Mark Stille, USN PT Boat vs IJN Destroyer (Osprey, 2025)
It is mid-1942 and the Japanese are using destroyers to shuttle troops and supplies around the Solomon islands, most notably the fiercely contested island of Guadalcanal. These missions take place mostly at night, and the US Navy struggles to interdict them. The Americans have come up with the idea of using small but fast PT boats, but will it work? Mark Stille takes us inside this fascinating cat and mouse combat.
Stille begins with the problems facing the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the USN as they struggled for control over the Solomons. He then draws back to examine the design and development of the chubby but potent PT boats and the sleek, elegant IJN destroyers the Americans were out to sink. That includes the classifications and specifications for the ships, and Stille provides an overview of the crews, including a box-out for a certain American PT boat skipper and war hero named John F. Kennedy. Stille moves on to describe the strategic situation in the Pacific, focusing on the struggle for the Solomons and Guadalcanal. The stretch of water running the length of the Solomons became known as the Tokyo Express after the speedy destroyers racing through to deliver supplies and men before escaping by dawn when the Americans could use their air superiority to catch them. The PT boats first encountered the IJN on 13 October 1942 but could not penetrate the destroyer screen. The fighting that followed was mostly ineffectual, with the Americans nipping at the heels of the Japanese convoys but inflicting little damage. The PT boats had more success interdicting IJN submarines attempting to deliver supplies. Then on 12 December, the PT boats sank a destroyer off Savo island, but they lost a PT boat in the process. In February 1943, the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal, but the Solomons campaign continued. The USN began to exert control over the region, so used bigger ships, relegating the PT boats to hunting IJN barges. Stille concludes that the PT boat idea did not work as well as intended; six were sunk in return for one IJN destroyer sunk and one crippled. Stille puts this down to bad captaincy on both sides. But the PT boats caused the Japanese an unwanted headache, curtailing their operations, and that was a kind of win. Stille also notes that the PT boats were quite successful elsewhere in the Pacific, inflicting the desired misery on the Japanese.
This is another solid Osprey book, illuminating the war in the Pacific. Stille knows his material, and he communicates the technical and human aspects skilfully. As a reader interested in those human aspects of war, this reviewer was pleased to see adequate space given to that in this book. Osprey provides their usual high quality production to this edition in their Duel series, with excellent artwork for flavour and many interesting photographs. Students of the Pacific War and small ship combat will enjoy this.
