Papua New Guinea: Tufi PT Boats

Diving Papua New Guinea: The Tufi PT Boats

At the end of 1942 the Allied campaign to defeat the Japanese invasion of PNG was focused on the beachheads of Buna, Sananda & Gona, roughly halfway up the north-east coast of the main island of New Guinea. The battle of Buna-Gona was a joint American & Australian one and ultimately succeeded in defeating the Japanese, but at a very high cost in casualties.

Tufi Fiord played a small role in this campaign as it was selected by the US Navy as an advanced base for the PT Boats that were supporting the campaign.

PT, or Patrol Torpedo, boats were small but fast vessels designed to attack & sink the enemy’s major capital ships by using their speed & maneuverability to get close enough to launch their on-board torpedoes.

Whilst their actual effectiveness in this role is still the subject of debate, they served well in WWII because they could be deployed against a range of targets.

They were very effective when pitted against similarly sized enemy vessels, such as the armored Japanese barges used to ferry troops & equipment from island to island.

There is also a certain mystique about PT Boats due to their association with former US president John Kennedy, who commanded one during WWII, plus their use in the rescue of General Douglas MacArthur from imminent Japanese capture in the Philippines and various other heroic wartime deeds.

Tufi Fiord offered an excellent location for the boats to operate from because the site chosen was the small bay where the government station jetty had been built.

The bay, which is the site of the current dive & public wharves, provided good cover from enemy planes plus an area to store gasoline and a supply of fresh water from a nearby small waterfall.

From Tufi Fiord the PT boats operated regular patrols all the way up to Buna, plus on occasions further north into the Huon Gulf and were credited with the sinking of one Japanese submarine & at least 18 armored barges.

Diving Papua New Guinea: The Sinking of Tufi’s PT Boats

The most common urban myth associated with the sinking of PT Boats 67 and 119 was that they were attacked by Japanese fighters while at anchor in Tufi Fiord.

But according to “At Close Quarters” by Robert Bulkley, the authoritative history of PT Boat service in WWII, the actual story is that they sunk as a result of an accident during refueling!

Not quite as exciting, but an interesting story none the less….

It happened on the afternoon of the 17th March 1943 when a refueling operation at Tufi Jetty had just been completed and a sheet of flames erupted between the two boats.

The fire spread so rapidly that the boat crews had no option but to dive into the fiord to escape the imminent explosion of the on-board gas tanks and stored ammunition.

The fire & subsequent explosion sank both the boats and the AS16, a small Australian cargo ship, which had been also moored at behind the two PT Boats unloading supplies for the base.

The flames also spread quickly to the dock and the nearby gasoline & ammunition stores resulting in further major explosions and fires.

Apparently the fires burned well into the next day.

Amazingly, given the size & intensity of the fire & explosions, there was not a single death or injury and a subsequent investigation concluded that the fire probably started when one of the local villagers lit a cigarette and threw his match into the water, igniting some split gasoline that was on the surface…

Diving Papua New Guinea: Diving the Tufi PT Boats

Diving the PT Boats is a very straightforward exercise because the former fishing boat that is moored in the fiord is anchored right above them, so entry into the water is from the dive wharf and then it’s about a five minute surface swim.

As you descend down the mooring line, at about 35m you can see the wreckage spread out beneath on the sandy floor of the fiord.

Near to the mooring is one of the original torpedo tubes which is still loaded with a live torpedo, and about 10m away down into the fiord is the hull of one of the boats, the bow of which is still intact and clearly recognizable, as is the mounted machine gun just behind it.

The gun’s mounting rails are lying in the sand, together with the gearing that allowed it to be turned & aimed, but there is not much left of the rest of the hull probably because it was burned in the fire that sunk the boat back in 1943.

Scattered around in the sand are numerous old 45 gallon fuel drums which must have been on board the two boats and used for refueling while on patrol.

Dive time at this depth is obviously quite limited, but because most of the boat wreckage is in a fairly small area, there is usually enough to see everything before heading back up the side of the fiord and shallower water.

On the way you will pass more 45 gallon fuel drums and another torpedo tube, complete with its loaded torpedo.

As you ascend up the sloping sides of the fiord at 35m there is an old Landrover parked amongst more wreckage from the PT Boats, including one of the engines, and then you will pass a large number of beer crates. Hard to say if they were deposited when the PT Boats sank, or if they are part of the explanation of why the Landrover is in the fiord….

Diving Papua New Guinea: Photographing the Tufi PT Boats

I rarely dive greater than about 35m because the best things to see & photograph are usually in shallower waters, so it’s either a wreck, or some other very specific thing to see, that gets me into deeper waters. But this means that I have very little tolerance of nitrogen narcosis – or as Jacques Cousteau so eloquently put it, “the raptures of the deep”.

As every trained diver knows, the deeper you go the higher is the partial pressure of nitrogen you are breathing. Once you go past the 30m threshold, the so-called “Martini effect” kicks in and a significant increase in over-confidence occurs.

This over-confidence is usually coupled with a marked decrease in the ability to rationalize things and do basic calculations.

This was all brought home vividly to me when I embarked upon the task of photographing the PT Boats.

I had figured it would all be a fairly straightforward exercise as I could set my camera up for wide-angle photography the night before, use if on the offshore reefs in the morning.

Then once back at Tufi Wharf, go for a mid-afternoon dive on the PT Boats without having to change anything around – too easy… But nitrogen narcosis and underwater photography are words that should not really be used in the same sentence, never mind practiced….and it took me five attempts to get the images.

Simple camera & strobe adjustments that are made without even thinking at 20m, change in to major philosophical judgment calls at 50m.

So it was with an increasing sense of shame that I had to report to my Japanese underwater “supermodel”, and Tufi Divemaster Yuko Kuramoto, that each day’s attempts had failed.

That was until I realized that Yuko was suffering from the “narcs” possibly as much as I was when, despite all my pleas about not disturbing the sandy bottom the visibility suddenly reduced to about 2m!

Or forgot to turn on the torch…

There is a great saying in Pidgin that Yuko & I came to use, as it kind of summarized the impact of narcosis at 50m – “head, him no good..”

But I am glad to say that by attempt number 5 we were both comfortable at 50m and the seven minutes we had allowed ourselves at that depth went completely to plan and I was able to use the 23 minute decompression stop near the Tufi Wharf to review some decent images!

All the images shown were taken with either the Tokina 10-17 zoom or the Nikon 10.5 fisheye, but of the two I had the most success with the Nikon because it’s a faster lens than the Tokina – a significant issue at 50m with not a lot of ambient light.

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