Book Review With Comments on Censorship

I finished reading Meredith's memoirs on his service aboard PT boats in World War II. At one point he talks in detail about the letters home being censored. They were not allowed to write about such things as enemy activity, unit locations, or boat strength.

All mail was censored. My mother never knew where I was for a year. As Exec of the boat, one of my duties was to read and censor the crew's mail, cutting out with scissors or razor blades anything that I thought might jeopardize our security; Marsh Roper censored mine. It was a task I didn't like. I felt I was prying into the men's affairs, intruding on their privacy, but it had to be done.

We listened to the news on the radio regularly and sometimes picked up Radio Tokyo, the Japanese propaganda station. Tokyo Rose, an American woman who worked for the Japs, liked to personalize her messages to us. She startled us several times by calling our PT skippers by name and boat number, with threats of retaliation for our barge attacks. How they obtained their information I don't know, but it made my censoring task more acceptable to the crew. - pg 115

Overall I tremendously liked this book. Ted Meredith took the letters he had mailed to his mother, mixed in research from other books like Devil Boats and At Close Quarters, and shared stories from the two PT crews he served with in the Pacific and Mediterranean to create a very personal view of the PT war that is worth reading. Even when his 23 year old views of the Papua New Guineans is to call them Fuzzy Wuzzies, apparently like everyone else in the PT force did, and complaining the local women are unattractive. Or when he talks about how many eggs his crew ate or how many times they had steak in letters to his mother.

Then there is the incredible moment when his boat PT 129 is ordered to ferry Gen. Douglas MacArthur between two islands. Meredith is worried sick about protocol because the whole crew, including him, are dressed barely in skivvies; but when MacArthur comes aboard the general doesn't bat an eye. Meredith does some impressive feats of seamanship to bring MacArthur smartly to the dock only to ruin everything on the departure by bending a prop because he had to show off some more. The whole event seemed so fantastic that it caused Meredith 50 years later to doubt it really happened until one of his crew said it was because of that incident he still smokes a briar pipe.

The Last Normal Class

To kick off Memorial Day I stumbled across this little fact while reading one of the PT boat books I had ordered. The book is called Lt. Ted Meredith, USNR, PT Boat Officer - Stories from 50 years ago.

That summer 850 of the 1,000 men in the Harvard class of 1942, the "last normal class", went into the armed services. - pg 16

Why they are called the Greatest Generation. I think they earned it.

172's Last Patrol

Dusk is setting at Rendova on September 7, 1943, as PT-172 under the command of Lt [jg] Hamilton slips out with other boats for another night of barge hunting. Daihatsu traffic around the barge terminus on Vella Lavella has been unusually active the past few nights. Over the past few months, the PT mission had been evolving from torpedo attacks on destroyers to vicious gunfights with Japanese small craft whose draft was too shallow for effective torpedo attack.

The war for PT-172 and her crew had been filled with luck and frustration so far. Of the six PT boats of MTB Sqn 10 that were aboard the SS Stanvac Manila when the ship was torpedoed by the I-17 on May 24, 1943. Only PT-172 made it to Noumea under its own power. PT-165 and PT-173 were lost due to the sinking; 167, 171, and 174 were towed in.

Then there was the dark night of August 1-2, 1943 when fifteen PT boats tangled with the destroyers of the Tokyo Express in Blackett Strait. While PT-171 of 172’s division made contact with the enemy destroyers and attacked, 172 and 170 could not because 171’s attack fouled their approach. Then as these two boats were evading they came under attack by Japanese float planes, which fortuitously missed both madly maneuvering boats. By the time these boats retook their positions, the Tokyo Express was long gone. It was during this battle that PT-109 was cut diagonally in half by IJN Amagiri.

Now PT-172 and other boats, including 118, were moving towards Vella Lavella. A first quarter moon was not scheduled to rise until after 0130 and the PT boats possessed radar, so it was prime hunting time in the inky tropical blackness for the PT force.

