From At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy, by Robert J Buckley, Jr. :
An urgent request by the Office of Strategic Services for PT's to land and pick up agents on the French coast resulted in the hasty commissioning of a new Squadron 2 ... on March 23, 1944, at Fyfe's Shipyard, Glenwood Landing, Long Island. The squadron, commanded by Lt. Comdr. John D. Bulkeley, was made up of three early Higgins boats, PT's 71, 72, and 199 which had almost 2 years of service as training boats in Squadron 4 at Melville. After a rapid overhaul at Fyfe's Shipyard, the boats were shipped to England, arriving at Dartmouth on April 24. There they were fitted with special navigation equipment to give them pinpoint accuracy in locating their objectives on the French Coast. Officers and men practiced launching, rowing, loading, and unloading four-oared pulling boats, constructed with padded sides and muffled oarlocks, until they could land men and equipment on a beach swiftly and silently on the darkest night.
PT 71 made the first trip across the Channel on the night of May 19/20, carrying agents and several hundreds of pounds of equipment. The 71 crossed German convoy lanes and minefields, anchored within 500 yards of a beach commanded by German shore guns and a radar station, landed the men and gear under the noses of the German sentries, and returned to Dartmouth without discovery. That was typical of the 19 missions Squadron 2 performed for the Office of Strategic Services between May and November. Sometimes they put men ashore, sometimes they took them out of France. The boat officers and men never knew the identity of their passengers or the exact nature of their missions. The job of the boats was to land their passengers or to pick them up at precisely the right position on the coast, and to do it without being detected. The squadron completed its 19 missions without once making contact with the enemy, which is entirely as it should have been.
Being about operations, it doesn't go into details about boat specifics in anymore detail than mentioned above. They all were 78' Higgins boats.
Doesn't help you any but thought you may find it interesting.
wrngway
