Given that most sea battles during WWII took place either in range of shore and/or carrier based air, or at night, was there ever an instance where the scout/spotter planes carried by cruisers & battleships proved useful in a major battle? I can think of one negative example (IJN Tone at Midway), but without going through all of your old videos, I can only imagine one positive one, the hunt for the Bismarck.

For the third time: every single big-gun capital ship (battleships, battlecruisers, "large cruisers") to enter service after 1935 is teleported back to Jutland (at the start of the engagement) and attacks both the British and German forces. Does the uptimer "ultimate battlesquadron" have it in them to sink all the Grand Fleet and High Seas Fleet capital ships present, or will they just turn the WWI capital ships into burning but floating wreckage that can return to port for repairs? (and yes, this scenario has all the non-carrier Allied and Axis WWII-era capital ships working as one fleet rather than trying to kill each other, because I just want to see how they would fare in an environment where they weren't immediately obsolete due to carriers, and having them fight each other is overdone)

Nice upload. Thank you.

@Kendra Malm At the Second Battle of Narvik HMS Warspite's Walrus seaplane spotted German destroyers hidden in coves. They were Warspited even though not visible to the ship.

I am a retired U.S. Coast Guard member I would love to see a series on U.S. Coast Guard Cutters

My first guess was that one of the medals was for damage to his left leg. (The medals makes more sense.)

Spot on Sir 😊

I thought it was supposed to be a comment about his lack of sobriety at the time before I read your comment

Me to lol, what a legend

Lol. This is the KZfaq equivalent of a Reddit "My most upvoted [liked] comment."

D-Day

Can we have this sort of comment pinned?

@@jamesharding3459 my only regret is that I have but one pin to give :)

Nice to see you back on station, dear sir or madam!

@@Drachinifel That was very American of you.

And Chief, I have no doubt you can make a mighty strong mug of coffee, too! Bravo Zulu for your service.

BMC's have been known to adapt said harsh language most effectively. I have seen a many of problems with equipment and numerous other items convinced by harsh language to "you better work you *insert harsh language* or I swear *insert seemingly endless string of harsh but colorful & creative language*..... you don't say that and don't tell your mother I said that". 😂 when I was a kid only my dad's Master Chief could do better and still think very few could come close well except for one of my Gunnery Sergeant's. Semper Fi....

One of my favorite war movies. Like you, I thought the special effects looked great, even by todays standards.

Brother, My Father(1st Marine division from 1942-1945) always said, "the worst thing in the military, was Navy ring knocker." He (my Father) had a very strong dislike of all most all Navel officers. God Bless your Father.

@@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.

Mine served aboard the USS Maryland, BB46 as a radarman from Mar. ‘42 to Aug. ‘45. He survived 2 kamikaze hits, 2 bombs, and the aerial torpedo which blew out the bow.

Sar Jim, The book "At Close Quarters" was written by a different man, Robert J Bulkley, not the Admiral John D Bulkleley. Although both were PT Boat Vets. As a member of the PT658 restoration crew I have spent a lot of time with numerous WW2 PT boat veterans and the overwhelming consensus is that Admiral Bulkeley was a great guy and was well liked and admired by the men in the Squadrons (RONS). I have attended several WW2 PT Boat Veterans Reunions and they all pretty much feel the same. Maybe your Dad had a beef with him and had a different opinion, but it was not the majority opinion of him among WW2 PT Boat veterans1. In my book he was one of our greatest heroes of WW2. He also went on to start up the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center in Melville RI, then Command the USS Endicott that had battle and sank several German Corvettes, and then return to another PT Boat Squadron Command before the end of the war. Afterwards he was placed in Command of GITMO, and then the plankowner of the US Navy Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV), which inspects and improves the readiness of every ship afloat. It was his idea to start INSURV. There are about 3 books about him you may want to read they may change your opinion.

I was a sub sailor. Milk and ice cream were critical items. Unfortunately they ran out after the first week.

