Top Photo: For several years, PT-305 cruised Lake Pontchartrain offering rides to National WWII Museum visitors. The National WWII Museum Collection

With the reopening of the John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion, The National WWII Museum's patrol torpedo boat, PT-305, once again appears on public display. The vessel is unique not only because it served in combat in the Mediterranean during World War II, but because the US Navy’s PT boat began its life here. Built in the city of New Orleans, this “hometown hero” is now back for visitors, tourists, and the local community to examine and appreciate up close.

PT-305 came into being over eight weeks in the spring of 1943 at Higgins Industries’ City Park Plant, a site which is today the grounds of Delgado Community College. The keel became a hull, and that hull emerged from the line in June for the fitting out process, which extended to November 1943.

Once ready, crews took the new vessel out to Lake Pontchartrain and let its trio of Packard 4M-2500 engines roar. During the war years, the lake was abuzz with landing craft, small tugs, swift torpedo boats, and even locally built Consolidated PBY floatplanes, all plying the waves and enduring the sun strictly for business. At the time, nearly every operation on the lake was dedicated to the hard work of supplying the US government with the tools of warfare. 

As 1943 turned to 1944, PT-305 departed the Crescent City, and she would not be back for more than six decades. Like many young men and women of the Louisiana area, PT-305 would travel far to join in the fight. After a quick stop in Miami, PT-305, along with the 11 other boats of the US Navy’s Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 22 (Ron 22), hitched a ride across the Atlantic Ocean on the decks of oil tankers.

The men of Ron 22 began conducting patrols in May 1944, just a few weeks before the liberation of Rome. While their vessels were all built in New Orleans, the crews came from all over the United States—New York, New Mexico, Maine, Illinois, Texas. By chance, out of the hundreds of men in the unit, upward of 20 from New Orleans joined their "hometown hero” Higgins 78-foot motor torpedo boats. Now, they were at war over 5,000 miles from home.

PT-305 was based on Corsica and later in Saint-Tropez, France. She and her sisters of Ron 22 policed enemy waters, most commonly at night. PT-305 took part in 77 offensive patrols, supported two amphibious invasions, and destroyed three enemy vessels during her run in the Mediterranean. The small boat with a powerful punch performed admirably, nearly always deftly avoiding catastrophe. But one day, that PT-305 struck the dock while pulling into port and sent nearly everyone sprawling. The crew, unhurt after the collision, decided to nickname PT-305 the USS Sudden Jerk.

Crewmen aboard PT-305 pose for a photo in the Mediterranean Theater, circa 1944. Gift of Mitch Cirlot, 2014.445.223

When the war in Europe came to a close, the Navy retained the combat veteran vessels of Ron 22 for possible redeployment to the Pacific. When Japan surrendered, such boats had little use; in 1948, PT-305 was sold as surplus for the incredibly small sum of $10.

With new names such as Scalloping 1 and Miss Point View, the former warrior hauled New York tourists, plied the seas for prized fish, and helped bring oysters to market. Over the years, she became worn, battered, and even cut down in length.

The National WWII Museum worked to bring this rare and locally significant war-horse back to New Orleans in the early 2000s. In 2007, a deal with the Defenders of America Naval Museum in Galveston, Texas, brought the remains of PT-305 home.

In the years that followed, hundreds of Museum volunteers—including some WWII veterans and former Higgins workers—stepped forward to return PT-305 to her wartime glory. The daunting task took 10 years and more than 120,000 hours of labor. Thanks to the skills and support of many local New Orleanians and others from all over the United States, PT-305 was ready to return to Lake Pontchartrain in 2017. 

Years of work went into putting PT-305 back into World War II condition. The National WWII Museum Collection

More than 70 years after her last hometown cruise, PT-305 was once again roaring over the waters just a few hundred yards from where she was conceived in 1943. Instead of her original wartime mission, she was taking hundreds of passengers on the ride of a lifetime.

The plans always accounted for a return to the Kushner Restoration Pavilion—a building outfitted specifically to house PT-305. In 2022, the vessel came up the Mississippi River via barge, was rolled through the streets of New Orleans, and was nestled back into The National WWII Museum’s campus.

As the centerpiece of the Pavilion's STEM Innovation Gallery, PT-305 once again looks ready to set sail in the Mediterranean Sea with a complement of four deadly 2,000-pound torpedoes used for hunting enemy shipping. She is one of only a small handful of WWII-era PT boats left in the world today and now, finally, she is home for good.