by Timerover51 » March 11, 2012, 5:28 am
mi-aviarch wrote:Search for PT-109 National Geographic TV special,
Timerover, just watched it. I can't believe I never saw it. Good show. Were you the guy who pronounced the torpedo tube, the proper model for a PT?
One question: were there any other other PT boats that went down in the area? How did they positively ID it as 109?
A PT - Boat is still alot bigger than the carriage system of a FUGO balloon. You got me excited about the possibilities, though!
Yes, I was the guy who pronounced the torperdo tube as hard evidence that we had found PT-109. The were two other PT boats lost in that area with torpedo tubes mounted, one was lost considerably to the south near the island of Rendova, sunk in a friendly fire incident by an AAF B-25 Mitchell bomber, and the other much further north near the island of Bougainville. I had the records with me of all of the PT boats lost in World War 2 and the location of the loss. The only boat that tube could have been on was PT-109. Based on the side scan sonar penetration into the bottom, most of the hull is buried under the tube. We spent about an hour going over the tube from every angle, and I could see the mounting blocks that attached the tube to the PT boat deck were still attached to the deck. Unfortunately, that did not make it into the video.
I got harassed a bit by Bob's crew because I had the punch line saying that "this was it" rather than Bob. It was on fantastic trip.
Yes, a PT boat is bigger, but because the hull was marine mahogany plywood, the metal parts gave the best return, and they were comparable to the Fugo carraige system. We were picking up a lot of what appear to be dud 1,000 pound bombs on the bottom, based on their dimensions of 5 feet in length, and about 18 inches in diameter. We did not go near them.
With the current high frequency gear, there should not be a lot of problems locating a Fugo carraige system. The problem will be how many false targets are in the area. Also, if after looking at the sonar image, it looks like this would be a high-explosive bomb package, I would take a very cautious look at it with an ROV, and would not try in any way for a recovery. The Japanese used a lot of what I view as pretty unstable explosives during the war, especially towards the end.
One of my other duties during the PT-109 trip was functioning as the weapons and explosives expert, which is one of the reasons why I was on the trip. I serve on the Marine Forensics Panel as the explosions, explosives, weapons, and weapon effects expert.
[quote="mi-aviarch"][quote]Search for PT-109 National Geographic TV special, [/quote]
Timerover, just watched it. I can't believe I never saw it. Good show. Were you the guy who pronounced the torpedo tube, the proper model for a PT?
One question: were there any other other PT boats that went down in the area? How did they positively ID it as 109?
A PT - Boat is still alot bigger than the carriage system of a FUGO balloon. You got me excited about the possibilities, though![/quote]
Yes, I was the guy who pronounced the torperdo tube as hard evidence that we had found PT-109. The were two other PT boats lost in that area with torpedo tubes mounted, one was lost considerably to the south near the island of Rendova, sunk in a friendly fire incident by an AAF B-25 Mitchell bomber, and the other much further north near the island of Bougainville. I had the records with me of all of the PT boats lost in World War 2 and the location of the loss. The only boat that tube could have been on was PT-109. Based on the side scan sonar penetration into the bottom, most of the hull is buried under the tube. We spent about an hour going over the tube from every angle, and I could see the mounting blocks that attached the tube to the PT boat deck were still attached to the deck. Unfortunately, that did not make it into the video.
I got harassed a bit by Bob's crew because I had the punch line saying that "this was it" rather than Bob. It was on fantastic trip.
Yes, a PT boat is bigger, but because the hull was marine mahogany plywood, the metal parts gave the best return, and they were comparable to the Fugo carraige system. We were picking up a lot of what appear to be dud 1,000 pound bombs on the bottom, based on their dimensions of 5 feet in length, and about 18 inches in diameter. We did not go near them.
With the current high frequency gear, there should not be a lot of problems locating a Fugo carraige system. The problem will be how many false targets are in the area. Also, if after looking at the sonar image, it looks like this would be a high-explosive bomb package, I would take a very cautious look at it with an ROV, and would not try in any way for a recovery. The Japanese used a lot of what I view as pretty unstable explosives during the war, especially towards the end.
One of my other duties during the PT-109 trip was functioning as the weapons and explosives expert, which is one of the reasons why I was on the trip. I serve on the Marine Forensics Panel as the explosions, explosives, weapons, and weapon effects expert.