Kennedy and the PT-109
Because you asked for it.....
JFK was a war hero in WWII simply because he risked his life for his country. He also performed heroically, gallantly, after his PT boat was rammed in a night operation in helping all but two of his crew members swim approximately three miles to shore. All true. Here is the standard Kennedy account:
"During the war, Kennedy commanded a PT boat in the South Pacific. While on patrol one night, the small boat was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer traveling at high speed. Two of the crewmen were killed. Kennedy demonstrated leadership, courage, and stamina in helping to save the eleven survivors. A strong swimmer, he towed a badly burned crew-man several miles to a tiny island. Two days later he towed him again to a larger island. The group was finally rescued when they found a pair of natives who took a message to an Australian coast-watcher. The rescue attracted newspaper attention not only for its own sake but because of the identity of the skipper. John Hersey, a journalist, wrote the first long account in the New Yorker, which was followed by an abridged version in Reader's Digest and eventually by other books and a movie. Kennedy's wartime heroism became a basis and then a staple of his political career. One of Kennedy's charms was that though he never prevented his political supporters from exploiting his heroism, he never personally aggrandized his role either. In a characteristic remark, he explained, "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
After his rescue, Kennedy commanded another boat and saw some additional action, but his war career was soon cut short by illness and his bad back. After the war, he became a celebrity correspondent for Hearst newspapers at the United Nations charter conference and during the British elections of 1945. He also observed the Potsdam summit conference. But he decided he would rather shape history than report it. His brother Joe, whose political ambitions had been more certain, had died a hero's death in the war. His father later claimed to have been happily surprised by his second son's interest in running for office, and he used his money and contacts to help him get started."
By the way, I have said before I admired Kennedy and consider him a terrific and visionary leader. I believe this country would have been much, much better off if he had not been assasinated.
But about the PT boat incident? Did you ever wonder why JFK's PT boat was the only PT boat rammed during the entire course of the war? Here is an excerpt from the History News Network:
" In 1960 Kennedy and Humphry were battling in the West Virginia primary for the Democratic nomination. JFK won in the end, perhaps, because he had had the wisdom to bring in Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. to reassure Protestant voters that Catholic Kennedy could be trusted with power. One of FDR Jr.'s most effective attacks was to smear Humphry as a draft dodger. "There's another candidate in your primary," said Roosevelt, "but I don't know where he was in World War II." Bobby Kennedy apparently orchestrated the attacks. Asked to denounce them, Kennedy refused. (Humphry in fact had tried to get into the service, but failed because he could not pass the physical).
In the general election Kennedy ran as a war hero. This was ironic. Though he deserved praise for his courage in the aftermath of the attack on PT 109, it had apparently sunk because he had been inattentive as a commander, as Garry Wills long ago pointed out. JFK himself worried that the events could justify either a medal or a court martial. In the end he got the medal--after his father used his influence."
Here is from the Boston Globe:
"Producers Robert Greenwald and Elizabeth Lang have optioned three chapters on JFK's South Pacific exploits from Edward Renehan Jr.'s excellent 2002 book "The Kennedys at War." They have a script and a preliminary commitment for television production from USA Network. The PT-109 project and others -- e.g. a TV miniseries based on "Black Mass," by former Globe staffers Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill -- are on hold as USA gets absorbed into NBC Entertainment as part of the NBC-Vivendi Universal merger.
"We're not making a carbon copy of the Warner Brothers movie," Lang says. "We've tried to bring out that the sinking of PT-109 was a scandal at the time. Nobody had ever lost a PT boat in quite that manner." (Skipper Kennedy's PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer on a coal-black night in the South Pacific in the summer of 1943. "The details of what happened . . . remain vague," Renehan writes in his book. He notes that the official Navy inquiry into the incident, which cost two seamen their lives, was coauthored by JFK's friend Byron "Whizzer" White, who would later be appointed to the Supreme Court by Kennedy.)
There is, of course, more to the PT-109 story. Kennedy's courage and physical endurance -- he swam for miles among the atolls and coral reefs, hoping to be spotted by American rescuers -- were largely responsible for saving the lives of his shipwrecked crew. "It is a coming-of-age story," says Lang. "At the moment when he had screwed up irreparably, he managed to comport himself with courage and selflessness. The way he risked his life made up for anything he might have done wrong."
Only JFK himself knows how the PT boat, a small, quick vessel designed to patrol island areas and shoot torpedoes towards far-off targets, managed to get so close to the destroyer and also managed not to evade it. People unfamiliar with ships may think that at night a destroyer could simply sneak up on you and run you over. A Japanese destroyer was noisy with engine sounds and the actual sound of a large piece of metal moving quickly through water. If the PT boat crew was paying attention they would have heard it approaching and moved away. They were supposed to be lobbing torpedoes from a distance into a Japanese ship group and that mission was a complete failure. No, the PT-109 was the only PT boat ever rammed and it never should have happened.
JFK's commanders realized that he had screwed up. It is likely that they saw his heroism in the aftermath and his eagerness to engage the enemy beforehand as more than enough to make up for the mistake. They gave him another PT boat, the PT-59, and he fought on without any unusual incidents after that until his physical problems curtailed his military career.
