Nasty making it back
Official caption: “MACV/SOG Naval Advisory Detachment: Two Nasty-class PTF’s returning at dawn from a sea commando mission into the DMZ area in 1971. This was a particularly successful mission, with no friendly casualties.”
From the Frederick J. Vogel Collection (COLL/5577) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division
With the hundreds of wooden PT boats all liquidated shortly after WWII ended, the Navy in the 1960s found themselves in need of a handful of small, fast, and heavily armed craft for “unorthodox operations” in Southeast Asia.
These wooden-hulled Norwegian-designed 80-foot boats, powered by a pair of Napier Deltic turbocharged diesel engines, could make 38-knots but, with a 40mm Bofors single, an M2 .50 cal/81mm combo, and 20mm cannons, they could deal some hurt.
Crew members man a 40mm Bofors gun on a PTF Jan. 5, 1973. Photo by Fred Maroon. NARA DN-ST-88-07400
Gunnery exercises aboard PTF
Some 20 were acquired in the early 60s (numbered PTF-2 to PTF-23), six lost in combat, and, laid up at Subic after 1973, retired by 1981.
PTF Nasty boats laid up at Subic Bay