PT-126 was an 80-foot Elco motor torpedo boat, built at the Elco works in Bayonne. She was laid down on 13 May 1942, launched on 10 August, and placed in service on 27 August. She went to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 6. Men called her String Rabbit Shirt, then Acey Deucy, and later Miss Gwin.
At dawn on 30 September 1943 Craig C. Smith had her, in from a night against barges near Ropa Point with PT-124 and PT-116. They had left Lever Harbor. Three Corsairs of VMF-214 came over the boats. Word had gone out to hold fire. The third plane strafed PT-126. Ensign John F. Daley was wounded and died. Thomas M. Ross, gunner's mate first class, was missing. Bertis I. Paul, motor machinist's mate second class, was killed. Her starboard gunner put one short burst into the plane. It exploded, and the pilot was killed. PT-124 took the wounded men back to Lever Harbor.
On 29 May 1944 Squadron 6 was broken up and she moved to Squadron 9. On 27 May 1945 she was one of nine boats that went into Sandakan Harbor, on the north coast of Borneo, with Royal Australian Air Force Kittyhawks and Navy patrol planes overhead. She fired two torpedoes at the dock and the small boats along it. Shore guns fired back. Nothing in the harbor is credited to her as a sinking.
She was not lost in a fight. On 24 November 1945 U.S. forces stripped her and destroyed her off Samar. She was struck on 28 November.