HOW KENNEDY SAVED THEIR TEAM 1943 AUGUST 2 IN SEA COLLISION

HOW KENNEDY SAVED THEIR TEAM 

1943 AUGUST 2 IN SEA COLLISION

இளமைப் பருவத்தில் இவருக்குப் பல முறை உடல்நிலை சரியில்லா மல் போவதுண்டு. 1940-ல் ஹார்வர்ட் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் பட்டம் பெற்றார். அமெரிக்க கடற்படையில் அதிகாரியாக சேர்ந்தார். இரண்டாம் உலகப் போர் நடைபெற்று வந்த சமயத்தில் இவர் பொறுப்பிலிருந்த கடற்படைக் கப்பலை ஜப்பானியப் போர்க்கப்பல் தாக்கி மூழ்கடித்தது.

l காயம் பட்ட நிலையிலும் கடலில் நீந்தி தன் வீரர்களைக் காப்பாற்றினார். ஒரு வீரரைக் காப்பாற்றி சுமார் மூன்று மைல் தூரம் கடலில் இழுத்து வந்து கரை சேர்த்தார். இந்த துணிகரமான செயலுக்காக அவருக்கு ‘பர்பிள் ஹார்ட்’ என்ற வீரப் பதக்கம் வழங்கப்பட்டது. போர் முடிந்த பிறகு தீவிர அரசியலில் ஈடுபட்டார்.
இவர் எழுதிய  profiles in courage என்ற நூலுக்காக 1957ஆம் ஆண்டு ‘புலிட்சர் பரிசு’ வழங்கப்பட்டது. 1960ஆம் ஆண்டு நடைபெற்ற தேர்தலில் வெற்றி பெற்று அமெரிக்காவின் 35வது அதிபராக 43வது வயதில் பதவி ஏற்றார்.

உலக மக்கள் அனைவராலும் நேசிக்கப்பட்ட, மனித உரிமைக்காகக் குரல் கொடுத்த இவர் 1963ஆம் ஆண்டு மறைந்தார்.


Crew on PT-109's last mission

Top L to R, Ensign Al Webb, Leon Drawdy, Edger Mauer, Edmund Drewitch, John Maguire, Kennedy. Bottom L to R, Charles Harris, Maurice Kowal, Andrew Kirksey, Ensign Lenny Thom. (Webb, Drewitch, Drawdy, and Kowal not aboard during collision, Barney Ross not in photo)
The following men were aboard on PT-109's last mission:

John F. Kennedy, Lieutenant, Junior Grade (LTJG), commanding officer (Boston, Massachusetts).
Leonard J. Thom, ensign (ENS), Ohio State football athlete, and excellent swimmer, executive officer (Sandusky, Ohio).
George H. R. "Barney" Ross, Ensign (ENS) On board as an observer after losing his own boat. Attempted to operate the 37 mm gun but suffered from night blindness. (Highland Park, Illinois).
Raymond Albert, Seaman 2/c, gunner. Killed in action 8 October 1943 (Akron, Ohio).[18]
Charles A. "Bucky" Harris, gunner's mate 3/c (GM3) (Watertown, Massachusetts).
William Johnston, Motor Machinist's Mate 2/c (MM2) (Dorchester, Massachusetts).
Andrew Jackson Kirksey, Torpedoman's Mate 2/c (TM2) Killed in collision. (Reynolds, Georgia).[19]
John E. Maguire, Radioman 2/c (RM2) (Dobbs Ferry, New York).
Harold William Marney, Motor Machinist's Mate 2/c (MM2). Killed in collision, manning turret closest to impact point. (Springfield, Massachusetts)[20]
Edman Edgar Mauer, Quartermaster, cook, 3/c (QM3) (St. Louis, Missouri).
Patrick H. "Pappy" McMahon, Motor Machinist's Mate 1/c (MM1) (Wyanet, Illinois). Only man in engine room during collision, was badly burned, but recovered from his wounds. Only member of the crew besides Kennedy mentioned by name in the song.
Ray L. Starkey, Torpedoman's Mate 2/c (TM2) (Garden Grove, California).

