms. A MK Xlll torpedo can make a nice size hole in a sub net, and could easily take out two or three sections of a log boom. These were both used in harbors all over Japan. This makes me wonder if they were also testing a more sensitive contact exploder and or a more powerful charge.
Along this same line, John Akin, RON 1 PT 24 and 27, wrote me a response letter years ago. He stated that when RON 1(PT 20, 24, 27, 29, 30, and 42) returned to Pearl Harbor in Dec 1943, they were refitting the boats with MK 6 depth charges and were in redeployment work ups and were heading first to the Philippines(but they found no Japanese minefields in Philippines)and for further training.to prepare for the invasion of Japan. They were to be utilize to blow channels in the minefields outside Japanese Harbors. I guess for PT's the staging area was to be Okinawa(since RON 31 and 37 were already there) for Operation Downfall (Oct 1945), and follow on Operations Olympic(Nov 1, 1945) and Operation Coronet(Mar 1, 1946). If this had worked out I guess they would have transferred PT 62, 64, 65, and 66 to bring RON 1 back up to strength. RON 1 was the last original 77' squadron to be decommissioned in Feb 1945. However, this is just a SWAG(Super Wild A-- Guess) as it turned out they were just test and evaluation platforms. If boats were needed to do this, eventually, early 80' ELCO's and 78' Higgins probably would have been employed for this. Of course RON 26 was doing nothing in Hawaii, maybe they would have been used first. It would have been something, just reading the proposed plans for these operations is amazing(Ie; they intended to use 42 aircraft carriers, that would have been 3700+ Naval aircraft just on the carriers) and are worth reading, take this into consideration, and I believe there would have been a RON 55-60(12 boats each), which would have meant at least another 168 boats(in addition to every identified/proposed number) the last boat would have been numbered PT 952!!
Just something to think about....
Take care,
TED

PT24 RON 1 carrying mines1944 John wrote this is ENS Lawrence Zeebrugge,USNR but I can't find his name anywhere.

PT24 RON 1 carrying MK6 depth charges and larger MK 7 depth charges on stern NOV1944

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Andy Small

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Andy Small  Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 6:23pm
Thanks Frank, you were pretty thorough on sending me all your Huckins photos. I've been pretty thorough on my photo search and have found nothing in anything I've dug up from my Germantown visits, Fall River visit, or what has been sent me. Was hoping for a specific photo of the mod in the Archives PT 257 BuShips folder but No Joy. With the mod being mostly internal there wouldn't be much to see, but an aft dry dock view would be helpful to see how the exhaust stacks were relocated/modified.

Does anyone have info on the PT Boat tactics that were going to be employed during Operation Downfall? That might help in trying to figure out the intention of conducting so many Torp-EXs.




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Andy Small

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Andy Small  Posted on: Aug 2, 2014 - 6:47pm
Thanks Ted,

Was distracted while typing my response to Frank and when I came back to the computer and sent my response, I then saw your post.

I was also thinking about the sub nets and the boom vessels. Also it's seems best to nail the suicide craft before they leave their bases.


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