What an irrepressible chap. RIP. AR, an excellent and sadly necessary obituary. I've added the text to your post as it is "your" thread. Some points from the above I found interesting: So, after being fobbed off by royalty and senior command, he made himself useful by putting him and his crew in harm's way. Good man. Torpedo? Bloody hell, didn't relaise they were that quick! Kitty, is the Wivern one of your V & W destroyers? Excellent, Amazon here I come.
One of the Stringbag pilots involved in the attack on the Vichy destroyers: FAA People | British Naval Aviation - Past Present and Future The other pilot appears to have been a Douglas Arthur Wise who went missing on the Taranto raid.
47 Knots does seem fast. I haven't been able to ascertain the speed of this class; 47 knots is not completely impossible, but 37 knots seems more likely, especially over a prolonged distance.
MTB top speed 40 knots as was the PT Boat. The Russian G5 Torpedo Boat was the fastest. It was designed by Tupolov and led the field at 48 knots.
MTB boat speeds MTB 261 was one of the Elco MTB 'lent' to the RN at the end of 1941, shipped to Suez and then taken by their crews through the Suez to Alexandria to serve with the 10th MTB flotilla. In my reading on this unit there was always something about the trip through the Suez that was remarkable - and the thought there was a speed record to be acquired gels. These boats were fast. Speeds of over 40 knots would not have been remarkable. Even at the end of the war one of them, stripped down I think, was clocked at 52 knots. J ohn Lambert and Al Ross described them in detail in Vol 2 Allied Coastal Forces. If anyone has any further information about the 10th or 10th/15th Flotilla MTB I am interested. My uncle was CO of MTB 266 which was hit by gunfire in an attack in March 1944. Pele2009