Gerard E. Zinser, Motor Machinist's Mate 1/c (MM1) Erroneously called "Gerald" in many publications, Zinser remained in the Navy for a career following the end of World War II, eventually retiring as a Chief Petty Officer. The last living survivor of PT-109, he died in Florida in 2001. (Belleville, Illinois).


Separation of the 109 from her division

JFK, Lieutenant JG, official naval photo, 1942
Lieutenant Brantingham on PT-159, leader of Kennedy's division, and originally stationed near Kennedy, first saw radar blips indicating the southbound destroyers just arriving on the scene, and fired his torpedoes from about 1 mile (1.6 km) away. As he advanced, he did not radio Kennedy's 109 to follow, leaving Kennedy and his crew behind in the darkness. All of Brantingham's torpedoes missed the destroyers, and his torpedo tubes caused a small fire, requiring Lieutenant Liebenow's PT, also in Kennedy's division, to swing in front of Brantingham's PT to block the light emitting from his burning torpedo tubes as they could have given away their location to the destroyers. Liebenow's 157 fired two more torpedoes that failed to hit their target as well, then both boats laid smoke from their smoke generator and zigzagged away to avoid detection. No signal of the destroyer's presence was ever radioed or received by Kennedy's 109, or the other boat in the division, and skippers Brantingham and Liebenow headed blindly west to Gizo Island and away from the destroyers and Kennedy's 109.[26]

Many of the torpedoes that were fired exploded prematurely or ran at the wrong depth. The odds that a Mark 8 torpedo that made it to a destroyer would explode was less than 50%, due to faulty calibration of the detonators, a problem that was not known nor corrected by the Navy until later in the war. A few other PTs, including the leader of Division A to the south of Kennedy, intercepted the destroyers on their southbound route close to Kolombangara, but were unable to hit any with torpedoes. The boats were radioed by Warfield to return when their torpedoes were expended, but the four boats with radar fired their torpedoes first and were ordered to return to base. Commander Warfield's concept of sending orders to the PTs in darkness by radio from 40 miles (64 km) away and without a view of the battle, was inefficient at best. The radar sets the four boats carried were relatively primitive, and sometimes malfunctioned. When the four boats with radar left the scene of the battle, the remaining boats, including PT-109, were deprived of the ability to determine the location or approach of the oncoming destroyers, and were not notified that other boats had already engaged the enemy.

Late in the night, Kennedy's 109 and two accompanying PTs became the last to sight the Japanese destroyers returning on their northern route to Rabaul, New Britain, New Guinea, after they had completed dropping their supplies and troops at 1:45 a.m. on the southern tip of Kolombangara.[27] The official Navy account of the incident listed radio communications as good, but PT commanders were also told to maintain radio silence until informed of enemy sightings, causing many commanders to turn off their radios or not closely monitor their radio traffic, including Kennedy.[28][29][30]

Collision with the Amagiri, 2 August

Destroyer Amagiri in 1930, 400 feet (120 m) and heavily armed
By 2 a.m. on 2 August 1943, as the battle neared its end, PT-109, PT-162, and PT-169 were ordered to continue patrolling the area on orders previously radioed from Commander Warfield.[31] The night was cloudy and moonless, and fog had set amidst the remaining PTs. Kennedy's boat was idling on one engine to avoid the detection of her phosphorescent wake by Japanese aircraft when[32] the crew realized they were in the path of the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, which was heading north to Rabaul from Vila Plantation, Kolombangara, after offloading supplies and 902 soldiers.

