The Real McHale's Navy Part Three

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 across the Pacific from San Francisco to New Guinea, and then onto the Philippines. The time in New Guinea is comparatively quiet while the action in the Philippines gets the Squadron a commendation for it's support of the invasion of Mindoro, after the Navy pulled it's invasion fleet back to Leyte, leaving only a Task Unit of PT boats to defend the island in the face of a Japanese counterattack. As at Kiska, we again see that friendly fire isn't.

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.

Chapters:

0:00 Crossing to New Guinea
6:34 Showdown at Mindoro

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:
Black Mass by Brian Bolger https://www.discogs.com/artist/774467


#ptboat #pt73 #mchalesnavy