Revell's PT Boat Kits In Plastic

The PT-190 Incarnation

At some point in 1965, Revell released another kit of an Elco PT-103 Class boat. This kit depicted PT-190, the “Jack’O’Diamonds”. This boat was famous because on Christmas Eve 1943, it and PT-191, the “Bambi” of Squadron 12 were attacked by up to forty Japanese aircraft and successfully holding them off until USAAF P-47s came to their aid and the boats even shot down four of the enemy planes.






The kit was essentially the PT-109 kit except for not including the four steel torpedo tubes, and having four torpedoes that were supposed to be Mark XIII torpedoes in roll-off racks. According to Wayne Traxel, “The aerial torpedoes, except for the fins, are well done, but racks are nonexistent. The torpedoes appear to be strapped or banded to a plank with mounting pegs to accommodate fitting to the torpedo tube bases.”






The sprues, deck and the hull were molded in a gray colored plastic. Like Mr. Traxel stated, the torpedoes appear to be strapped or banded to a plank with mounting pegs to accommodate fitting to the torpedo tube bases. He theorizes that this was a simplification by Revell to take advantage of the mold’s existing bases for the torpedo tubes. I tend to agree with him. The torpedo roll-off racks are supposed to look like this.

These photos are of one of the photo-etched brass roll-off racks and the resin Mark XIII torpedoes (which have photo-etched brass details) from White Ensign Models that were used to detail my model of PT-556. As you can plainly see, the kit’s racks are woefully inadequate (when you look at them using today’s standards). However, one has to consider both the technology of the day and the level of historical research resources available at the time.






Obviously, the two major differences between this incarnation of the kit and the original PT-109 kit are the decal sheet and the display stand, which read “US NAVY TORPEDO BOAT” instead of “PT-109”. Another difference between the two kits was that the kit of PT-190 did not have the figure of Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy, USNR. One thing that Revell overlooked in regard to the decal sheet for the PT-190 version of the kit is that the real boat had “nose art” on the left side of the front of its charthouse. That “nose art” was in the form of a painting of a Jack of Diamonds playing card. However, the interesting thing about that image is that it was painted reversed as to how it is normally viewed. That bit of information was told to me by a former crew member of PT-190.

Another “historical detail” concerning the real PT-190 is something that a lot of people don’t know. At the time that the 190 and 191 were attacked on Christmas Eve, 1943, the 190 actually had a 37mm M4 mounted on the Mark IV mount for the 20mm. That information came from Alex Johnson via another former crew member of that boat.