Japanese Militaria at Castle-Thunder.com

[oopy38]

This past weekend at the TMCA show we had the honor of talking with a WWII U.S. Navy veteran. In our very brief conversation he advised us that he was on a PT boat at Guadacanal. His boat was armed with a 37 mm gun on the bow, two 20 mm guns on each side, and two twin .50 mounts. They carried 4 torpedoes. He said when the Navy pulled out and left the Marines stranded, the Japanese tried to resupply with barges loaded with men or material. They would get within gun range and sink them with their guns. I asked him if they had a problem with torpedoes being duds like in the submarine service early in the war. He said he did not know as his boat never fired a torpedo in combat. They only used their guns. I told him I had read that after the war most of the PT boats were burned and he said "Yep, they burned the damn things!"