Contemporary accounts of the incident, particularly the work of Mark Doyle, do not conclude that the sole cause of the collision was the initial lack of speed and maneuverability caused by the idling engines of the 109. Kennedy believed the firing he had heard was from shore batteries on Kolombangara, not destroyers, and that he could avoid detection by idling his engines and reducing his wake.[28][33]

Kennedy said he attempted to turn PT-109 to fire a torpedo and have Ensign George "Barney" Ross fire their newly installed 37 mm anti-tank gun from the bow at the oncoming northbound destroyer Amagiri. Ross lifted a shell but did not have time to load it into the closed breech of the powerful weapon that Kennedy hoped might deter the oncoming vessel.[34] Amagiri was traveling at a relatively high speed of between 23 and 40 knots (43 and 74 km/h; 26 and 46 mph) in order to reach harbor by dawn, when Allied air patrols were likely to appear.[35][36]

Kennedy and his crew had less than ten seconds to get the engines up to speed and evade the oncoming destroyer, which was advancing without running lights, but the PT boat was run down and severed between Kolombangara and Ghizo Island, near 8°3′S 156°56′E.[37] Conflicting statements have been made as to whether the destroyer captain had spotted and steered towards the 109. Most contemporary authors write that Amagiri's captain intentionally steered to collide with the 109. Amagiri's captain, Lieutenant Commander Kohei Hanami [ja], later admitted it himself and also stated that the 109 was traveling at a steady pace in their direction.[38]

PT-109 explodes
When PT-109 was cut in two around 2:27 a.m.,[39] a fireball of exploding aviation fuel 100-foot-high (30 m) announced the collision, and caused the sea surrounding the ship to flame. Seamen Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold W. Marney were killed instantly, and two other members of the crew were badly injured and burned when they were thrown into the flaming sea surrounding the boat. For such a catastrophic collision, explosion, and fire, there were few men lost when contrasted to the losses on other PT boats hit by shell fire. PT-109 was gravely damaged, with watertight compartments keeping only the forward hull afloat in a sea of flames.[33][40]

PT-169, closest to Kennedy's craft, launched two torpedoes that missed the destroyer and PT-162's torpedoes failed to fire at all. Both boats then turned away from the scene of the action and returned to base without checking for survivors from PT-109. There had been no procedure outlined by Commander Warfield of how to search for survivors or what the PT flotilla should do in case a ship was lost.[33] In the words of Captain Robert Bulkley, naval historian, "This was perhaps the most confused and least effectively executed action the PTs had been in. Eight PTs fired 30 torpedoes. The only confirmed results were the loss of PT 109 and damage to the Japanese destroyer Amagiri" [from striking the 109].[41]

Survival, swim to Plum Pudding Island, 2 August

Map of the events of 2 August 1943, click map to view Plum Pudding, Olasana, and Naru Islands[37]
Kennedy was able to rescue MM1 Patrick McMahon, the crew member with the most severe wounds, which included burns that covered 70 percent of his body, and brought him to the floating bow. Kennedy also rescued Starkey and Harris, bringing them both to the bow.[42] On instructions from Kennedy, the eleven survivors thrown from the 109 first regrouped, and then hoping for rescue, clung to PT-109's bow section for 12 hours as it drifted slowly south. By about 1 p.m.,[4] on 2 August, it was apparent that the hull was taking on water and would soon sink, so the men decided to swim for land, departing around 1:30 p.m.[43][44] As there were Japanese camps on all the nearby large islands including Kolombangara, the closest, they chose the tiny deserted Plum Pudding Island southwest of where the bow section had drifted. They placed their lantern, shoes, and non-swimmers on one of the timbers that had been used as a gun mount and began kicking together to propel it. Kennedy, who had been on the Harvard University swim team, used a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth to tow McMahon.[45] It took four hours to swim to the island, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) away, which they reached without encountering sharks or crocodiles.[46][35]