The mosquito navy fragile but verry deadly !

@cornskid Yawn. Always some skidmark poo pooing this and that. The man said "...probably saw more combat...". Margin fighting doesn't mean worthless. You'd probably think it effective if you were a Japanese soldier on a barge in the Solomons in the middle of the night.

@cornskid you're still confusing outcome with intensity. The claim was that the PT boat type ships were more often involved in combat, not that they effected the outcome of the war more. Given that nightly raiding operations were par for the course in the pacific campaign for PT squadrons I have no reason to doubt this claim.

@cornskid Correct. The derogatory remark was uncalled for. Apologies.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippine_Army en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_Patrol www.usna.com/SSLPage.aspx?pid=5625 Something even less well-known is that when the Philippine Commonwealth Army was established in 1935, in addition to a Philippine Army Air Corps, an Off-Shore Patrol (OSP) was established with a force of British-built MTBs based on the Thorneycroft CMB design.

Those Philippine guerilla forces were wildcats. They pestered the occupying Japanese and provided valuable intelligence to the steadily advancing Allied forces.

I very highly recommend the book, Lieutenant Ramsey's War, for a true account of guerrilla fighting in the Philippines. A very enjoyable read, and still available at Amazon.

I don't know if it would've been feasible back then, but the Navy could've made some bucks if they put alot of those boats that were burned at Savar Island up for auction as war surplus..a few of them would've wound up at least as some static display at a VFW hall.

@Joshua N. Ajang More like a 40 days old boat. They somehow the "live fast, die young" type.

& or 40oz of malt liquor

Four 40's, tons, knots, mm gun, and oz's of malt liqra

@@JTA1961 Better than three-two beer.

A lot more US lives would have been saved had they worked

@@captaindusty4884 And many IJN ships at the bottom as well.

The combination of dud Mk13 torpedoes in aircraft, Mk14 torpedoes in submarines and Mk15 torpedoes on surface vessels quite probably extended WW2 by six months to a year. (They all shared the same controls and fuses).

@@allangibson8494 I did some digging. For Germans, their sub torps were better than ours but still unreliable. And their aerial ones were lousy. Japanese ship launched "Long Lances" were great, but prone to catastrophic cascade explosions if hit on deck. Pretty lousy situation on just about all sides.

Jim Miller The battle of Midway would have looked a bit different if any of the Mk13 torpedoes had worked (and the battle of Wake Island too).

Its a good movie, one of my favorites.

Yes, it would help with your pronunciation of names.

Also the book it was based on is great reading.

A Gamer_1745 actually, Bulkeley’s name was fictionalized in that movie to Brickley. The pronunciation I heard the family use was ‘bulk-lee.’ Bulkeley was a certified badass. His exploits at the start of the war (he had hidden torpedoes, fuel, and spare parts around the islands before the attack), his PT boats were present at D-Day, he fought two German ships at the same time while ENDICOTT was sailing alone, he stood up to Castro by cutting the water main to Gitmo showing it was bone dry, while in full view of the press, proving that the US Navy did not steal water from Communist Cuba. He also spent the latter part of his career as President of the Board of Inspection and Survey, enduring USN ships were in material shape to fight the next war.

@@Rosatodi2006 I was thinking about things like Mindanao & Cavite. Yes, Bulkeley was a badass!

Yup, was very happy when I heard that.

@Ron Lewenberg The mighty Jingles..

Darn, I wasn't early enough to bring this up.

Kamchatka is still trendy...

@@tadatada5 That floating Dumpster Fire will always be trendy. Some people have memes about anime, others about dogs, we have memes about The Second Pacific Squadron

Maraming salamat po!

With no accent

Minda means brain in Malaysian language

Correct!

Same dream.....

Same here...

Two Higgins type boats, PT-658 and PT-305, have been fully restored and operating. The 658 in Portland, Oregon and the 305 on Lake Ponchitrane in New Orleans where she was originally built.

