Q Boats of the Off Shore Patrol, Army of the Philippines

[jepot]

A very obscure topic, these were the first boats of the then Off Shore Patrol of the Army of the Philippines at the onset of World War 2; originally Vosper Thornycroft boats, 2 were built in the England, and the the 3rd assembled at Engineer Island at the mouth of the Pasig River in Manila which was also the headquarters of the the OSP; these boats fought during the Japanese invasion alongside with the PT boats of the USN, shooting down a few Japanese planes and even acting as NGFS during the Battles of the Points and Pockets during the Bataan Campaign of 1942. Sadly these boats all ended up being scuttled, though one was refloated and used by the Japanese until it was eventually lost. They were called Q boats in honor of the then Philippine President Manuel Quezon, and for Quest for Mystery as the press then used the cliche to ignite curiosity as to the boats and their origins.

All boats are scratchbuilt- based on pictures and very limited line drawings available; Q111 was the biggest and different from Q112 and Q113; this perfectly fitted in a small picture frame for the vignette. Too bad didnt get to put sailors as i didnt have 1/700 scale figures when i built them, thanks for looking...

[JoeP]

Very nice work on such small craft. Thank you for the history lesson as well.