The discussion on rounded doors and my post with a couple of shots of a WWII PT interior got me thinking somebody might like to see a bit more of what* an Elco PT boat actually looked like inside.* So here are a few more of my collection.
This particular boat is a very late Elco 80-footer and was probably completed right at the end of the war or immediatly afer.* The boat represents the interior configuration of all the Elco 80-footers except in the engine room.*
Almost all the Elco's had their engines arranged witth the outboard (wing) engines facing aft and slanting forward and the center engine facing forward and slanting aft.* The wing engines drove their props thorugh V-drives.* The center engine powered its prop directly.* Right at the end of the war Elco figured out how to re-configure the engine room so all three engines faced forward and drove their props directly.* I believe they did this by stealing some space from the lazarette and shifting some other equipment about.* PT 617 is one of these boats.
Other than that, PT 617 is a typical Elco boat.
The "dayroom" is the midships cabin that sits a few feet higher than the deck.* The main fuel tank was under it with smaller tanks on either side, between the cabin sidewalls and the hull.
The "chartroom" is the forward cabin with the slanting front.* Like the dayroom, the chartroom is half-sunk into the deck.* The bridge or helm station was behind the chartroom with a .50 cal turret beside it to starboard.
Photos are: 1-4, dayroom interior.* In photo 2 you can see through the officer's mess to the galley.* In photo 4 you can see aft into the engine room.
5-7, galley interior.* Note two-burner elecric stove on which everything hot was prepared.* The galley was forward of the dayroom and officer's mess on the starboard side of the boat.* The officer's quarters were on the port side of the boat between the dayroom and enlisted quarters.* So opposite the galley and officers' mess.
8- chartroom exterior, 9- some of the instruments in the chartroom.* The chartroom was used for navigation, plotting work, and radio communications and direction finding.* The bridge and helm station was behind the slanting structure with the number 617 painted on it.* On earlier boats the solid face of the bridge had a multi-paned windscreen of armored glass on top of it.* Some crews removed this and perhaps Elco stopped putting it on altogether as the war went on.
10-officer's head,* 11-crew's head in forepeak,* 12-ladder from bridge to lower deck.* The ladder space was painted red to preserve night vision up above. From the red step in the lower right corner you can step to the left to enter the chartroom or continue down the ladder to the galley.
13- officers mess (facing benches w table between),*
14-17 views of one of the three Packard engines, its carburetor and supercharger, and gearbox, 18- engine gauges at the helm. The helmsman operated the throttles, the motor mac in the engine room shifted the transmissions.* Note the gauges are rpm and manifold pressure,*
19- hull construction.* These boats were not plywood but were make of double-diagonal planking with a layer of waterproofing canvas in between the two layers.* The decks were planked.* The only plywood in the boats was in some of the superstructure and gun turrets.* The "window" cut in the side of the boat is so people on a viewing platform outside can look into the boat.* The public is not allowed inside so a number of these viewing ports have been cut into the hull.* The only daylight that came into a PT interior was through the small ports in the chartroom and dayroom.* There were decklights placed all over the deck to let light into the boat's spaces but the crews almost always painted these over as protection against night fighter atacks.
This boat is painted in the overall green shade that was used toward the end of the war when the primary PT mission was barge-busting to prevent supplies from reaching the Japanese troops on bypassed islands.* The boats were painted this way to better blend in with the shorelines.* Ealier in the war the boats were painted gray and various camoflage schemes were tried from time to time.
For the first part of the war a PT crew was typically 11 men, 9 enlisted and 2 officers.* They lived on board the boats.* Later in the war as the PTs became more and more heavily armed as gunboats (pound for pound they were the most heavily armed vessels in the Navy) the crew was sometimes expanded to 12 or 14 people (never 13).
