PT boats played a “decisive role” in the Allied victory in the Pacific during World War II, says Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his memoirs. Despite MacArthur’s claim, the legacy of the PT boat has proven to be somewhat more complex than he suggests.
Alvin Cluster, a PT boat squadron commander, says the boats “really didn't do a lot of damage” against Japan. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison calls the vessels “useless” at a mission they were designed for, delivering torpedoes. In spite of these mixed impressions, the importance of the PT boat looms large in the story of naval innovation during World War II.
The tale of the PT boat begins in the 1860s with the invention in Europe of the first successful self-propelled naval torpedo. Navies created platforms for launching the new weapon. The torpedo boat (TB), introduced by Great Britain in the 1870s, was a steam-powered craft that fired torpedoes from long tubes bolted to the deck. The TB’s successor a few years later was the motor torpedo boat (MTB) powered by the new internal-combustion motor.
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