 Admittedly small and vulnerable, PT boats were, nevertheless, fast--the fastest craft on the water during World War II--and Dick Keresey's account of these tough little fighters throws new light on their unique contributions to the war effort.
As captain of PT 105, the author was in the same battle as John F. Kennedy when Kennedy's PT 109 was rammed and sunk. The famous incident, Keresey says, has often been described inaccurately and the PT boat depicted as unreliable and ineffective. This book helps set the record straight by presenting an authentic picture of PT boats in the Pacific. Shot at more than 20 times, the author not only served as a PT officer in the Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and Bourgainville campaigns and the Choiseul Island raid, but developed and taught torpedo boat tactics after his combat service.
Keresey's experiences are still fresh in his memory, and he offers an action-filled account of life on a PT boat: evading deadly night bombers, rescuing coast watchers and downed airmen, setting down Marine scouts behind Japanese lines, engaging in vicious gun battles with Japanese barges and small freighters, all the while contending with heat, disease, and loneliness. Keresey recalls two occasions when Kennedy rescued him, and he describes PT 105's controversial rescue of Japanese sailors and his own poignant reunion with one of those sailors 50 years later.
Dick Keresey, a retired New York attorney and resident of Montclair, New Jersey, served with Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Five from 1942 to 1944, including 16 months as skipper of PT 105 before becoming a division leader.
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