When I got to SBU24 they had two PB MK1, two PB MKIII, a LCM-8, six MATC, and two LCPL.. About four months later we turned the MKIIIs over to SBU-20.

The MK1 was ok but not a MKIII if you get my drift. But it had more room cause it only had twin screws. It was a sweet handling boat though and the PB-721 was used at Dahlgren for low level radar test. They covered the windows with the same stuff used on Astronauts helmets and glued what looked like 4 inch square sponges from the deck up. It had to fly a radar reflector to be seen on radar at a mile. That stuff worked great and I wish I knew how far they went with the program. The MKIII with gun tub on top was at SBU-20.

We were in fact a Naval Reserve Unit, and there were about 55 active duty members. The Reserves would come in one weekend a month and beat hell out of the boats and then we spent the next three weeks fixing them so they could come in and do it again.

We operated on the Rappahannock River and the Chowan river in North Carolina.
I remember them putting a PTF Nasty on the seawall right after I got there. Must have been around June of 79. When the Olympic torch came to the states in the winter of 80, one of our MATC transported the girl with the torch from Langley Air Force Base out to the James River channel and I took her aboard MY PB MK1 and went up river to Yorktown. Big event!!

It was great working with the SEALS and Army Rangers and other Special Forces on the rivers doing insertions and extractions and other things. Sure do miss it sometimes. Once I made Senior Chief of the Command I pretty much let the BMC handle the boat side. I started learning how to run the machine shop as the Reserves never seemed to be able to fix anything.  Anyhow, the SBU was great fun.

I am an avid modeler of the different boats I ran in the Navy and have radio controlled models of all. The MKIII PB is my pride and joy and it fires 22cal blanks from the Bofors on the bow. As you can see in the picture. I have the Bushmaster aft. I'm trying to build the MK2 Mod1 81mm mortar but only have a few drawings and bad pictures. Well, I finally finished the last gun on the MK3. As you can see in the picture below it looks really gun on the heavy weapons platform. I’m sure you guys that are familiar with the weapon will notice a couple of things that are wrong. I could never find any pictures or drawings that showed the rear of the weapon so I took my best guess.

'm in the process of finishing off a 588 class PT boat that will have the Bofors aft. I'm working on roll off torpedoes that will move also. Can't afford the real things but I'm having fun running the models. The PT boat has the same three engines, props and battery that the MKIII has. I intend to race the two boats to see which one has the best hull design. I think it will be the PT boat.

But that enough of that. Later, Paul

Paul Holloway, Norfolk, Va.  houdini969@yahoo.com