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 Author  Topic: PT-361
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: May 30, 2022 - 5:18am
PT-361 getting some torpedoes moored next to her tender. Assigned to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron TWENTY SEVEN (Ron 27) under the command of CDR Clinton McKellar, Jr., USN
Ron 27, assigned to the South Pacific, had action at Treasury and Green. Assigned temporarily to the Third Fleet, the squadron was based at Palau, in the Marianas, from October to December 1944, when it was transferred to the Southwest Pacific. There it had action at San Pedro Bay and Subic Bay in the Philippines, and Balikpapan in Borneo.

pQ1n3.jpg
pQgbc.jpg


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Dick

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Dick   Send Email To Dick Posted on: Jun 2, 2022 - 11:54am
Once again Frank, thanks your posting and photos keep this dying forum and website breathing a little, for change. To you a very long time senior member it is very much appreciated.

Dick. . . .


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Dick

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Dick   Send Email To Dick Posted on: Jun 2, 2022 - 11:56am

Once again Frank, thanks your posting and photos keep this dying forum and website breathing a little for change. To you a very long time senior member it is very much appreciated.

Dick. . . .


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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: Jun 2, 2022 - 1:28pm
My Pleasure Dick, I hope we can breath a little fire into what was once the best place to look for anything PT BOAT Related. It is still the best place to research past conversations if your looking up information


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PRJM3

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of PRJM3   Send Email To PRJM3 Posted on: Jun 12, 2022 - 6:34pm
For some reason I think these pictures were taken while my dad was on the 361 in 1944 and 1945. I can't find any similar pictures in his photo collection, but I know that I've previously seen the man with the pipe leaning on the rail of the Varuna. The large format of the pictures and the generally good quality suggest that they were taken by a Navy photographer. Pictures that the sailors took, including Dad, were developed and printed in the cabin of the PT boat and were limited to smaller formats that could be contact printed. The sailor in white skivvies wearing a fatigue cap and holding a tag line to the torpedo looks very much like Harley Black. In Dad's photo album he lists him as both a Gunners Mate and a Coxswain. Could he be both? According to the notes in Dad's photo album the picture below (hopefully) shows Black sitting and looking at the camera along with Ralp Cockrell. The man standing facing the camera looks very much like Vic Kodis, whom Frank knew very well post war, which means Cockrell is the man looking away from the camera. Cockrell was later wounded at Fort Drum/El Fraile Island. The 361 is passing the USS Wisconsin in San Pedro Bay.

pZWkm.jpg

A second photograph of the Wisconsin. There must have been something official going on as pictures with the crew in uniform are quite rare.

pZqo0.jpg

I thought I had a definite connection with the man sitting in front of the cabin reading a book, but Dad's picture turned out to be Larry Graham, Exec of PT 357. The pose is amazingly similar.

pZyrc.jpg

Finally, in the first picture that Frank posted, is a sailor using the stern mounted latrine on the boat behind the 361?

Randy McConnell (Randall J. McConnell III)

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Jeff D

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jeff D   Send Email To Jeff D Posted on: Jun 14, 2022 - 6:22am
Thanks Frank and Randy.

"is a sailor using the stern mounted latrine on the boat behind the 361?"

Hah, I zoomed in and that's a definite yes! When you gotta go, you gotta go. Good eye Randy.



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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: Jun 14, 2022 - 9:59am
That is so funny I never really spotted that before. Man right out in front
of 200 Sailors lol


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JEno

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of JEno  Posted on: Jun 16, 2022 - 2:09pm
"That is so funny I never really spotted that before. Man right out in front
of 200 Sailors lol"
Not to be dismissive of our modern fighting forces, but when I here of soldiers complaining about not having Internet while overseas... they should be seeing these photograaphs.
War is hell, I never want to go through it, but there is little to no appreciation for what wars in the past have entailed.
It is photographs like these that keep that realization alive. Let it nevr be lost.


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Stearman

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Stearman  Posted on: Jun 16, 2022 - 8:05pm
About a decade ago, I was at a friends motorcycle shop, when a young GI we knew came, he complained that his wife hadn't bought him some baby wipes before he went down range! Now this was not a little guy, he was a mountain, who could look at the top shelf, while we needed ladders! Still, pretty funny.


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PRJM3

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of PRJM3   Send Email To PRJM3 Posted on: Jun 17, 2022 - 12:20pm
Moving on . . . (A favorite phrase of a retired Vice Admiral that I reported to for seven years.)

In the first picture that Frank posted there is a light colored "box" on the starboard stern of the 361 behind the sailor in the white skivvies. There's a similar, but not identical box in the same location on the boat behind the 361. I don't recall seeing anything like that previously, but I believe they are made up of three 40 mm ammo cans standing upright inside an angle iron framework. I have a picture in Dad's album that shows sailors on the 359 doing laundry on top of ammo cans and always assumed they just put them on the stern while doing the laundry. Looking at that picture again I can see that three of the cans are in an angle iron framework while several others are standing at random. The three in the framework have a lid that covers all three and one sailor is using that as the rock to beat his laundry on. In the picture posted here the cans on the 361 have the "lid" in place, probably a work bench of sorts. Does anyone know of other pictures of these cans? The 40 mm cans on the 361 were a very light color, almost as if they were whitewashed.

A spotting feature for the 361 is the unusual twin 50 mount on the starboard side of the bridge. It's a pyramid pipe framework and the ammo cans are curved. I always assumed the cans are made for a turret mount. The guns are equipped with bell mouth flash arrestors (?). In the picture the crewman is holding the flash arrestors to keep the guns clear of the Varuna.

On the first picture of the Wisconsin there's a sailor on a bosun's chair on the rear funnel. Scraping the paint never stops.

Randy McConnell (Randall J. McConnell III)

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