@@ronaldrobertson2332 There's a Vosper in Ohio (PT-728) that I hope to go visit, as it's a bit closer to me than the others. I definitely know about the others, though. There also used to be a whole bunch on the Hudson River here, as part of Fleet Obsolete, but as far as I can tell, they went defunct years and years ago, and I assume the PTs are gathering dust in some warehouse downstate, which really stinks.

Re building in living on a pt.Thats not a crazy idea. Several choices of sandwich/fibreglass/marine ply construction. Could be built Much lighter.so needing much less power Three marinized chevy diesels would would sound Uncannily like the origional packhard v12s! If the diesel fuel bill is still a bit eyewatering , is possible to configure the engines to run on lpg. Cylinder tanks hidden inside the fake torpedo tubes

Made (or at least released ) in 1945.

The book came out in 1942, the movie in 1945. Shot in Florida and starring Robert Montgomery (who really did Captain a PT Boat during WW2) as Lt Brickley. Montgomery also was father to Elizabeth Montgomery of the TV show, "Bewitched". John Waynes character was a composite of two or more officers under Bulkeley. Excellent movie!

'They were Expendable" a fantastic war movie. But allow me to point out it was not a John Wayne movie, he wasn't even the lead. It was a John Ford movie and Robert Montgomery had 1st billing.

@@DASDmiser Yeah, I don't remember who was first in the credits but JW had the major roll and the romance...

I have to believe that being on the boats during the film shooting with Robert Montgomery got John Wayne interested in eventually having a boat of his own, the converted WWII minesweeper, Wild Goose.@@boosuedon

PT 31 PT 32 PT 33 PT 34 PT 35 PT 41* "squadron leader's boat*

If you look closely in this most excellent movie, you can see some Huckins boats.

One of my Great-Grandads was in coastal forces during World War 2, a video on MTB's, MGB's and ML's and Coastal forces would be fascinating for me too

Yes! My interest in the plywood boats was triggered a few months ago. Sadly there is very little content on KZfaq about them.

I only first knew about them from being introduced to novels written by Douglas Reeman about them when I was 12 or 13. From that and asking questions about them was how I found out about my Great-Grandad

I would love to see something like Drach did with midget submarines covering the various countries MGB / MTB type vessels.

@@fran87blacon did you see "PT Boats Giant Killers" on youtube. It is a color documentary produced by ELCO about how the boats were built.

I think one of the better movies. In Harm's Way is good too, despite the Post war larger ships trying to look like WWII era warships.

It was Frank Wead that wrote the retelling with the backing of John Ford for the movie. John Wayne was only the star of the movie, "They Were Expendable". In my opinion one of the best WW2 films.

Read a lot of stuff from that campaign One of most historically accurate of John Wayne movies

@Jeff meyer Marion Morrison.....wasn't he the guy that got booed off stage by the US Marines. When I first learned that I gained more respect for them that day. 👍

@@josephking6515 "Hey, it's Old Fallen Arches"

Make that two- PT 305 operates down in New Orleans, operating on Lake Ponchitrane where she was built and tested during the war. PT 658, the one I think you're referring to, was rebuilt over a 12-year period and now runs in Pugent Sound in Portland, Oregon. Both are Higgins-built PT boats.

@@ronaldrobertson2332 Thanks for the update! Good to hear about another one. Here in the UK a lot of MTB MGB etc were sold of at wars end and used as houseboats, many still survive just! Problem here is after a boat is restored it's expensive to keep, moorings are costly in the South.

@soaringtractor I've got more years on you apparently, if you lack the intelligence and humility of being wrong. 60-years is a long time. I'm just like anybody who has a life to live than adhere to the likes of you.

@soaringtractor Well then, good night.

@soaringtractor Personally, I think you're full of shit; most of the World War 2 vets I've known ( including my own dad) have passed on. So, your crap about being "decades older" don't hold water.

