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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 BOATS AT PEARL HARBOR
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I have heard many times how PT Boats assisted in looking for and bringing in survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the boats, along with the Submarines were not touched by the bombing, they cruised in the Harbor bringing aboard many of the injured sailors. History tends to downplay the role of the PT Boats and this type action is no different. PT Boats probably downed the first Japanese planes of this action, but again never really recieved credit due. I have never seen any photo's of the boats in action at Pearl Harbor and was wondering if any exsisted. I would love to include them as part of my Exhibit, but have found no evidence of photo's available. Anyone have information, please contact me here or off site at mosquitofleet@comcast.net

Posted By: Frank J Andruss Sr | Posted on: Jan 2, 2007 - 4:25am
Total Posts: 3497 | Joined: Oct 9, 2006 - 6:09am

Frank -

Frank D. Johnson's book had a few of those photos. Also, I've been told that the boats at PH were a blue ...

Garth

You've got a question, I've got an answer.

Posted By: TGarth Connelly | Posted on: Jan 2, 2007 - 6:34am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

From what I have read the PT boats in Pearl on December 7 were deck loaded on one or more fleet oilers at the time. Some of the PT crews got their guns into action during the attack but I don't recall reading in any of the many books I've read about the attack that PT boats were ever in action on the water.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Posted By: C Marin Faure | Posted on: Jan 3, 2007 - 11:17pm
Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm

Marin,

Not all of the boats were on the tanker being shipped to the PI. Some were indeed in the water and were helping to pick up survivors.

Garth

You've got a question, I've got an answer.

Posted By: TGarth Connelly | Posted on: Jan 4, 2007 - 4:01am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

Garth--

Thanks. I looked at the Dec. 7 vessel disposition chart in Victor Chun's PT book and saw where the boats in the water were located. Interesting that none of the books I've read on the attack ever mentioned their role during or after the attack other than the guns of some of the ones on the oiler being brought into action. I have Frank Johnson's book "PT Boats of WWII" but did not see any photos in it of PT boats during or after the attack.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Posted By: C Marin Faure | Posted on: Jan 5, 2007 - 12:35am
Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm

There's one of two 77 footers racing along in front of a CV in Johnson's book.

Why would the Navy report on the movements inside a harbor of minor combatants. They were more concerned with raising the fleet and finding survivors and recovering bodies rather than the movements of a few minor units ... and how would you record something as fluid as that on a day of utter chaos. It'd next to impossible I should think.

Garth

You've got a question, I've got an answer.

Posted By: TGarth Connelly | Posted on: Jan 5, 2007 - 4:18am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

I'm familiar with that photo and many others of PTs on patrol in the waters around Oahu after the war started. I thought someone had said there were photos in the book of the PTs being used in the harbor during or right after the Dec. 7 attack to pick up survivors.

I grew up in Hawaii and when I was a kid a family friend who was a submarine commander in the Navy gave me a big box full of PT and submarine photos. The 100 or so PT shots were all of boats in Hawaiian waters early in the war but none of them had been taken during or right after the attack.

The Navy might not have said much about the actions of small boats during or after the attack, but the people crewing them might have. Some of the books I've read about the attack related the experiences of people involved in fairly "insignificant" actions, like cruising around in a motor lifeboat pulling people off the bottom of the Okalahoma. I don't doubt that some of the PT boats were used in this way, I'm just a bit surprised that I've not seen it mentioned in any of the books I've read about the attack and its aftermath.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Posted By: C Marin Faure | Posted on: Jan 5, 2007 - 2:25pm
Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm

Cdr. Bulkeley's book AT CLOSE QUARTERS has a short description of the Ron 1 boats during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Will

Posted By: Will Day | Posted on: Jan 5, 2007 - 9:01pm
Total Posts: 1955 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 4:19pm

Will-- Thanks for that reminder. I bought an early copy of At Close Quarters twenty years ago in a used bookstore when I first started researcing my current project and while I've read it I either missed or have forgotten Bulkley's desciption of the Pearl Harbor action. I'll review it again.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Posted By: C Marin Faure | Posted on: Jan 5, 2007 - 10:38pm
Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm

I saw two 77 ft Pt Boats dropping depth charges on a Jap sub that had gotten thru the net at PH. A destroyer was doing the spotting with it's sonar for the PT as it could not manuver in the entrance channel. The sub was between the net and the beached BS Nevada. This was a month after PH. The day I arrived in Ph.I was on my way in a motor launch to my new duty station US Niagara. We pulled over and tied up to the old coal docks until the action was over.

Posted By: Joe Brannan | Posted on: Jan 6, 2007 - 8:57am
Total Posts: 8 | Joined: Oct 12, 2006 - 5:56pm

The whole forgetting about the little guys deal....I recently was thumbing thru what was billed as the "complete book of boats of WW2" and there was a slight blurb about a higgens boat.

Posted By: VCR | Posted on: Jan 6, 2007 - 7:27pm
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

Of course another problem is the term 'Higgins boat." To PT vets or enthusiasts, a Higgins boat is the PT boat designed and built by Higgins. But to almost everyone else, a "Higgins boat" is the nickname for the ubiquitous little LCVP that was used in virtually every amphibioius landing during the war.

It was not until recentliy that I learned that a) the LCVP was made of wood, and b) they were designed and built by Higgins in Louisiana. But in recent conversations with some WWII vets and historians, when I used the term "Higgins boat" in reference to PT boats they all assumed I was talking about an LCVP.

Just last week a friend was going on at great length about the immaculately restored "Higgins boat" in a museum near New Orleans. As he talked I was envisioning a restored Higgins PT boat and was a bit surprised as I was not aware of a fully restored PT boat in the New Orleans area. Finally it came out that what my friend had seen was an immaculately restored Higgins LCVP.

I've read a number of books about Naval craft in WWII and about specific campaigns in the European or Pacific theatres, Leyte Gulf for example. In these books the PT boats were all just lumped together into one type with no distinction made between Elco PTs and HIggins PTs. The LCVP, on the other hand, was a class of boat on its own. So it's possible the term "Higgins boat" might be used in reference to LCVPs in the same book where PT boats are simply called "PT boats" with no distinction made between their manufacturers.

C. Marin Faure
Sammamish, Washington

Posted By: C Marin Faure | Posted on: Jan 7, 2007 - 2:23pm
Total Posts: 27 | Joined: Dec 20, 2006 - 11:43pm