PT boat

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PT-105 at high speed.

PT Boats were motor torpedo boats ("PT", for "Patrol Torpedo"). They were small, fast ships used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships. The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet". They were exceedingly nimble, relatively expendable to the larger fleet, and carried torpedoes that featured a remarkable destruction-to weight ratio. John F. Kennedy famously served on one of these, and his boat was sliced in two by enemy fire. Navies often used destroyers to combat these nimble but dangerous surface craf. t