Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "PT Squadron 3 - Guide 161" video.

  1. Fantastic! I've been waiting for a PT boat guide. My dad was in Ron 10 on PT-124 from January 4, 1943 until it was disbanded in November, 1945. The Lewis guns and turrets were long gone when he arrived. They only carried two torpedoes by mid-1943, and they spent the vast majority of their time shooting up those barges, by then being used for attempted resupply of isolated islands. The Japanese barges kept adding bigger guns, and the squadron kept scrounging bigger guns of their own. It was an arms race in tropics, and the Navy, with the exception of the 40mm Bofors, never approved any of it. Dad's boat did have some ad-hoc armor. One of the guys was a metal worker, and he crafted a pair of 3/8" sheet steel plates from a scrapped P-39, and the crew installed them around the refrigerator/freezer. It used ammonia for refrigerant, and a stray round going through the refrigerant line filled the boat with ammonia fumes. Even worse, it meant the refrigerator was out of commission, and that meant no cold milk or ice cream, things they got from their monthly visit to the USS Mobjack, the squadron's tender. No one much cared about armor for the crew, but they wanted their ice cream and milk! Oh, I forgot to mention that no one in the squadron thought very highly of Cdr. Bulkeley. He got to be a big celebrity because of the daring rescue of McArthur, and pretty soon he became the Navy's version of him. He was apparently an intrepid sailor, and the guys felt like he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. His book "At Close Quarters", written in 1962, got an even frostier reception, since most of the guys felt like it was a self promotion book, but also a promotion for JFK and the PT-109. A lot of other heroic actions by PT boats got short shrift in the book.
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  2.  @knutdergroe9757  Thanks. He was a great dad. God bless your father as well. From everything my dad told me and from what I've read, that sounds like that was a pretty good description of Bulkeley. No one can doubt the man's bravery, but some people use that as currency.
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