Profile in Courage

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

“The Overlook” appears every Wednesday at tomclavin.substack.com. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting. (Check out previous columns while you're at it.) All support is appreciated. And don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!

I’m not keen on the effort to re-name the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. for Melania Trump. I have no beef with her and every First Lady engages with the public differently. And I am not opposed to naming a major cultural institution after a president’s wife. But in the case of John F. Kennedy, he was not just a president but a war hero, and that has to count for a lot.

Let’s go back to 82 years ago this coming Saturday. But before we do: This is not a defending a Democrat president sort of thing. I’d have the same opposition to an effort to take the name of George H.W. Bush or Gerald Ford off an institution in favor of Mrs. Trump.

At 2.30 a.m. on August 2, 1943, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri sliced through PT-109, manned by Lt. Jack Kennedy and his crew of 12. Two men were killed immediately. The other 11 men were tossed into the flaming waters of the Blackett Strait. They would be given up for dead by the U.S. Navy, despite the personal intervention of Admiral William Halsey, who ordered a search but was told by his chain of command that it would be useless.

It would not be until 5.30 a.m. on August 8, six days later, that Commander Kennedy and his dehydrated, wounded, and severely weakened crew were found alive. They were alive because of the heroism and leadership of the future president, who for his actions during those nightmarish days and night was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal as well as a Purple Heart.

The mission of PT-109 was one of many during the Solomon Islands campaign, which was the turning point in the war against the Japanese. Men like Jack Kennedy and boats like PT-109 played pivotal roles in the campaign, which represented America climbing back up off the canvas and counterpunching the Japanese, who up until then had scored victory after victory. Kennedy and the captains like him were cowboys, with dangerous plywood boats instead of ponies, taming the Pacific instead of the Plains.

Readers of a certain age might recall that the PT-109 event received a lot of attention when JFK was President, mostly in the form of the book by Robert Donovan and the subsequent movie starring Cliff Robertson. That was over 60 years ago, meaning there are at least two generations who have little or no knowledge of the dramatic event that shaped the life and career of one of our very few presidents to actually experience combat.

The Donovan book was written with JFK’s approval and, predictably, tells only a portion of the story, and a pretty whitewashed one at that. In fact, most of Kennedy’s experiences were dark and gritty. They greatly altered his life and, I think, led directly to his becoming the leader of the free world.

There were several times during and after the destruction of his boat that night when Commander Kennedy, then 26 years old, accepted that he was about to die. (A good tidbit is that a few days after the destroyer sank PT-109 and Kennedy and his crew were declared dead and services were held, this was announced on the radio by Tokyo Rose.) For public consumption, Kennedy’s exploits would be romanticized as well as sanitized. But a good pre-sanitized account was a lengthy article written by John Hersey in The New Yorker in 1944. Almost immediately afterward, the true story was twisted – by such Kennedy haters as Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to court martial JFK. (It galled “Dugout Doug” MacArthur that JFK had used his political connections to get into not out of combat service in the South Pacific.) Too bad, because what really happened was much more exciting, dramatic, and heroic.

On the starless, dark night of August 1, 15 PT boats set out to engage, damage, and possibly turn back the “Tokyo Express,” the regular supply convoy that enabled the Japanese forces to resist the advance of the Americans on the islands to the south. PT-109 took up station in the Blackett Strait, south of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. When Japanese destroyers and supply ships entered the strait, the PT boats attacked, but the 30 torpedoes launched did not score any hits. The enemy ships got through, and the PT boats that had used all their torpedoes were sent home. PT-109 remained in the strait, along with PT-162 and PT-169, with hopes of damaging the Tokyo Express on its way back.

At 2.20 a.m., the Amagiri suddenly appeared out of the darkness. Lt. Kennedy attempted to turn his boat to starboard to bring his torpedoes to bear, but there was not enough time. The destroyer, traveling at 30 or more knots, struck PT-109 on the forward starboard torpedo tube and ripped away the starboard aft side of the boat.

Of the 11 survivors, Patrick McMahon was badly burned by exploding fuel, William Johnston had swallowed gasoline, and Charles “Bucky” Harris was also seriously injured. JFK was thrown backward into a bulkhead in the cockpit, and he would be plagued by the back injury for the rest of his life. Some of the water around them was in flames and what was left of their boat was sinking. There was no sign of the two other PT boats. The only option was to swim to an islet at least three miles away without knowing if it was occupied by Japanese or not.

Edgar Mauer and the debilitated Johnston could not swim so they were lashed to a plank that was pushed and pulled by the seven men who could swim. JFK, who would spend much of the next 36 hours in water, put the burned McMahon on his back and towed him with a life vest belt clamped in his teeth. Exhausted, he and McMahon arrived on the islet first, where JFK collapsed, rousing when his men arrived.

Soon, when a Japanese barge passed close by and the men worried they would soon be discovered, JFK set out again, this time to the Ferguson Passage, a route for PT boats to and from the Blackett Strait. Island-hopping and clinging to reefs, he made his way out to the passage and tread water. No boats appeared. The return trip to the islet was the second time he thought he would die as strong currents kept spinning him out into Blackett Strait and then back into Ferguson Passage before he could gain enough traction to swim in one direction.

JFK was able to get some sleep during the day, then after dark he led the men back into the ocean, heading for Olasana Island where they hoped to find food and fresh water. Again, JFK hauled McMahon by the life vest strap.

There was no water on the island, and the available coconuts made the men sick. It was back into the water. On August 5, JFK and his crew made it to Naru Island, which looked out onto the Ferguson Passage. There they discovered a box of candy that had been left by Japanese troops as well as a tin of water and a one-man canoe. As JFK and George “Barney” Ross were walking on the beach they encountered two natives who, frightened, jumped into their canoe and took off.

That night, JFK went out into the passage for what was an unsuccessful search for American PT boats. He returned to find that the two natives had returned and were actually island scouts for the Allies. JFK scratched out a message on a coconut shell (which would be a fixture on his Oval Office desk) and the natives left to deliver it to a coast watcher, Lt. Reginald Evans. After receiving the shell, Evans alerted the Navy and sent the natives back with food and water.

On August 7, after his men ate, JFK, hidden in the canoe, was paddled to Gomu Island in the Blackett Strait. That night, two PT boats set out. JFK guided them to his men, who were brought aboard. Finally, at 5.30 a.m. on August 8, the PT-109 crew was back at their Rendova base.

When the mission had begun a week earlier there were 13 men on PT-109. They had become good friends and admired Kennedy’s leadership. They came from different ethnic backgrounds and parts of the U.S. As much as any crew, Kennedy’s men represented those who were in the U.S. Navy fighting for a great cause and not knowing what day would be their last.

A final note: There was a reunion of the surviving members of the PT-109 crew in Washington D.C. on January 20, 1961. They were special guests to watch their former commander be sworn in as the nation’s 35^th President. During his presidency, his staff was told to put through JFK’s crewmen whenever they called, and they were among the very few who visited the White House and called the president Jack.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books, including Bandit Heaven, published by St. Martin’s Press. To purchase a copy, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.