@ Regrettably, it's a double-edged sword because the internet cannot screen data for accuracy (Wikipedia comes to mind). I think Mark is careful in his research and uses multiple sources. He admits when he believes the data are questionable. My grandfather used to remark that history is an agreed upon error. When it comes to war I'd say that history is an agreed upon exaggeration.

@@Paladin1873 Don't need to convince me. I've had to write letters to the New York Times to verify if a republican activist had visited their archives, ever. Wikipedia had the book/pamphlet the activist wrote, which accused a member of our royal house of being a nazi, and a motivated fanatical nazi at that. Since he volunteered to fly bombing raids to Germany as a common airman, that is doubtful, but the republican insisted and Wikipedia regarded him as a source despite his clear political bias. He claimed it was based on the november 6th 1939 edition of the New York TImes. Wiki wouldn't let me edit it out and kept restoring the false information. Only after I e-mailed moderators a denial by the newspaper that he was never there, that edition had never been requested and it contains no articles about Dutch princes, did Wikipedia edit it out. The false info had been up for years at that point.

@ Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” - "Othello" by William Shakespeare

BALLS OF STEEL!

seagoing storm troopers

Someone who can feel no fear is not brave, bravery, courage, is about overcoming your natural, instinctive fears and still doing your job, it is about taking seeing risks and knowing full well that the price could be your life, taking those risks anyway. Someone who is 'fearless' is generally someone who hides their fears well. True Fearlessness, like the inability to feel pain, does exist, but it is very, VERY rare, and highly deleterious to the individuals survival,. such an individual would NOT be accepted into any military, indeed, such an individual would be unlikely to survive to adulthood in the first place. We feel fear for a reason, just as wel feel pain, both aid our survival, fear itself is not an enemy unless you allow it to control you. THAT is where courage comes in.... That being said, the crews of the small attack boats of all Nations during the war were a breed apart, yes, they were brave, they were also independant, tough, and highly aggressive. The men manning Britains MTB's and MGB's, the Germans in their E Boats, or the Italian sailors manning their MAS showed the same qualities as those of the US PT Boat squadrons.

@@alganhar1 REMF

@@alganhar1 "Courage doesn't mean you aren't afraid. It means that you do the right thing anyway"

I don't think it was wear. It takes long periods of use and abuse to wear down internal engine components to the point where performance is seriously degraded (worn rings, valve guides, bearings, etc). The PT boat engines were Packard-built distant cousins of the Liberty L-12 aero engine, a reliable and well established marine version, and marine engines aren't known for having performance rapidly degrade from use. Oceans are big places so reliability is key. My guess would be a lack of aviation fuel. The Packard 4M-2500 was supercharged and needed 100 octane fuel to be able to run those high manifold pressures without spontaneously deconstructing from detonation. With the supply problems they had I would not be surprised if they were forced to bypass/disable the supercharger (derating the engine and effectively making it naturally aspirated) because low octane automotive gas was all they could get.

@@rwaitt14153 The Packard engines had a rated service life of about 500 hours....and that wasn't under combat conditions. By the loss of the last boat its engines had over 2000 service hours. The log of the trip from Luzon reflects a top speed of about 29 knots with copious consumption of oil. It wasn't much different with aviation engines of the era. The were all operated at their limit of capability with crappy fuel and lubricants by modern standards.

Even Packard engines wear out eventually.

You forgot to mention barnacles and what not on the hull. They have a major effect on speed.

@@rwaitt14153 are you sure they supercharged the PT boat edition?

Warthunder AI PT boats used to be like

"They were expendable"?

@@zoranocokoljic8927 That was it. There was also a wartime movie.

And now I'm curious if there were any operations that notably ballasted more than one eventual admiral.

They weren't properly warships, since they were actually cargo ships.

