VIETNAM’S RIVER PATROL BOATS
On Halloween night in 1966, Petty Officer 1st Class James Elliott “Willy” Williams, commanding a two-boat patrol using craft specially designed for combat on Vietnam’s inland waterways, was gunning for enemy vessels infesting the Mekong Delta. Williams in Patrol Boat River 105 destroyed one of two Viet Cong sampans spotted on the My Tho River. Pursuing the second down a narrow canal, PBR 105 and PBR 99 surprised two VC regiments just beginning to move downriver in sampans and junks.
Williams ordered his small fiberglass boats, introduced in Vietnam just eight months earlier, forward in attack formation. With guns blazing from both sides, the PBRs struck with bows high above the water, slicing through the enemy flotilla at full-throttle, twisting and turning to present a poor target—their wakes washing over and capsizing the sampans. VC in fortified riverbank positions countered with mortar shells, rockets and smallarms fire but were unable to accurately aim their weapons at Williams’ fast-moving boats.
The U.S. patrol encountered additional junks and larger VC formations farther down the canal. Crews on the two speedy PBRs released thunderous fire on a stunned enemy flotilla. Soon the Navy’s Huey helicopter gunships arrived. Williams’ boats made another run down the canal.
Ordering searchlights turned on as dusk approached, Williams pressed the attack into the night. The crews of PBRs 105 and 99 destroyed 65 VC vessels and inflicted an estimated 1,000 casualties, while suffering little if any damage to their own craft. For his actions that Halloween night, Williams received the Medal of Honor.
An ocean away, another man shared in the success that Williams and his men achieved in those fast, highly maneuverable, well-armed PBRs. His company’s name was engraved on each boat’s brass builders plate: “United Boat Builders Inc., Bellingham, Washington.”
When 35-year-old Arthur “Art” Nordtvedt founded United Boat Builders in 1957, he created a diversified product line of pleasure craft, commercial vessels and military designs to ensure year-round production of his fiberglass boats. United rose to national
