Lt. Henry Montgomery & PT 107

                                    Lt. Henry Montgomery

This year, I have run across two new finds (for me) that I need to share ... re Bob, of course.  I'll try to get the second one together for Thursday.  Last week I was surfing Montgomery photos on the internet when the photo below caught my eye.  Could that really be Bob?  Well, it is actually Lt. Henry Montgomery along with other officers of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Five on the S.S. Joseph Stanton headed for Panama c. Sept, 1942. 

I have enlarged part of the photo so you can appreciate the trimmed down Henry with his shorts tailored to cut off just at the knee. 

The top photo of Henry and his PT 107 was taken in July, 1942, during training exercises off Melville, RI, where Squadron Five received its initial training. 

While stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, Henry served as executive officer of the squadron.  The commander was a career Navy man who did not care much about his assignment to a motor torpedo boat squadron, never learned how to operate one and was rarely even on one of his boats.  He "was rather content to let his squadron exec. (Lt. Henry Montgomery) handle the day-to-day running of the unit."   Henry stays with the squadron until November, 1942, when he is assigned to a light cruiser which had joined the Pacific Fleet in the Solomons. 

The photos and most of the above information can be found on a terrific site called PT Boats of WWII (pt-king.gdinc.com).  The photos are just fantastic, make great backgrounds for your computer!  It is a rather extensive site so I am listing the three sections that pertain to Lt. Henry.

Find six photos of Henry operating his PT 107 at: 
http://pt-king.gdinc.com/PTsquadronfive.html

The photo of Lt. Henry and fellow officers can be found at:
http://pt-king.gdinc.com/PTsquadronfive3.html

Scroll down to the end of the article, to find the story of Henry's commander at:
http://pt-king.gdinc.com/PT109article.html