It would be a tough breakdown, especially for all of the SW Pacific squadrons. The boats were as individual as their crews until very late in the war. Each boats armament depended on what the crews were able to "Requisition(Steal)" from either the Army, the Marines or the Black/Brown Shoe Navy. Even late war when "Most" of the requested weapons were fitted at launch prior to deployment, boats tended to pick up whatever weapons weren't "Welded Down AND Under Guard".

@@ovk-ih1zp Well, there were several different factory fits over the course of the war, especially with the 80' Elco and the 78' Higgins. All the boats from the 77' Elco on could replace the aft two torpedo tubes by 4 Mk1 roll-off racks each with 1 Mk6 DC. The 77' Elcos were PT20 - 48 and PT59 - 68. Their original equipment was two powered Plexiglass-covered turrets with two .50 cal each, plus two optional twin .30 Lewis mounts. Beginning with PT45, an aft-mounted 20mm Oerlikon was added at the factory. FWIW, 6 of the 12 boats at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 41 were in the Navy Yard being prepared for shipment to the Philippines as deck cargo onboard the Navy Patoka-class oiler AO12 USS Ramapo. PT27, 29, 30 and 42 were already tied down on her deck and PT26 and 28 were in cradles on the dock next to her, while PT20 - PT25 were in the water and operational over at the Submarine Base at the time of the attack. All the PTs in the Navy Yard had already had their fuel tanks drained in preparation for transport and therefore were immune to fire critical hits. OTOH, they had no power to operate their hydraulic .50 MG mounts, so when the attack started the crews had to cut the hydraulic lines and prepare the gun mounts for manual operation, but this reduced their AA capability. This did not apply to the other six, which immediately got underway in the harbor. In October 43, PT 59 - 61 were converted to MGBs for use in the Solomons campaigns. The TT were removed, the 20mm was moved to an amidships position and two single 40mm Bofors fwd and aft and four additional twin .50 mounts and SO search radar were added. The 80' Elcos were PT103 - 196; PT314 - 383; PT486 - 563; PT565 - 624 and PT731 - 760. The following boats were Lend-Leased to the USSR: PT498 -504; PT506 - 521; PT556; PT560 - 563 and PT731 - 760. The 78' Higgins boats were PT71 - 94; PT197 - 254; PT265 - 313; PT450 - 485; PT625 - 660 and PT791 - 796. The following were sent to the USSR: PT625 - PT660. The beginning outfit of the 80' Elco and the Higgins in 1942 was 2 twin .50 in two ring mounts (the successor to the powered turrets) and a 20mm Oerlikon aft. Listed armament is factory equipment of a new boat from 1942 - 43; actual armament varied widely depending on what weapons the crew could get. In 1943 the early boats were refitted with US SCR-517C surface search radar. Some added salvaged M4 or M9 37mm autocannon from junked P-39s forward; a few (like PT-109) added a complete US M3 37mm AT gun on the bow. Some of the Higgins boats added a second 20mm fwd. 1944 factory equipment: SO or SO-3 search radar added as standard; the 20mm was moved forward, a 40mm Bofors was added aft (the torpedo tubes replaced by roll-off launchers for Mk13 aerial torpedoes as weight compensation). Some boats added two fixed Mk8 eight-shot rocket launchers. 1945 factory equipment: F(1)1 M9 37mm, 2 eight-shot Mk50 trainable 5 in rocket launchers added. Many boats took on an Army 60mm mortar for using illumination rounds in night combat. FYI: I helped do this write-up as the OOB for the Pearl Harbor scenario for the Command at Sea 'Rising Sun' scenario book.

@@ovk-ih1zp : The guards should have counted themselves lucky not to be part of the "requisition".

@@jlsperling1 😳🥴 ...That's alotta PT boat stuff!

