COBI Patrol Torpedo Boat PT-109 - Limited Edition Set 4824

COBI's Patrol Torpedo Boat PT-109 Limited Edition is a 1:35 model built from 3,763 blocks, 72 cm long, with a display stand. The deck lifts off to reveal the crew quarters, technical spaces and engine room. Thirteen sailor figures are included — the full crew of the last mission — along with a laser-engraved plate carrying the model name, the scale and an individual edition number, and a certificate signed by hand by COBI's president. The certificate, the plate and the outer box all carry the same number.

Thirteen figures, and that number is exact

PT boats carried twelve to seventeen men. On the night of 1 to 2 August 1943 there were thirteen aboard PT-109, and that is why this edition has thirteen figures rather than a round number.

Two of them died when the Japanese destroyer Amagiri struck the boat amidships in the dark and cut it in half. The remaining eleven survived, and the reason they did is the boat's commander, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy.

He swam for four hours towing his engineer, Patrick McMahon, who was burned too badly to swim, with the strap of McMahon's lifejacket in his teeth. He got everyone to a small island, then swam out into the strait on the following nights hoping to signal a passing boat.

After six days two Solomon Islanders scouting for the Allies, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, found them. Kennedy carved a message into a coconut shell — position, survivors, request for a boat — and the two men took it thirty-five miles by canoe through Japanese-patrolled water to a coastwatcher station.

Every man was rescued. Kennedy kept the shell, had it set in glass, and used it as a paperweight on the desk in the Oval Office.

The boat

Three Packard V-12 petrol engines of 1,500 hp each, around 41 knots. Four 21-inch torpedo tubes, a 20 mm Oerlikon aft, twin heavy machine guns, two depth charges, and a 37 mm anti-tank gun the crew lashed to the bow the day before that last patrol.

Before you order

3,763 pieces and 72 centimetres. A project measured in weeks, needing a space chosen in advance — and on a numbered edition the box itself is part of what collectors value.

In the COBI range

Set 4825 is the standard edition with 3,726 pieces, four figures and no certificate.

Specifications

Pieces: 3,763 · Figures: 13, the full crew · Scale: 1:35 · Removable deck with full interior · Numbered plate and signed certificate
Model dimensions: 72 × 20 × 26 cm (28.3 × 7.9 × 10.2 in)