A decent review of the origins, development, deployment, and characteristics of the USN's Motor Torpedo Boats in both major theaters of World War II.
The narration carries the film but there are a few surviving crewmen who give their personal views.
It's generally accurate and covers the two best-known incidents of the PTs. General MacArthur and his family were aboard one of half a dozen PTs that evacuated him from the untenable island of Corregidor in the early months of the war. (The General was sea sick.) And in 1943, PT-109, skippered by John F. Kennedy was accidentally cut in half by a speeding Japanese destroyer. See the feature film "PT-109" for a dramatized version of the event.
The Armed Forces of all nations seem to have a habit of giving nicknames to the weapons of their enemies. Allied troops called the German Nebelwehrfer "the screaming meemees" and the Germans called our B-24 a "furniture van." I suspect some of the more fearful nicknames of Allied weapons were dreamed up by correspondents and propagandists and that the Japanese never called the PT boat "the devil boat of the night." I CAN believe that the Japanese called our P-38 "one pilot, two plane."
The narration carries the film but there are a few surviving crewmen who give their personal views.
It's generally accurate and covers the two best-known incidents of the PTs. General MacArthur and his family were aboard one of half a dozen PTs that evacuated him from the untenable island of Corregidor in the early months of the war. (The General was sea sick.) And in 1943, PT-109, skippered by John F. Kennedy was accidentally cut in half by a speeding Japanese destroyer. See the feature film "PT-109" for a dramatized version of the event.
The Armed Forces of all nations seem to have a habit of giving nicknames to the weapons of their enemies. Allied troops called the German Nebelwehrfer "the screaming meemees" and the Germans called our B-24 a "furniture van." I suspect some of the more fearful nicknames of Allied weapons were dreamed up by correspondents and propagandists and that the Japanese never called the PT boat "the devil boat of the night." I CAN believe that the Japanese called our P-38 "one pilot, two plane."