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NavSource Online:
Motor Torpedo Boat Photo Archive

HM MTB-378
ex-BPT-68


BPT-68 served the Navies of Great Britian and Italy.
BPT-21 Class Motor Torpedo Boat:

  • Laid down 6 March 1943 as BPT-68 by Annapolis Yacht Yard, Annapolis, MD
  • Launched 17 July 1943
  • Completed 15 December 1943, transferred to Great Britain and named HM MTB-378
  • On 15 January 1945, PT-313 and MTB-378 engaged a southbound convoy of five German flak lighters west of Portofino, Italy sinking one and damaging another
  • Returned to U.S. Navy custody 15 October 1945
  • Struck from the Naval Register 28 November 1945
  • Transferred to the State Department, Foreign Liquidation Commission in January 1948
  • Transferred to Italy 4 April 1948; reclassified as a Torpedo Recovery Craft and renamed GIS-0017
  • Renamed GIS-821
  • Reclassified as a Motor Torpedo Boat, MS-841 and MS-421
  • Struck from the Navy list in 1958
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Armament: One Mk 1-20mm mount, one twin .50 cal. Vickers machine gun in Mk V turret (replaced by one Mk IIA twin 20mm mount), two 21" torpedoes and two depth charges
  • Propulsion: Three 3,600shp Packard W-14 M2500 gasoline engines, three shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    BPT-68 350k HM MTB-378 underway. She is armed with a single 20mm Oerlikon Mk 4 forward and a manually-operated twin 20 mm Oerlikon Mk 11A amidships in lieu of 0.5" Vickers Mk V, 2-21" TT RN Pattern and 2-1 depth charges. Note the conspicuous whip aerial fitted to the port wing of the bridge
    Imperial War Museum photo from "Warships of World War II" by H. T. Lenton and J. J. College    		 Robert Hurst
    BPT-68 64k Original photo: HM MTB-378 viewed from the stern of a 78-foot Higgins MTB during operations in the Mediterranean. The Higgins boat is equipped with a Canadian-built 40mm Bofors gun on its quarterdeck
    Imperial War Museum photo from "British Motor Torpedo Boat 1939-1945" by Angus Konstan
    Replacement photo: HM MTB-378 at speed, as seen from the bridge of an unidentified sister operating near Genoa off the Italian Coast in February 1945. Prominent here on the quarterdeck is a Canadian manufactured 40mm Bofors gun which replaced a twin 20mm Oerlikon previously mounted at that location. This vessel is part of a small force of British MTBs which, together with American patrol boats, turned the 45 mile stretch of enemy held coast between Sezi [Sezze] and Genoa, Italy into their hunting grounds
    Imperial War Museum Admiralty Official Collection, by Hudson, F.A. (Lt), Photo No. © IWM (A 22748)    		 Original photo: Robert Hurst
    Replacement photo: Mike Green
    There is no DANFS history available for BPT-68
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