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 Author  Topic: PT 107 crew
JIMSULLY99

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of JIMSULLY99  Posted on: Aug 11, 2022 - 11:32am
looking for info on crew of 107 any one know ant


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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: Aug 15, 2022 - 12:06pm
Welcome Sully, good to have you here!

I checked my photos for shots of the crew with names but no luck. Are you looking for a relative? I ask because we had a member who went by Sully, John Sullivan, who was a PT vet.

Did you know that at one point PT 107 was captained by the actor Robert (born Henry) Montgomery who would later star in the best PT movie ever, They Were Expendable? Here he is behind the wheel of PT 107:

poIwm.jpg



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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: Aug 15, 2022 - 5:47pm
Jim,

I'll be going to the National Archives next week and will pull the 107 deck logs and make copies of the crew lists.

Charlie

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  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Aug 15, 2022 - 6:24pm
I am fairly certain that Montgomery was also assigned to PT103. I am referencing several photos and a story from Master Chief Jack Duncan, a former TorpedoMan (TM3/c) aboard the 103 boat. When he reported aboard the 103 he was told accounts of how Montgomery was at the helm when the 103 rammed into the Pier (in New York?) and resulted in a broken Torpedo Tube. The entire tube mount was smashed so badly they had to do extensive repairs and replaced the whole assembly. I have some of these photos at home and I can see if I can find them later on today or tomorrow.

Jerry Gilmartin
PT658 Crewman
Portland OR

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james sullivan

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of james sullivan   Send Email To james sullivan Posted on: Aug 16, 2022 - 1:28pm

YES I KNEW ROBERT MONTGOMERY WAS ON THE 107 MY FATHER JOHN SULLIVAN GUNNERS MATE 3/CLASS TOLD ME HE WAS TRANSFERED OFF THE BOAT BECAUSE SOME ONE WAS JEALOUS OF HIM FOR BEING A STAR DON'T KNOW WHO WANTED HIM GONE . AFTER DAD HAD LEAVE AND THE 107 BURNED HE FINISHED THE WAR ON THE PT 582 NO WAR PATRONS THERE UNTIL THEY BURNED ALL THE BOATS.



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  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Aug 18, 2022 - 11:51am
Here is the photo of PT103 in New York after LT Montgomery smashed her into the pier. As related to me from Jack Duncan.

pokj3.jpg

This is an excerpt from Jack Duncans numerous tales where he mentions being a crew on PT103 and Montgomery ramming the boat into the dock.


Idiots, more properly called “Base Force B******s,” kept us busy filling 55-gallon drums with sand to form a seawall for weeks while we awaited orders. Those orders finally were discovered awaiting us on Morotai and we were able to stop shoveling sand against the tide, rest our blistered palms and board a transport at Biak enroute home after more than 18 months without seeing an iota of civilization. The only women we had seen were an occasional member of the OCC. No capish? Officers’ Convenience Corps; sometimes known as Red Cross girls.

And I always heard that Robert Montgomery slammed the side of the 3-boat into the dock at Bayonne – or so the original crew told me, proudly showing me where the rub strake had been replaced, while bragging about the movie star.

Rather than a “shortage of torpedo tubes at Tulagi” when those would have been originally fitted-out in Bayonne, not in theater, the story I was told was when the boats were being chased by the fast Jap tincans around Savo Island (late 1942) that one boat dropped ashcans into its wake to discourage the Jap destroyer riding up that wake. I’ve long-forgotten the number of the anecdotal boat. Therefore, inasmuch as our Mk VIII torpedoes dated as far back as 1911 – my newest one was 1919 – sometimes/occasionally ran “straight, hot and true,” it’s more likely that the ashcans exchanged for tubes would have been anti-destroyer weapons. The timing and my guess would say so.

Of course, many of the Melville training boats had depth charges in case they “tripped over” a U-Boat while training around Martha’s Vineyard and New London. For instance, when I asked for exchanging to the PT-62, we had a compartment immediately aft (???), or was it forward, of the turrets called the “Sound Room” from the days when the 77-footers were mistakenly believed to be another version of submarine chaser. The bedlam and crescendo of three wheels spinning at 2500 rpm soon destroyed that concept of battleship officers.

My only “action” at Tulagi was an air raid while my 103 was in drydock drying out her bottom to get it scraped and a new coat of Copperoid paint. I had joined the crew without a turn-over log as THE torpedoman; my predecessor having already left for Stateside. He remained an unknown, the original crew never told me about him, nor was he ever mentioned. Enigmatic for a barely 18-year-old kid responsible for 4 fish, 2 depth charges, an Elco smoke bottle and perpetually turned-to cleaning guns!

Then, after we moved up Blanche Channel to Rendova, the Base Force removed my accursed tubes and old Mark 8s, replacing them with side-launching racks and Mark 13s that I’d never seen even though I had been promoted to Torpedoman Third Class before my 18th birthday!

You may now turn off the old 78 rpm record of “Memories.” You young whipper-snapper aficionados know more about obtuse details of the boats than we who crewed ‘em ever did.

I had never seen these photos of the “3-boat” as we called her. Naming the boats came much later in the war as we added guns and crew, while wandering into new waters and I became a 19-year-old TM2/c! Changed my rating to Gunner’s Mate after graduation from UDT School in Florida and stayed second class until after the Korean War opened up promotions – 9 years an “E-5,” as it finally became designated long after the war ended."

This is the end of the excerpt from Jack.

Jerry Gilmartin
PT658 Crewman
Portland OR

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