J.D.
Thank you.
You have expressed my feelings fairly well.
In the condition that you first saw the 309, was it worth anything, even as
a display?
What are the hours of labor worth?
How many $'s were raised, by whom, from whom, with what expectations?
While I "like" static Tank & Gun displays, I would rather see them redone to
working condition by
volunteers to give a better understanding of their actual use.
I can't, with the information at hand vote yes or no, I may however send em
a check.
Rikk Rogers
RK Lion LTD.
(580)762-3157
rkltd@fullnet.net
MVPA -22345-
-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org]On
Behalf Of John Bowen
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 7:57 AM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: Re: [MV] something completely different
I visited the PT-309 volunteer website and I'm having a hard time deciding
how to vote this issue.
About 5 or 6 years ago I saw PT 309 blocked up on dry ground near the
battleship USS Texas. It was a pretty sorry sight at that point. I believe
it had just been brought down from the east coast, the hull was stripped and
needed new wood in places and the main deck was minus any superstructure.
Three years ago I saw its floating debut, minus power plants, at the
Lakewood Yacht Club's annual Wheels and Keels show near Houston. It was a
pretty impressive outing, given what I had seen before. The volunteers and
Navy Reservists that have worked on restoring PT-309 have done something to
be proud of and it appears the volunteers have driven the fund raising and
donation efforts to achieve this.
In their favor I can understand why they would want to keep the boat in the
water in the Houston area as a "living museum" for the public as indicated
in their website while completing ongoing restoration. I guess I have a
problem with their own statement that the boat is not currently berthed
where the public can have general access and they also stated in the
newsletter that the boat only had 3 public appearances in the 2nd quarter of
this year. This would most likely be indicative of public access in the
future just due to the realities of managing public access.
Clearly the Nimitz Museum would offer a better venue for people to see a
real WWII PT boat in all its glory. My concern is whether in keeping it
with the volunteers, hard work notwithstanding, it would tend to become a
private MV toy with minimal exposure to the public and, at best, only to
Houston area residents at certain special events.
J. D. Bowen
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 01 2000 - 21:37:48 PST