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325
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Northern California
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(1 of 3)
Book review: PT 105 by Dick Keresey
Nov 6, 2009 4:56 PM
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Dick Keresey is a lawyer and former PT Boat Skipper who never had any intention of writing a book about his experiences in the Solomon Islands. And if not for the fact that one of the other boat captains in his squadron was a replacement named Kennedy, he almost certainly would not have. But the endless stream of mythology, half-truths, and outright falsehoods he encountered about PT boats in general and the 109 boat in particular (much of it published) motivated him to make an effort to set the record straight. He is one of the few (perhaps the only) surviving people who witnessed the destruction of the 109 boat that night in August of 1943, and his account busts a lot of malarkey that has been circulating for years.
He has achieved his goal quite well, in my opinion. He wrote his book in the conversational style, never resorting to overblown prose or the ultra-reality writing style used by so many modern authors. He begins the book in 1940, when he was sufficiently worried about the new draft law to inquire into the navy's commissioning program. He winds up in PT School in Rhode Island almost as an afterthought, and is hooked by the sound and performance of the new patrol boats there. He describes his first experience in advanced boat handling when he tries to maneuver his brand new PT into a slip at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Unfortunately, he had only a few minutes of stick time at that point and the instructors never told him about how to handle side currents. So the incoming tide pinned his boat solidly against the pier he was trying to tie up to, for what seemed like an interminable time. He tried multiple throttle/rudder combinations until he finally succeeded getting his boat moored. Just then he became aware of a large audience of civilian yard workers on a cruiser nearby, all cheering his success. Most guys would be embarrassed, but Keresey turned toward them, and took off his hat and bowed. They loved it and cheered all the louder. I mention this story mainly to point out the whole book is like that, complete candor about life on patrol boats. He makes no attempt to conceal facts that would embarass anyone, and that makes for one of the best first hand accounts of naval history I've seen in some time.
When he finally got to the shooting war in the summer of '43, he describes his squadron mates in considerable detail and, of course, complete candor. His comments about the other officers such as Barney Ross and Jack Kennedy tell us a lot about the personalities involved. He also mentions the sudden deaths of close friends so casually the reader could easily get the impression those deaths had little effect on him. Such an impression would be completely wrong, of course. The offhand attitude of such events was his self-defense mechanism kicking in; it was probably the best way to handle it. He also mentioned a fact that made a particularly strong impression, at least on this reader. When making his first night patrol in the Solomons, he mentions that he had "never experienced such blackness." Coming from a guy that just spent almost a year operating in Panama, that's quite a statement. I've operated patrol boats in Panama, and those were some of the darkest conditions I've ever encountered anywhere.
Keresey mentions some incidents that most readers today will find surprising, such as the one in which he is assigned to lead a four boat patrol to pick up survivors of a naval battle a few miles west of Vella Lavella. He was not expecting the survivors to be Japanese. He ordered his boats to pick up as many Japanese sailors as would be rescued, picking up a total of 70 prisoners. After delivering them to the army, he reports to a debrief at Rendova and is asked by his irritated Squadron CO why he did not machine gun the survivors that refused rescue. In the post Abu Ghraib world, it is hard to imagine any American officer having to justify his refusal to execute unarmed survivors in the water, but that's just what happened.
Anyone interested in the Pacific War or patrol boats should have this book. Keresey calls 'em as he sees 'em, and his account is an excellent read.
PT 105, by Dick Keresey, 1996 Naval Institute Press. 211 pages, paperback.
--
"We few, we happy few..."
William Shakespeare, Henry V
Happy? Was he nuts?
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Posts:
293
From:
Alabama
Registered:
9/5/06
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(2 of 3)
Re: Book review: PT 105 by Dick Keresey
Nov 6, 2009 6:19 PM
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Thanks for the info about that book, Frank. I'll be looking for it!
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Posts:
9,862
Registered:
11/18/04
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(3 of 3)
Re: Book review: PT 105 by Dick Keresey
Nov 8, 2009 12:40 PM
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Ditto that for me.....I've read several books on the PT Boat's, many of the replacements like JFK had very little training by the time they were in combat situations. That's just the way it was, the same is true of every other branch of the military during the war.
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The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.
There's never a right time to be in the wrong place
jasser
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