-- Edited by Marin on Sunday 13th of November 2011 06:09:01 PM
This particular boat is a very late Elco 80-footer and was probably completed right at the end of the war or immediatly afer.* The boat represents the interior configuration of all the Elco 80-footers except in the engine room.*
Almost all the Elco's had their engines arranged witth the outboard (wing) engines facing aft and slanting forward and the center engine facing forward and slanting aft.* The wing engines drove their props thorugh V-drives.* The center engine powered its prop directly.* Right at the end of the war Elco figured out how to re-configure the engine room so all three engines faced forward and drove their props directly.* I believe they did this by stealing some space from the lazarette and shifting some other equipment about.* PT 617 is one of these boats.
Other than that, PT 617 is a typical Elco boat.
The "dayroom" is the midships cabin that sits a few feet higher than the deck.* The main fuel tank was under it with smaller tanks on either side, between the cabin sidewalls and the hull.
The "chartroom" is the forward cabin with the slanting front.* Like the dayroom, the chartroom is half-sunk into the deck.* The bridge or helm station was behind the chartroom with a .50 cal turret beside it to starboard.
Photos are: 1-4, dayroom interior.* In photo 2 you can see through the officer's mess to the galley.* In photo 4 you can see aft into the engine room.
5-7, galley interior.* Note two-burner elecric stove on which everything hot was prepared.* The galley was forward of the dayroom and officer's mess on the starboard side of the boat.* The officer's quarters were on the port side of the boat between the dayroom and enlisted quarters.* So opposite the galley and officers' mess.
8- chartroom exterior, 9- some of the instruments in the chartroom.* The chartroom was used for navigation, plotting work, and radio communications and direction finding.* The bridge and helm station was behind the slanting structure with the number 617 painted on it.* On earlier boats the solid face of the bridge had a multi-paned windscreen of armored glass on top of it.* Some crews removed this and perhaps Elco stopped putting it on altogether as the war went on.
10-officer's head,* 11-crew's head in forepeak,* 12-ladder from bridge to lower deck.* The ladder space was painted red to preserve night vision up above. From the red step in the lower right corner you can step to the left to enter the chartroom or continue down the ladder to the galley.
13- officers mess (facing benches w table between),*
14-17 views of one of the three Packard engines, its carburetor and supercharger, and gearbox, 18- engine gauges at the helm. The helmsman operated the throttles, the motor mac in the engine room shifted the transmissions.* Note the gauges are rpm and manifold pressure,*
19- hull construction.* These boats were not plywood but were make of double-diagonal planking with a layer of waterproofing canvas in between the two layers.* The decks were planked.* The only plywood in the boats was in some of the superstructure and gun turrets.* The "window" cut in the side of the boat is so people on a viewing platform outside can look into the boat.* The public is not allowed inside so a number of these viewing ports have been cut into the hull.* The only daylight that came into a PT interior was through the small ports in the chartroom and dayroom.* There were decklights placed all over the deck to let light into the boat's spaces but the crews almost always painted these over as protection against night fighter atacks.
This boat is painted in the overall green shade that was used toward the end of the war when the primary PT mission was barge-busting to prevent supplies from reaching the Japanese troops on bypassed islands.* The boats were painted this way to better blend in with the shorelines.* Ealier in the war the boats were painted gray and various camoflage schemes were tried from time to time.
For the first part of the war a PT crew was typically 11 men, 9 enlisted and 2 officers.* They lived on board the boats.* Later in the war as the PTs became more and more heavily armed as gunboats (pound for pound they were the most heavily armed vessels in the Navy) the crew was sometimes expanded to 12 or 14 people (never 13).
-- Edited by Marin on Sunday 13th of November 2011 06:09:01 PM
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019 diagonalhullplanking.jpg63.2 KB · Views: 294
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018 enginegages.jpg69 KB · Views: 284
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017 gearboxstartergenerator.jpg94.4 KB · Views: 243
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016 packardv12supercharger.jpg88 KB · Views: 241
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015 packardv12carburetor 2.jpg85.1 KB · Views: 283
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014 starboardpackardv12.jpg84.1 KB · Views: 264
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013 officer's mess.jpg61.7 KB · Views: 245
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