The Real McHale's Navy Part Two

We're looking at the real PT-73 and the other boats from Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Thirteen. Far from being merely fictional, PT-73 was a real boat and it's history is a long slog that covers three years, and vastly different theaters and types of action.
In this episode we follow the boat and crew from the Western-most end of Aleutian island chain in Alaska all the way back to Puget Sound Naval Yard in Seattle. We also learn how easy something can sound on paper vs. in real life.

Please note that these small unit actions are not usually very well-documented and even less often filmed. There’s a very limited amount of archive footage out there on PT boats, especially since they operated mostly at night, and especially before the tide of the war turned in America’s favor. This video mostly features Army and Navy footage from the Aleutian island invasions. Yes I realize I have mispronounced the names Attu and Adak. Comments on this will not be published, so give it a rest already.

Chapters:

0:00 A winter in the Aleutians
6:41 The trek back to Seattle

References:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/13604...
http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/...
https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-inva...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutia...
https://canadianheroes.org/private-he...

Credit where credit's due:
Adak Image credit: By Paxson Woelber - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

Puget Sound image credit: By Jelson25 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...


#ptboat #pt73 #mchalesnavy