John F Kennedy’s own Patrol Boat was 80ft long, weighed 56 tons and had 4 x Torpedo Tubes on the deck. Hundreds of these Boats were built between 1942 and 1945 in Bayonne, New Jersey. The crew was made up of 3 x Officers and 14 Navy Personnel.
The Boat was powered by 3 x 1500HP Packard petrol engines with a designed top speed of 41 knots. The PT 109 had a 37mm anti tank gun, a 20mm auto cannon, 2 x twin 0.5 machine gun turrets and the 4 x Mk8 21” torpedoes. Each torpedo weighed 3150 pounds.
However, the Mk8 torpedo was both inaccurate and ineffective, caused by defective detonators. There is not one recorded torpedo hit by the US Patrol Boats. In one engagement 15 x Patrol Boats fired 24 x Torpedoes but not one hit the target!