Additional swims, 2, 4, and 5 August
Plum Pudding Island was only 100 yards (91 m) in diameter, with no food or water. The exhausted crew dragged themselves behind the tree line to hide from passing Japanese barges. The night of 2 August, Kennedy swam 2 miles (3.2 km) to Ferguson Passage to attempt to hail a passing American PT boat. On 4 August, he and Lenny Thom assisted his injured and hungry crew on a demanding swim 3.75 miles (6.04 km) south to Olasana Island which was visible to all from Plum Pudding Island. They swam against a strong current, and once again, Kennedy towed McMahon by his life vest. They were pleased to discover Olasana had ripe coconuts, though there was still no fresh water.[47] On the following day, 5 August, Kennedy and George Ross swam for one hour to Naru Island, visible at an additional distance of about .5 miles (0.80 km) southeast, in search of help and food and because it was closer to Ferguson Passage where Kennedy might see or swim to a passing PT boat on patrol. Kennedy and Ross found a small canoe, packages of crackers and candy, and a fifty-gallon drum of drinkable water left by the Japanese, which Kennedy paddled back to Olasana in the acquired canoe to provide his crew. It was then that Kennedy first spoke to native Melanesian coastwatchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana on Olasana Island. Months earlier, Kennedy had learned a smattering of the pidgin English used by the coastwatchers by speaking with a native boy. The two coastwatchers had finally been convinced by Ensign Thom that the crew were from the lost 109, when Thom asked Gasa if he knew John Kari, and Gasa replied that he worked with him.[48] Realizing they were with Americans, the coastwatchers brought a few yams, vegetables, and cigarettes from their dugout canoe and vowed to help the starving crew.[33][49] But it would take two more days for a full rescue.[50]

Rescue

Thom's and Kennedy's rescue messages
Kennedy's message scratched on a coconut while he was on Naru, where he had spent some time from 4–7 August, was not the only communication given to the coastwatchers. A more detailed message was written by the executive officer of PT-109, Ensign Leonard Jay Thom on 6 August. Thom's message was a "penciled note" written on paper, which read:[51][52]

To: Commanding Officer--Oak O
From:Crew P.T. 109 (Oak 14)
Subject: Rescue of 11(eleven) men lost since Sunday, August 1 in enemy action. Native knows our position & will bring P.T. Boat back to small islands of Ferguson Passage off NURU IS. A small boat (outboard or oars) is needed to take men off as some are seriously burned.
Signal at night three dashes (- - -) Password--Roger---Answer---Wilco If attempted at day time--advise air coverage or a PBY could set down. Please work out a suitable plan & act immediately Help is urgent & in sore need. Rely on native boys to any extent
Thom
Ens. U.S.N.R
Exec. 109.[53][52]


The coconut with the carved message, cast in a paperweight

Though the 1963 movie depicted Kennedy offering a coconut inscribed with a message as his idea and the sole form of communication, it was Gasa who suggested it and Kumana who climbed a coconut tree to pick one. On the instructions of Gasa, Kennedy painstakingly scratched the following message on the coconut husk with a knife:[33]

NAURO ISL
COMMANDER... NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT...
HE CAN PILOT... 11 ALIVE
NEED SMALL BOAT... KENNEDY[54]


Battle of Vella Gulf, Admiral Halsey, 6–7 August
On the night of 6–7 August, while Kennedy still awaited rescue, Admiral William Halsey, now convinced that PTs were unsuitable against Japanese destroyers, sent six U.S. Navy destroyers equipped with more advanced radar to intercept the "Tokyo Express", again on their frequent run to Kolombangara Island. This time, the U.S. forces succeeded and sank four Japanese destroyers, two of which, the Arashi and Hagikaze, had eluded Kennedy and the 14 PT crews on the night of 1–2 August. This action became known as the "Battle of Vella Gulf".[58]

PT-157 makes final rescue, 8 August
On 7 August, when the coastwatcher scouts carrying the coconut and paper message arrived at Rendova, PT Commander Warfield was at first skeptical of the messages and the trustworthiness of the native scouts Gasa and Kumana. After finally receiving Evans' radioed message of the discovery of the 109 crew, and facing overwhelming evidence that Kennedy had returned from the dead, he cautiously consented to risk two PTs to rescue them. Warfield selected PT-157, commanded by Kennedy's friend and former tentmate Lieutenant William Liebenow for the rescue, as he and his crew were experienced and familiar with the area. Liebenow later said that his crew were chosen because they were "the best boat crew in the South Pacific."[59] PT-171 would travel ahead and radio Liebenow of any sightings of the enemy. Departing just after sunset from Rendova at 7:00 p.m. on 8 August, Liebenow motored PT-157 to Reginald Evans' base at Gomu Island, off Kolombangara. To prevent making a wake, Liebenow traveled at 10-15 knots, muffled his engines, and zigzagged to prevent being tracked by planes or shore batteries. The arranged signal when Liebenow picked up Kennedy on Gomu was four shots, but since Kennedy only had three bullets in his pistol, Evans gave him a Japanese rifle for the fourth signal shot. With Kennedy aboard, PT-157 rescued the weak and hungry PT-109 crew members on Olasana Island in the early morning of 8 August, after dispatching row boats to pick them up. The 157 then motored the full crew and the coastwatcher scouts forty miles (64 km) back to the Rendova PT base where they could begin to receive medical attention.[60]



