Does Anyone Know The Mortality Rate Of PT Boats on The Mekong Delta?

[DrFunkenstein]

I've heard there was a pretty high chance of death, but I don't know what the rate was. Anyone know?

[kanrok]

1. I don't know that, but I do know

It's a hell of a lot higher mortality rate than going to see a dentist in Alabama.

[sangha]

2. 75% of the officers on those PT boats

were either injured in combat or killed. I read that in the NY Times. They had an article that erroneously claimed that 75% were killed, and just a day or two ago they ran a correction that 75% were killed or injured.

I hope that helps.

[incapsulated]

5. Still..

those are high numbers.

 
 

[gottaB]

3. I don't know about mortality rates

but the names of the dead are remembered here:

http://www.mrfa.org

[whistle]

4. 75% killed or injured, Interesting...

...statistic. Where can PT boats be used in Iraq? What countries in the middle east have counterparts to the Mekong Delta? The question that I think we need to have answers to are how many of our fighting forces have been killed or injured through the use of depleted uranium in our munitions?:shrug: :think: :boring:

[HFishbine]

6. How does a boat die?

"Mortality Rate Of PT Boats?"

[Octafish]

7. This movie might help.

Kerry's Vietnam exploits serve as campaign ammo

By Tom Blackburn, special to The Palm Beach Post
Sunday, March 7, 2004

When John F. Kennedy announced for the presidency, he had the benefit of PT 109, a book about his World War II exploits, by a noted journalist, Robert Donovan. John F. Kerry opened his campaign with help from a book by Douglas Brinkley, a noted historian whose last book was a biography of Henry Ford and his motor company.

Tour of Duty is mostly about Kerry's service in Vietnam -- in which he won the Silver Star, Bronze Star and was wounded three times -- and his antiwar opposition with Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he got home. Access to Kerry's journals and letters to his family and first wife are probably what sold Brinkley on writing what has to be, in effect, a campaign biography. If the campaign comes to nothing, though, his book will still stand as a popular account of what service was like in the "brown water Navy" that patrolled the rivers and canals of Vietnam in 1967-'69.

The Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) Kerry commanded was the smaller cousin of the World War II Patrol Torpedo boat, but, instead of operating in open waters it ran through tight places where the foliage on riverbanks was sometimes close enough to brush the boat's antennas and where there often wasn't room to turn around.

The Navy used the boats to "show the flag" in enemy Viet Cong territory, although the mission -- as the skippers slowly realized -- didn't make much sense. A boat would cruise down a river until it came under fire, then spray the banks with machine gun and mortar rounds. The sailors seldom knew if they hit anything. They suspected the people who shot first popped down their "spider holes" and waited out the return barrage.

CONTINUED...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ae/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/arts_entertainment_0474b4917232805e007b.html