PT-493 was an Elco 80-foot motor torpedo boat. The crew called her Carole-Baby, for the daughter of her captain, Richard W. Brown. She served less than a year. Electric Boat's Elco Works at Bayonne laid her down on 17 August 1943, launched her on 6 November 1943, and placed her in service on 6 December 1943. She was a late boat of the type: about 56 tons, 80 feet long, beam 20 feet 8 inches, draft 5 feet, and about 41 knots on three Packard gasoline engines. She carried a 40 mm gun, four 21-inch torpedoes, and two twin .50-caliber machine guns. Seventeen men was her complement.
She joined Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 33 under Lieutenant A. Murray Preston, USNR, and went to the Southwest Pacific. The squadron fought at Aitape in New Guinea, at Morotai in the Halmaheras, and at San Pedro Bay and Panay in the Philippines. It also based for a time at Dreger Harbor and at Mios Woendi, and it had no action from those two harbors. By the night she was lost, Lieutenant (junior grade) Richard W. Brown had the boat. Preston's flag was not in her.
On the night of 24-25 October 1944 she was one of 39 motor torpedo boats screening the southern approaches of Surigao Strait, ahead of the American battle line. She was with PT-490, Lieutenant (junior grade) John M. McElfresh, and PT-491, Lieutenant (junior grade) Harley A. Thronson, in the middle of the strait, about 10 miles north of the sections under Leeson and Tappaan. Radar picked up four ships rounding Panaon Island. A rain squall hid them until the boats were within about 700 yards. The boats took the column for a cruiser and three destroyers. It was Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura's force, led by the battleships Yamashiro and Fuso.
PT-490 fired torpedoes at the leading destroyer. PT-491 fired two at the second ship. PT-493 tried to launch one torpedo. It hung in the rack, and the return fire was so heavy that she had to retire. No hit is credited to her. She laid smoke that covered PT-490's withdrawal.
Japanese 4.7-inch shells hit her three times. The first passed through the hull above the waterline. The second tore through the engineroom, carried away the auxiliary generator, holed her below the waterline, and damaged the engines. Motor Machinist's Mate Second Class Albert W. Brunelle stuffed his lifejacket into the hole and kept the engines running. The third shell carried away the charthouse canopy. It killed two men and wounded Brown, the second officer, and three others. The blast blew everyone in the cockpit aft. Ensign Robert E. Carter, the second officer, was one of the wounded. He got back to the wheel and beached her on the Panaon shore. The water was already nearly over the engines. The dead and the wounded were taken ashore.
PT-491 was not hit. She later found the beached boat and took off the survivors. After daylight the tide lifted PT-493 off the beach and she sank in deep water, reported near 10°15' N, 125°23' E. She was the only motor torpedo boat lost in the battle, and the only PT sunk by enemy warships that night. The official disposition is destroyed by enemy warships, 25 October 1944. Of the 39 boats, 30 were under fire and 10 were hit. Across those boats, three men were killed and three officers and 17 men were wounded. The boats fired 34 torpedoes. Two hits were made. The one that can be named was fired by PT-137, aimed at a destroyer, and it struck Abukuma. Bombers sank the cruiser the next day. That sinking is not credited to PT-493.