Hubert Scott-Paine was a British aircraft and boat designer, and among his accomplishments was the design of the PV70 — the 70-foot boat that became a model for the patrol torpedo boats the U.S. Navy used during World War II.
During a 1939 visit to the United Kingdom to see British motor torpedo boat designs, Electric Launch Co. officials bought Scott-Paine’s design. It became the PT boat prototype and was later named the PT-9.
Nicknamed “Mosquito Boats,” PT boats were small, fast, highly maneuverable and inexpensive to build. They were used for short-range scouting and as gunboats for harassing enemy forces, and they saw action in the European and Pacific theaters.
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Among the PT boats Elco eventually produced was PT-109, aboard which John F. Kennedy served heroically, and the boat that rescued Gen. Douglas MacArthur from Corregidor.