The night passes as 172 idles on her center engine through the water. Everyone peers into the darkness for a sense of movement along the shoreline, a glimpse of white from a bow wave, or the appearance of green blips on a radarscope indicating business. Then a lookout spots something and everyone gets to their battle stations very quietly. Charging handles are pulled, rounds chambered, and personal weapons are readied in case combat gets close. 172 and its division mates close on the suspected target, goosing the engines for a bit more power. And then the target can be spied, it is a daihatsu; a tough armored barge. The gunner up on the bow manning the 37mm cannon from a salvaged P-39 takes aim. 172 and the other boats are starting to plane as their speed increases, everyone focuses on the daihatsu and its unsuspecting crew.

Then calamity as 172 lurches forward as a grinding noise is heard from below decks. It seems 172’s luck has finally run out. Lt Hamilton tries to wrest the PT from the grip of the uncharted reef everyone now knows they are on. The center engine is put into reverse and full power is applied as the outboard engines are put in neutral, the boat strains but it is stuck fast. Everyone can hear the crunching of wood as the coral rips the bottom out. 172 settles deeper into the water as Lt Hamilton calls the other boats for a rescue. PT-118 and the other boat break off their attacks to assist 172. Now misfortune doubles when 118 moves close to 172 to assist evacuating, another outcropping snags 118 in its destructive embrace. With two boats stuck fast with water pouring into the engine spaces and forward, the men of both boats abandon ship to the last remaining operational PT boat. The final chapter plays out as this boat opens fire on the two stranded boats to prevent the Japanese from gaining anything of value from the wrecks. The trip back to Rendova is one traveled in silence as dawn approaches and two crews deal with losing their boats while not sinking any enemy barges.

The above is fiction based on known history and PT tactics&weaponry. My idea on what happened until I get a hold of Buckeley's At Close Quarters and see if that book details the actual events. Be interesting to see if I came close.

Mystery PT Boat

By now most news hounds have heard what has surfaced in the Solomon Islands in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that killed over fifty people in the islands. An honest to goodness World War II PT-boat. The uplift from the earthquake caused the reef to rise ten feet, which brough the submerged boat to the surface. They are thinking of detonating the boat because it may still have explosives. Some village children apparently have been aboard the boat and took stuff.

Since I have never heard of Rannonga Island before, have spent the odd hour trying to locate it so I can identify which boat this is. I tried to find the island on various maps of the Solomon Islands. Google maps was a strike out. National Geographic was also a bust. This is probably the best map. It shows Gizho [ off this island PT-109 was run down], New Georgia [Munda airstrip], Rendova [PT base], and Vella Lavella. Still no Rannonga Island. I find it mentioned in conjunction with Vella Lavella alot so that possibly places this island right around the epicenter of the earthquake.

So taking with a grain of salt, of the four PT boats that went aground in the Western Solomons two are listed as going down off Vella Lavella. You are probably saying, why only grounded PT boats searching through? Lets look at PT-109, it was idling in Blackett Strait when IJN Amagiri ran it down, PT-109 went down in deep water and wrong location. Rendova was taken on June 30th, 1943 [The Mosquito Fleet by Bern Keating pg 71]. PT-168 was sunk by B-25 fire in Ferguson Passage and exploded [ibid, pg 73-74]. PT-117 and PT-164 were sunk by airplane at the Rendova PT base on August 1, 1943. The Munda invasion occurred on August 4, 1943. Vella Lavella would fall to US forces on October 1, 1943. This kind of information narrows down the possible identity of this WWII relic.

There are two possible boats this could have been, if we focus on groundings. PT-172 and PT-118. PT Boats Inc list both losses as groundings in enemy waters and destroyed to prevent capture. This source says both went down off Vella Lavella on September 7, 1943. The two books I have on American PT-boats [The Mosquito Fleet and Devil Boats] shed no light on any operation on September 7, 1943 unless it was to mirror a mission carried out by three PT boatss which landed scouts on Vella Lavella on August 12, 1943. Squadron/Signal's PT Boats in Action has proven equally uninformative. Online has proven equally dry in regards to detailed information or images. There seems to be no pictures of 172 or 118.

Hopefully something can be salvaged from this boat to identify it and brings its story to life again. This is like a time capsule that needs to be opened.