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I departed for overseas on December 7, 1942 and served in the P.T. Boat Southwest Pacific operations - Northern Australia. New Guinea and the Philippines - until returning to the U.S. in April, 1945. During the period I was overseas, my father passed away. I participated in the Southwest Pacific campaign and made all the landings, on D plus one, from Finchaven onward: Wewack, Hollandia, Blak-woendi, Mogati, Admiralty Islands, Leyte, Mindoro, Mindanao and Luzon. I served as Engineering Officer Motor Torpedo Squadrons 7th Fleet and also had occasion to "visit" on Navy business, Guadalcanal, Florida, Bouganville, New Ireland, and New Hanover (Green) Islands in the Solomons, Noumea in New Caledonia, and Bakelthraup in Palau Islands. On May 26th, 1941, I received my commission and in June, my orders to active duty, thus I had an opportunity to be indoctrinated into the "Old Navy". The opportunity to be a part of and observe the pre-war navy was one that few reserve officers were privileged to experience because the Naval Reserve was quite small prior to World War II. Prior to December 7, 1941, the Navy was akin to civil service in that one had Wednesday afternoons off for golf or recreation. There wasn't any weekend activity, and the working day was rather short. That left us with a lot of time on our hands. My first duty station was at the Naval gun factory in Washington, D.C. Because there wasn't much to do, and because there was a surplus of newly commissioned ensigns floating around, the opportunity to transfer away from Washington area was quickly sought by each and every one of us. I was fortunate enough to extricate myself by way of an application to the submarine service and the post graduate school at Cornell for diesel-electric engine propulsion and hull design. While attending that course, I was promoted, strictly on the basis of seniority, I might add, to lieutenant, junior grade. This eliminated me from consideration for the Submarine Service and I was ordered to PT Service as an engineer officer. I traveled through the various production centers that were building PT boats and their components. During this time, I met John Kennedy at the Brooklyn Yard. Kennedy's squadron was being commissioned and assembled for service in the South Pacific at Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Kennedy was considered a celebrity duty to his father's connections and I clearly recall that he enjoyed the entertainment. When I finished the Navy's diesel-electric propulsion post-graduate course at Cornell, I received orders to report to Motor Torpedo Base 4 which was forming in Oakland, California for shipment overseas. Immediately after leaving the school at Cornell, I visited the plant that built the Packard engines for the PT boats, the Federal Mogul plant that made propellers, bronze rudders, bearings, and other fittings for the boats, Elco (Electric Boat Co.) which had a boat yard in Bayonne, New Jersey, that built the PT's. Melville, Rhode Island, was the base where crews were trained and assigned to squadrons, including both the officers and enlisted men. I was also briefly assigned to the commissioning detail in Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York where PT squadrons were commissioned and assigned their boats and equipment. From there, we went to Oakland, California. On the way to Oakland, I succeeded in getting my family moved to Phoenix before reporting for duty. The material for the major repair base for PT engines and various boat components was being assembled there along with personnel. This was the second PT base to be shipped overseas, the first one having been sent to Tulagi at the time of the landing at Guadalcanal. PT stands for Motor Patrol Torpedo boats. PT Boats were 80 feet long, short enough to allow the crew to feel every movement at sea. I smoked cigars from time to time, which enabled me to enjoy abandoned food rations in my vicinity. The boats carried a crew of two officers and ten men. They were powered by three Packard marine engines which ran on avaion gas. PT Boats carried two torpedo tubes, designed to use against larger ships. The original purpose of the PT Boats was to approach larger ships and launch a surface attack. They had a top speed, when new, of approximately 40 knots or 45 miles an hour; pretty good speed for a boat. They were designed as fast interdiction vessels with torpedoes. In addition to the torpedo tubes, they carried 60mm and 30mm machine guns used for anti aircraft firing and for firing on barges. In the New Guinea Campaign, we mounted a 90mm gun on the PT's fantails to give them better fire power in interdicting Japanese barges. PT Boats were designed to plane along the surface of the water, but with the additional load on board, plus age and barnacle factors, a boat's speed soon dropped to the 25 knot or 30 mile an hour range. There were really two areas in the South Pacific that involved PT Boat operations, one of which was in the Solomon Islands headquartered in Pearl Harbor under the Pacific Fleet; the other was the Southwest Pacific which was under MacArthur's direction and which included New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and the Philippines. A Navy Divided There was no communication between the South Pacific Navy Command under Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor and MacArthur's Command in the Southwest Pacific headquartered in Australia. Nimitz and MacArthur didn't get along very well... The Naval Forces attached to 7th Fleet were known in the vernacular as MacArthur's Navy. The Naval supplies that came to the Motor Torpedo Boats 7th Fleet, and to the 7th Fleet generally came through Army distribution channels, not Navy distribution channels. So, the resupply of such things as uniforms, food, fuel ammunition and so forth all came from Australia by way of the Army supply system. |
When I was called to service in 1941, I reported to the New York State Merchant Marine Academy at Fort Schuyler, New York, for training and was subsequently assigned tot he U.S. Navy Gun Factory, Washington, D.C. for duty. In early 1942, I was ordered to Cornell University College of Engineering for post graduate work in ship design, including diesel and electric propulsion. Upon completition of this course in the spring of 1942, most of my class was assigned to the Submarine Service. However, I received orders to Melville, Rhode Island and the Motor Torpedo Boat Service. I was ordered overseas as Executive & Engineering Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 4 (MTB Base 4) located in Cairns, Australia. It was this time that I moved my wife and our three girls to Phoenix. At that time, the population of Phoenix was only 47,000.