Plan B Forum

(raw video footage; no sound, but it's enough to give you the idea)


Built in 1943 at Higgins Industries in New Orleans, she served in the ETO as part of MTB Squadron 22 (Ron 22).  The squadron operated in the Mediterranean along the coast of Southern France and Northern Italy.  Boats from Ron 22 participated in the Invasion of Elba on June 18, 1944, where PT-305 sank a German F-lighter.

The squadron also acted as a diversionary force in Gulf Juan, and as an anti-E-boat screen in the Nice-Cannes area.  Ron 22 was part of Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France on August 15, 1944, where they landed French commandos on the coast of France in preparation for the invasion.  The squadron was also involved in action around Leghorn, Italy.  To harass the enemy Ron 22 fired torpedoes into harbors between Genoa, Italy and the French-Italian border.  On the night of April 24, 1945, PT-305 sank an Italian MAS boat.

She escaped the fate — 'destruction in place' — suffered by many other veterans of the 'Mosquito Fleet' because she and her squadron-mates were in New York awaiting refitting for deployment to the Pacific Theater when hostilities ended.  They were sold as surplus; PT-305 was converted to an oyster boat and underwent many alterations including the stripping of her upper works, being re-engined to diesel engines, and suffering the final indignity of being shortened by almost 15 feet to side-step Coast Guard regulations requiring a licensed captain on all craft exceeding 65 feet in length.

Now she has come back home.  Owned by the National WW II Museum in New Orleans, PT-305 has been fully restored by dedicated volunteers to her original length and refitted just as she was during her days in the Med — right down to the three supercharged Packard 12-cylinder gasoline engines!  Housed in a specially-constructed boathouse on Lake Pontchartrain, the 305 is set to offer dockside tours and cruises lasting 45 minutes to one hour to the public.  For more information, check out this site .... http://pt305.org/

-"BB"-

Check out The Duke's PT Boat -- the Wild Goose:

NAVAL BACKGROUND
Classification: Motor Minesweeper YMS 328, U.S. Navy
Operations Area: Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Overall Length: 136 feet
Beam: 25 feet
Draft: 9 feet
Displacement: 287 tons

https://www.hornblower.com/port/yacht/nb+30

With a length of 136 feet, a beam of 25 feet, and a draft of 9 feet, she is almost 60 feet longer and 5 feet wider than the standard PT boat (which drew around five feet of water, had a beam of roughly 20 feet, and ran between 70 and 80 feet in length, depending on the class).  And, with the largest class of PT boat tipping the scales at 61 tons, the "Wild Goose" is almost 5 times the weight.

Bottom line .... she may have been built of wood, but she wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a PT boat.

-"BB"-

Wild Goose was originally a "yard minesweeper", used mostly in protected waters. It had twin diesel engines when built and a top speed of 15 knots- nowhere near that of a PT boat's 40+ kt speed. PT boats used 3 Packard Marine 4M-2500 supercharged gasoline engines.

They claimed 40+ knots, but in the real world...after a few weeks in the water, few would top 35 and in the tropics, many did well to hold 30.