Best not used against Xenomorphs though

The Armor of Contempt, Brothers! /Space Marine

@@13jhow Damn, outed as a heretic.

armour ? good ones are weapons of mass destruction 😈

Also Ka-vee-teh (as in te in tectonic) for Cavite, Ko-re-hi-dor for Corregidor and Ba-ta-an for Bataan.

my colleague who was born there pronounces the last syllable more like 'now' - he almost makes 2 syllables out of it...

The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd)

Apparently the same company that made them for the Germans, since they had the same basic problems at the start of the war.

That may actually have been an improvement since Japanese torpedoes were significantly less likely to malfunction (though they could still malfunction if improperly stored)

@@bkjeong4302 To be fair, if an American torpedo malfunctioned it turned into a dud. If a Japanese torpedo malfunctioned it tended to explode, often triggering a sympathetic detonation and in a few cases taking the ship with it.

@@Loweko1170 That's if it got hit, not if it malfunctioned. (actual malfunctioning Japanese torpedoes turned into duds) Also, one case of an oxygen torpedo exploding and fatally damaging the ship has been disproven through wreck analysis, though it did happen with other ships.

I would also note "Night Action" by Capt. Peter Dickens RN. Former CO. Of 21st. MTB Flotilla. And Great Grandson of the writer Charles Dickens.

The 225677th Fragment of the Man-Emperor of Mankind take out those fucking PT Boats.

When properly applied by either a Navy Chief Or a Marine Gunny, both have been known to slag steel and change weather patterns on a regional scale!

The bloody Brit Drachfinel just automatically said .303 when he said Lewis gun. Only the Brits used that oddball round with its oddball casing. It's super-likely the American ones were .30-06, like you said.

Well, if he did just make an assumption, it's an understandable one, as .303 was by far the most common chambering in the Lewis gun. As far as .303 being an oddball round, in that period it was no more odd than the Russian 7.62x54mmR or the French 8mm Lebel or several other rimmed and tapered cartridges that were still in common military use at that point.

Ask mentioned in another reply, the calibre of the PT Boat Lewis guns varies depending on which source you use and is further complicated by the fact that Savage (the manufacturer) made M1917 pattern Lewis guns in .303 and .30-06. So I ended up taking an informed guess.

@@Drachinifel Seems reasonable enough. Like I said in my original post, if it was indeed in .303, wouldn't be the first time the USN or US military in general used a non-standard cartridge in a limited use weapon. I just asked the question because I was curious if you had misspoken in the video or if the statement of .303 was deliberate. Thanks for the response!

@@Axel0204 All three of the rounds you described are definitely still oddball rounds. They require extra complicated, strange mechanisms for guns to function using them, and they were only used because unusual circumstances prevented their replacement. It's like the computer equivalent of a device using a parallel or serial port. Just because it's common doesn't mean it's not odd.

The M1917 Lewis gun was in 30-06 in USN and USMC use and made by Savage Arms.

@soaringtractor negative. First, the Liberty was liquid cooled, co-designed by Jessie Vincent of Packard and A J Hall of Hall-Scott. The 4M-2500 used in PT boats was a derivative of the Packard 1A-2500 developed in the 1920s. Mosey down to your public library and check out a copy of "Master Motor Builders" by Robert J. Neal. It is a history of all of Packard's work with non-automotive engines.

I know which movie you mean... I think they are stranded on an island later on and have only green coconut to eat...

Found it! "They were expendable "

@@christophpoll784 That's it! 👍 Thank's a lot, Christoph. I'll have to see if I can find it on DVD or something.

@@JohnJohansen2 WB or Warner Bros. has a 4 movie collectors edition including They Were Expendable, Operation Pacific, Flying Leathernecks and Back to Bataan. I bought it recently on Amazon for around $12.

I just looked and back in August it was 9.25. 4 Film Favorites: John Wayne Collection (Back to Bataan / Flying Leathernecks / Operation Pacific / They Were Expendable) John Wayne Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC $9.25

Met the Adm in 1982 while he was conducting an INSURV aboard USS Austin. A character to say the least