- published: 09 May 2016
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PT boats were a variety of torpedo-armed fast attack craft used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships. "PT" is the US hull classification symbol for "Patrol Torpedo". The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet". The Japanese called them "Devil Boats".
The original pre–World War I torpedo boats were designed with "displacement" hulls. They displaced up to 300 tons and the top speed was 25 to 27 kn (29 to 31 mph; 46 to 50 km/h). The PT boats used in World War II were built using the planing-type hull form developed for racing boats. They were much smaller (30–75 tons) and faster (35–40 knots). Both types were designed to strike at larger warships with torpedoes, using relatively high speed to get close, and small size to avoid being spotted and hit by gunfire. They were much less expensive than large warships. PT boats were much faster, smaller, and cheaper than conventional (displacement hull) vessels.
During World War II, American PT boats engaged enemy destroyers and numerous other surface craft, ranging from small boats to large supply ships. PT boats also operated as gunboats against enemy small craft, such as armored barges used by the Japanese forces for inter-island transport.
A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland (lakes) or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a vessel small enough to be carried aboard another vessel (a ship). Another less restrictive definition is a vessel that can be lifted out of the water. Strictly speaking and uniquely a submarine is a boat as defined by the Royal Navy[citation needed]. Some boats too large for the naval definition include the Great Lakes freighter, riverboat, narrowboat and ferryboat. The term armed boat, used primarily by English speaking naval forces, referred to any boat carrying either a cannon or armed occupants, such as marines[citation needed].
Boats have served as short-distance transportation since early times. Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, and findings in Crete dated 130,000 years ago, suggests that boats have been used since ancient times. The earliest boats have been predicted to be logboats. The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7,000–10,000 years ago. The oldest recovered boat in the world is the Pesse canoe; it is a dugout or hollowed tree trunk from a Pinus sylvestris. It was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 B.C. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands; other very old dugout boats have been recovered. A 7,000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait.
Come with me
Here is the answer
To set you free, yeah
All alone as you silently scream
You reach out and hold on
All along you´ve been chasing a dream
Now it´s gone, it´s over
Out of my head `cos it´s
Time to surrender
It´s time you remember
A game of pretending
Is not worth defending
Heart and soul
Truth is a saviour
So take control, yeah
Time to surrender.....
You talk as if you just don´t care
There´s so much frustration
I see that you are in despair
It´s your desperation, oh
Time to surrender.....
Choir:
Everything you say and everything you do
Got to find a way you know it´s down to you
Live another day and live for what is true