My Father’s War

As a teacher of history and the son of a PT boater, I became fascinated with the story of the PT boats at a very young age. Unfortunately, Dad died in 1981 and I never really had the chance to uncover what the PT experience was all about until 1992, when I held a reunion at my home for the men he served with aboard PT-195. It was then that ] came to learn firsthand about the courage and valor of these boats and the sailors they served. But perhaps more revealing was the intimate bond developed among the men that neither time nor distance had broken. That reunion six years ago motivated me to compile a fifty-page oral history of PT-195, which I can now say is complete thanks to your article—and to the picture on page 68 of the July/August issue that featured PT-195.

Now I have seen the boat that Dad and his brothers grew up on some fifty years ago. Clearly identified by Quartermaster Jim Murray are Hap Deyo, Frenchy DuPlantis, and Earl Creighton, with the very strong possibility that the young black-haired sailor adjacent to the indelible number “195” is my father.