The Mediterranean PT-Boats fared better than their Pacific counterparts, which were stripped of valuable equipment and most burned on beaches in the Philippines, so few of those remain.
In 2001, the Defenders of America Naval Museum in Galveston acquired it. It was authenticated as a Higgins-built PT-boat by a stamp under the deck in the bow and shipped by truck from Maryland to Galveston. But a planned restoration project was stalled by lack of funds and, in 2007, ownership went to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
It had taken a volunteer group in Portland, Oregon, 12 years to rebuild a the World War II-era PT-658, and they had left-over parts, including an aft (stern) 20-foot section of another cannibalized PT-Boat in Vancouver, Washington, which was donated to the New Orleans project.
New Orleans is expected to spend between $3 and $5 million on the project.
So Happy to Have A Real One Back. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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