IT’S TIME TO RETURN TO A SIMPLER TIME

…The WWII Patrol Torpedo Boat

 

There will never be another war like World War II.

 

Do you remember as we Boomers were growing up, we were always told that WWII was “The good war”.  You know, during that war, there were those definite “good guys and bad guys”.  And in WWII, even the bad guys, like the Soviets and China, they joined the good guys in order to save the free world as well as their own communist countries.

 

Yes, the total “black vs white”, “good vs bad”, war had its winners and it losers, and everybody knew who was who, and what was what.

 

But then later on, the whole thing went into the toilet.

 

First, the US got itself into the Korean War, and after that, there was the nation’s “Red scare”, where all the free nations became frightened of being infiltrated by the terrible communists.  That drove the opposing nations into what became known as the “Cold War”, between the Soviet Union and the free world.  Then later came the disastrous War in Vietnam.  That was where I and many Boomers lost a number of our friends, either with a real physical loss, or even worse, from a mental loss with those that returned with PTSD. 

 

Subsequently, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, we got into the senseless war in the Iraq, which led us to where we are now, which under this latest White House administration, our situation is even more difficult to explain.

 

Americans are now starting to understand that since we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, we are now in the longest US war ever, and there is no end in sight to this war.  And none of this deals with what is going on with North Korea or with the Iranians.  Here are two extreme countries where both have long-term goals of having their own nuclear weapons.

 

After sitting and contemplating all of this, I decided that I really needed some relief from what’s going on in our American politics.  So, while still recuperating from major surgery, I took advantage of Xfinity’s “On Demand Movies” and I watched one of my favorite old WWII war time movies, “They Were Expendable”.

 

Now, this Hollywood movie is a classic, John Ford directed movie starring the then great young stars of the time including Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed and Ward Bond.

 

This movie became unique because the focus of the movie was not on the great war in Europe.  It was on the War in the Pacific, and it offered a whole new concept in naval warfare.  That concept was the use of a new, small, fast, well-armed naval vessel called the Patrol Torpedo Boat, or PT Boat.

 

Back then, the idea behind the PT Boat was that they were designed as very fast boats that could dodge being shot at by enemy destroyers, while the PT was a boat that could launch 4 of the same, large, Mark 8 torpedoes (2600 lbs. each), as those that were being launched from US submarines.  They could also make a quick get-away after launching their torpedoes.  The boats also had multiple 50 caliber machine guns for their protection.

 

The movie itself was actually filmed in early 1945 while the US was still at war in the Pacific.  The atomic bomb had yet to be dropped on Japan, and therefore, the movie could not be filmed on location.  The movie was instead filmed in Key Biscayne, Florida, and they went to great extremes to make it appear as if it was filmed in the Philippine’s.  The US Navy provided the boats at no cost to the Paramount locations and many US Navy PT personnel visited the Florida location during its filming.  The entire filming was overseen by qualified US Navy PT personnel.

 

The PT Boats eventually became un-sung hero’s in the war in the pacific, even though there were only 808 of them manufactured at Elco Motor Yachts in New jersey.  You may also remember that president John F. Kennedy was a US Navy captain of what became the infamous PT 109.  It was aboard that PT boat, in a skirmish with the Japanese Navy, that the president had suffered his long-term back injury.

 

What was so unique about the PT boat was that the hull was totally manufactured from thick marine plywood.  This allowed for its agility and its top speed of 29 to 31 MPH.  That was an unheard of speed for an 80 ft boat that fully equipped, weighed 56 tons.

 

As to what made the boats so fast, they were all out fitted with three, 4500 Horse Power, Packard, V12 engines.  One engine was mounted amidships, and two engines mounted astern.   Needless to say, these were total gas hogs in order to achieve their speeds with 4 heavy torpedoes on board.

 

The point I am making here is that if you are as disturbed as I am with what’s going on in Washington, and in the White House, maybe it's time for a "time-out"!  With what is going on with the US being involved in all the skirmishes around the globe, and with the latest issues of home-grown terrorists, perhaps the re-visiting of a movie such They Were Expendable might be worth the effort.  It could take you back to a time when things were much easier to understand, and to a period that will never be revisited in ours, or our children’s lifetimes.

 

I am now encouraging those that will listen, to take some time to look back to where we came from, and to where we need to center ourselves in making decisions for our future.  Things may look pretty desperate today, but we are the ones that need to be level-headed and to understand that all is not lost unless we decide to give up on the greatest free nation ever conceived.

 

Yes. it is worth taking a step back and for reflecting on a simpler time.

Copyright G.Ater  2017