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Friday, February 09, 2024

Giant Killers (Full Version) The Elco PT Boat

This video takes viewers through the manufacturing process of typical Elco 80-foot Motor Torpedo Boats. Elco had previously designed and built 70 and 77-foot boats based predominately on the British design of Hubert Scott-Payne’s (British Power Boat Company) PV70. With a limited production of the earlier boats, and because of Navy requirements, Elco used a design of their own for their Elco 80-foot motor torpedo boats. This boat would become the most produced boat throughout the war, with the Higgins 78-foot boat close behind.

Personally, I would not categorize this as a documentary, instead, this video is an Elco promotional film. The production of this film was photographed and directed by Wallace Van Nostrand and supervised by Thomas A. Kelly, The video was compiled and edited by The Princeton Film Center and narrated by Van Deventer.

At the time, Elco was a naval division of the much larger Electric Boat Company of Bayonne, New Jersey. Elco was/is known as a manufacturer of pleasure boats prior to and after World War II.

This is the same boat type as PT 109 (PT-109) that was lost while John F. Kennedy served as Skipper.

VIDEO HERE  (30 minutes)
-Chris

3 comments:

  1. Higgins (the landing craft people) in New Orleans built 200 PT boats during WWII. PT 305 still exists in New Orleans at the National WWII Museum. I have been a volunteer with the 305 since 2010 - we restored her or running condition, ran her on Lake Pontchatrain until 2020 and Covid, and are now working on getting her back in the Museum proper for static display.

    4,500 shp under foot. It was, “The ride of a lifetime!”

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  2. That was fascinating! Always have been a fan of the PT boat.

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  3. "They were expendable" is one of my favorite movies.

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