PT-157 makes final rescue, 8 August
On 7 August, when the coastwatcher scouts carrying the coconut and paper message arrived at Rendova, PT Commander Warfield was at first skeptical of the messages and the trustworthiness of the native scouts Gasa and Kumana. After finally receiving Evans' radioed message of the discovery of the 109 crew, and facing overwhelming evidence that Kennedy had returned from the dead, he cautiously consented to risk two PTs to rescue them. Warfield selected PT-157, commanded by Kennedy's friend and former tentmate Lieutenant William Liebenow for the rescue, as he and his crew were experienced and familiar with the area. Liebenow later said that his crew were chosen because they were "the best boat crew in the South Pacific."[59] PT-171 would travel ahead and radio Liebenow of any sightings of the enemy. Departing just after sunset from Rendova at 7:00 p.m. on 8 August, Liebenow motored PT-157 to Reginald Evans' base at Gomu Island, off Kolombangara. To prevent making a wake, Liebenow traveled at 10-15 knots, muffled his engines, and zigzagged to prevent being tracked by planes or shore batteries. The arranged signal when Liebenow picked up Kennedy on Gomu was four shots, but since Kennedy only had three bullets in his pistol, Evans gave him a Japanese rifle for the fourth signal shot. With Kennedy aboard, PT-157 rescued the weak and hungry PT-109 crew members on Olasana Island in the early morning of 8 August, after dispatching row boats to pick them up. The 157 then motored the full crew and the coastwatcher scouts forty miles (64 km) back to the Rendova PT base where they could begin to receive medical attention.[60]


Kennedy receiving the Navy and Marine Corps Medal
Aftermath

There were reporters aboard PT-157, when they rescued Kennedy and his crew from Olasana Island. After the rescue, the New York Times announced, "KENNEDY'S SON IS HERO IN PACIFIC AS DESTROYER SPLITS HIS BOAT". Other papers wrote "KENNEDY'S SON SAVES 10 IN PACIFIC", and "SHOT FROM RUSTY JAP GUN GUIDES KENNEDY RESCUERS". All the published accounts of the PT-109 incident made Kennedy the key player in rescuing all 11 crew members and made him a war hero.[61] His father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., made sure that these articles were widely distributed, and that it was known that his son was a hero.[61] The articles focused on Kennedy's role in the incident, omitting most of the contributions of Thom, the crew, and the coastwatchers.[62][63]

Thom, Ross, and Kennedy were each awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, though senior officer Lt. Commander Alvin Cluster had recommended Kennedy for the Silver Star.[64] Kennedy was also awarded the Purple Heart for injuries he sustained in the collision.[65][66] Following their rescue, Thom was assigned as commander of PT-587 and Kennedy was assigned as commander of PT-59 (a.k.a. PTGB-1).[65] Kennedy and Thom remained friends, and when Thom died in a 1946 car accident, Kennedy was one of his pallbearers.[65][35]

The PT-109 incident aggravated Kennedy's ongoing health issues. It contributed to his back problems, until his symptoms eventually progressed to a point where they were incapacitating.[67] The incident also contributed to his gastrointestinal problems.[61][54][35]

The coconut shell came into the possession of Ernest W. Gibson Jr., who was serving in the South Pacific with the 43rd Infantry Division.[68] Gibson later returned it to Kennedy.[69] Kennedy preserved it in a glass paperweight on his Oval Office desk during his presidency. It is now on display at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.