In the early morning hours of todays date: August 2, 1943, a small American torpedo boat was moving just west of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. In command was a young Irish-American destined to one day be the first Catholic president of the United States: Lieutenant John Fitzgerald Kennedy . As PT-109 moved through the gloomy morning, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri suddenly appeared like a ghost ship just a few hundred yards away. The PT boat was running on one idling engine and had almost no speed to maneuver. The commander of the Amagiri, Kohai Hanami, spotted the tiny ship. It was to close to fire at; Hanami turned to ram it. They sliced through the middle of the wooden PT boat, which burst into flames. Two of the crewmen were killed, but Kennedy and ten others survived. The next morning, with Kennedy towing a badly burned crewman, the crew swam to a nearby island. Though Kennedy was suffering greatly from a recurring back injury, he and Ensign Ross made several dangerous night trips into Ferguson Passage over the next few days, swimming out, and later using a canoe they found, in an attempt to contact help. On August 5, the group was found by two natives who worked for an Australian coast watcher, Lt. Reginald Evans. Kennedy quickly carved a note on a coconut for them to bring to Evans. Evans got word back to the U.S. Navy, and, on the night of August 8, all 11 survivors of PT 109 were rescued by PT 157. John F. Kennedy kept that carved coconut on his desk in the oval office until the day he was assassinated.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:55:45 +0000
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