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ť Forum Category: PT Boats of WWII
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ť Forum Name: PT Boats - General
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ť Topic: PT-157: The Captain's best day
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Captain Liebenow's best day...

Last Sunday I asked William 'Bud' Liebenow (Captain PT-157) about Welford West's (one of his torpedo man) recall that he, Liebenow, had met Admiral Halsey.

Liebenow said that while at Treasure Island his RON 9 commander (Lt. Commander Robert Kelly) asked him to take a launch out to meet an incoming PBY that had a VIP on-board. Kelly didn't say who so not sure if he knew who the VIP was. Anyway, Bud met the PBY as instructed and was shocked (his words...'shocked' ) to see Admiral Halsey step off the plane onto the launch. Bud said he saluted, identified himself and said ' welcome aboard sir'. Whereupon Halsey said 'aren't you the PT Captain that sank a Jap destroyer?!' (which the PT-157 had done on and may be the subject of another story...I'm checking more details with Torpedo man Welford West right now).

To this day you can tell how very excited Bud still is to have had ADM Halsey be so aware of the 157's sinking of the destroyer and for him, Halsey, to have stuck out his hand to shake his. He said it was one of the best days of his life.

And in continuation, Halsey went on a patrol with Liebenow that night. Capt Liebenow now had 4 boats under his command and said they were not on the 157 (but can't recall which boat they went out on). It was supposed to be something of a uneventful run however they did have to open up with machine guns at one point according to Capt Liebenow.

BTW, Capt. Liebenow said he was later requested by Commander Bulkeley to join Ron 2(2) for the duty in ETO. As Bud said 'when Bulkeley requested, you didn't refuse'. So with that William F (Bud) Liebenow is assigned to operations of England and will soon participate in the events of D-Day.

Bridge

Posted By: TheBridge | Posted on: Apr 30, 2010 - 8:14am
Total Posts: 318 | Joined: Nov 22, 2009 - 3:04pm