Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: 230RN on March 21, 2024, 09:24:33 AM
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I've had a "thing" about PT boats since I was a kid and got a book called "Peter PT" --which I still have in storage.
Anyhow, I love watching "McHale's Navy" because it's about PT boats and I like the premise: that a small-time shipper working in the Pacific Islands got called into the Navy as a commander of PT-73 because of his knowledge of those islands. Hence the frequent reference to "McHales' Island" and Urulu. I also love the canned shots of a PT boat roaring along at 45 -50 mph.
But I get irked when one of the plot devices is that PT-73's engine quit for one reason or another, resulting in the plot pickle for that episode.
Must be three or maybe four episodes that had "the engine quit" ploy.
I guess everybody in the world knows that PT boats had three engines except the writers:
"With the exception of the experimental PT boats, all US PT boats were powered by three marine-modified derivations of the Packard 3A-2500 V-12 liquid-cooled, gasoline-fueled aircraft engine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat
Shows the 3-engine layout:
https://conceptbunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PT_boat-768x500.jpg
Maybe the writers were referring to some single mythical 36 cylinder engine.
Just irks me.
Terry, 230RN
REFs ("Peter PT" book and the persistent legend):
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/artifacts/rest-and-relaxation/toys/Peter-PT-book.html
"Nicknamed 'the mosquito fleet"'and 'devil boats' by the Japanese, the PT boat squadrons were hailed for their daring and earned a durable place in the public imagination that remains strong into the 21st century. Their role was replaced in the U.S. Navy by fast attack craft." --Wiki
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Like in Top Gun when THE catapult goes down.
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. . . Hence the frequent reference to "McHales' Island" and Urulu. . . .
I thought the PT-73 was stationed on Taratupa, and later moved to New Caledonia? Or was Taratupa where Leadbottom's HQ was and the boat was docked on a minor island (McHale's) next door?
Remember their "unofficial" crew member/mascot, Fuji?
I have a paperback somewhere "The Mosquito Fleet" I got when I was still in school . . . and I have "They Were Expendable" on DVD, as well as the first season of McHale's Navy. (John Wayne and Ernest Borgnine's PT boat commander characters were very different.)
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McHale's Island was a different place from where PT-73 was docked and was the headquarters. They later moved to Europe (Italy).
Wiki:
The entire show is based on only two locations, one in the South Pacific at a fictional base called Taratupa — the implied location (first episode) is islands north of New Zealand — and an equally fictional town in Italy called Voltafiore. The first few episodes merely indicate it is "somewhere in the South Pacific 1943." While in the South Pacific, McHale's crew lives on "McHale's Island", across the bay from Taratupa. It keeps them away from the main base, where they are free to carry out their antics and even fight the war.
In the final season, Binghamton and the entire PT-73 crew move to the liberated Italian theater to the town of Voltafiore "in Southern Italy" "in late 1944."
With their three (3, count 'em) ~1200 hp Merlin / Packard aircraft engines.
I always thought "McHale's Island" was a separate island among the many McHale did business with before the war, not just "across the bay" from their HQ. I recall one episode where a higher-up commented something like "You mean he has his own Island?" and where Urulu was the Chief.
It just irks me that the writers with their "single" engine flew in the face of a well known fact. Maybe they all became newspaper writers after McHale's Navy was canceled.
No big deal, really, and the gun handling on that show really bothers me more.