History of US Army T Boats

A Brief History of T Boats The class of vessels known as T Boats were originally built for the US Army during WWII. During the war, the Army built 170 wooden T-boats, known as design 259. There are very few of these boats still surviving today, but there are some, fishing, etc. The post war steel boats were called design 2001 and were built in three shipyards from 1952-1954. They were procured during a period when the Navy was handling the contracts for all the armed forces, so it is possible that each of these boats also had a Navy number, but this can't be confirmed. They covered the numbering series T-424 through T-517, excepting the group T-466 through T-477. These numbers were assigned to existing vessels whose mission changed during this period.

Most of the Design 2001 boats were built on contingency, and were laid up most of their Army careers. Some did go to Korea for the Army, and at least one made an appearance in Vietnam. In all 82 boats were built to this design. Almost as soon as they were built, some were made available to other government agencies, and starting about 1970 they began being sold to commercial ventures.

**Much of this historical info comes from Captain George Schneider of California. Thanks George!