A piece of south Louisiana naval history is one step closer to reliving its glory days with the help of Destrehan High School students.
Destrehan drafting students recently visited the National World War II Museum to take measurements of an electrical box from a World War II-era patrol torpedo boat. Using those measurements, the class created a technical drawing that will be used to build a replica for the restoration of the PT-305, USS Sudden Jerk.
Built by Higgins Industries of New Orleans, PT-305 was commissioned into the United States Navy in December 1943. By April of that year, PT-305 was in the Mediterranean, fighting Axis shipping in intense nighttime patrols.
Every night, PT boats would leave the safety of their bases to engage Axis coastal shipping at close quarters with torpedoes and guns. It was during these patrols that PT-305 was responsible for destroying 530 tons of Axis shipping.
The boat was also used to sink two German coastal lighters with torpedoes and one Italian MAS boat in a running gun battle.
Destrehan drafting teacher Edward Wingard said that, initially, the project to restore the PT-305 was met with excitement by only a handful of students. However, that changed after the class took a tour of the partially restored boat and the museum’s many exhibits.
“After going aboard the actual PT boat on Veterans Day, they got really enthusiastic about it,” Wingard said.
Restoration spokesman Robert Stengl said that only one other school besides Destrehan has had a similar hand in helping to restore the WWII torpedo boat. A Maryland-based high school is conducting welding work under the instruction of a supervisor who hails from the River Parishes. That class is now welding stanchions—the railings that keep sailors from falling over the edge of the boat—based on designs drawn by Wingard.
“[The National World War II Museum] gets great pleasure out of teaching the next generation about the PT boat,” Stengl said.
Wingard, who began teaching the drafting courses at Destrehan High School this August, has been volunteering with the PT-305 restoration project for approximately the last seven months. After some conversations between Wingard and PT-305 project manager Bruce Harris, the plans were laid to involve Wingard’s new students.
Prior to teaching at Destrehan, Wingard ran his own drafting firm and taught drafting at the Louisiana Technical College in Reserve, as well as working in a shipping yard.
The goal of the project, according to Wingard, is to create a fully-functioning boat that is Coast Guard certified. Part of this involves modifying designs, such as the electrical box drawn up by the Destrehan students, in order to meet modern regulations.
“A big chunk of the things that we are doing was in order to get Coast Guard approval in order to take passengers aboard when it’s done,” Wingard said.
The museum is targeting a completion date of mid-2016, with Stengl saying the boat was approximately 75 percent complete. They intend to launch the boat on Lake Pontchartrain, and Stengl said it was “conceivable” that it would tour ports from Galveston, Tex. to Mobile, Ala.
In a case of history’s interconnectedness with modern life, Wingard said the boat will be launched from the original site of Higgins Industries. That site today, which sits on the banks of New Orleans’ Industrial Canal, is the home of Trinity Yachts — a former employer of Wingard’s.
The drafting was enough of a success that talks have begun for a similar project for next semester’s students. The newest project would have the students drafting a “hatch-dogging” system, a method of waterproofing that would help the boat achieve its Coast Guard certification.
In addition to the drafting itself, Wingard said that students also learned about the entire workflow process.
“My role was to facilitate the workflow,” Wingard said. “Basically they did the project, I was just there to make sure they did it correctly.”
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