I suspect that Kennedy was literally or figuratively "asleep at the wheel" on that coal-dark night. Perhaps the crew was napping, speculation can only take you so far. But certainly an awake and alert captain and crew would no more likely get run over by a destroyer than you would get run over by a freight train. You would hear the train and get off the tracks, unless you were asleep on the tracks...
The great thing about Kennedy is that despite his mistake he did everything in his power to save his crew and performed absolutely heroically in doing so. That one incident may have awakened greatness in a young man. I do not applaud him for getting his boat sunk. I applaud him for saving the remaining crew. I applaud him for getting back into the fight and later deciding that he would take on even bigger fights. All of this is exemplary behavior.
~~~~~~~
One of my commenters was livid that I would say anything negative about JFK and the PT-109 and asked me "how do I sleep at night?" Very well, thank you! I believe I know the reasonable truth about the incident and I suppose that is better than blithely believing in a myth.
JFK was a war hero in WWII simply because he risked his life for his country. He also performed heroically, gallantly, after his PT boat was rammed in a night operation in helping all but two of his crew members swim approximately three miles to shore. All true. Here is the standard Kennedy account:
"During the war, Kennedy commanded a PT boat in the South Pacific. While on patrol one night, the small boat was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer traveling at high speed. Two of the crewmen were killed. Kennedy demonstrated leadership, courage, and stamina in helping to save the eleven survivors. A strong swimmer, he towed a badly burned crew-man several miles to a tiny island. Two days later he towed him again to a larger island. The group was finally rescued when they found a pair of natives who took a message to an Australian coast-watcher. The rescue attracted newspaper attention not only for its own sake but because of the identity of the skipper. John Hersey, a journalist, wrote the first long account in the New Yorker, which was followed by an abridged version in Reader's Digest and eventually by other books and a movie. Kennedy's wartime heroism became a basis and then a staple of his political career. One of Kennedy's charms was that though he never prevented his political supporters from exploiting his heroism, he never personally aggrandized his role either. In a characteristic remark, he explained, "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
After his rescue, Kennedy commanded another boat and saw some additional action, but his war career was soon cut short by illness and his bad back. After the war, he became a celebrity correspondent for Hearst newspapers at the United Nations charter conference and during the British elections of 1945. He also observed the Potsdam summit conference. But he decided he would rather shape history than report it. His brother Joe, whose political ambitions had been more certain, had died a hero's death in the war. His father later claimed to have been happily surprised by his second son's interest in running for office, and he used his money and contacts to help him get started."
By the way, I have said before I admired Kennedy and consider him a terrific and visionary leader. I believe this country would have been much, much better off if he had not been assasinated.
But about the PT boat incident? Did you ever wonder why JFK's PT boat was the only PT boat rammed during the entire course of the war? Here is an excerpt from the History News Network:
" In 1960 Kennedy and Humphry were battling in the West Virginia primary for the Democratic nomination. JFK won in the end, perhaps, because he had had the wisdom to bring in Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. to reassure Protestant voters that Catholic Kennedy could be trusted with power. One of FDR Jr.'s most effective attacks was to smear Humphry as a draft dodger. "There's another candidate in your primary," said Roosevelt, "but I don't know where he was in World War II." Bobby Kennedy apparently orchestrated the attacks. Asked to denounce them, Kennedy refused. (Humphry in fact had tried to get into the service, but failed because he could not pass the physical).
In the general election Kennedy ran as a war hero. This was ironic. Though he deserved praise for his courage in the aftermath of the attack on PT 109, it had apparently sunk because he had been inattentive as a commander, as Garry Wills long ago pointed out. JFK himself worried that the events could justify either a medal or a court martial. In the end he got the medal--after his father used his influence."
Here is from the Boston Globe:
"Producers Robert Greenwald and Elizabeth Lang have optioned three chapters on JFK's South Pacific exploits from Edward Renehan Jr.'s excellent 2002 book "The Kennedys at War." They have a script and a preliminary commitment for television production from USA Network. The PT-109 project and others -- e.g. a TV miniseries based on "Black Mass," by former Globe staffers Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill -- are on hold as USA gets absorbed into NBC Entertainment as part of the NBC-Vivendi Universal merger.
"We're not making a carbon copy of the Warner Brothers movie," Lang says. "We've tried to bring out that the sinking of PT-109 was a scandal at the time. Nobody had ever lost a PT boat in quite that manner." (Skipper Kennedy's PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer on a coal-black night in the South Pacific in the summer of 1943. "The details of what happened . . . remain vague," Renehan writes in his book. He notes that the official Navy inquiry into the incident, which cost two seamen their lives, was coauthored by JFK's friend Byron "Whizzer" White, who would later be appointed to the Supreme Court by Kennedy.)
There is, of course, more to the PT-109 story. Kennedy's courage and physical endurance -- he swam for miles among the atolls and coral reefs, hoping to be spotted by American rescuers -- were largely responsible for saving the lives of his shipwrecked crew. "It is a coming-of-age story," says Lang. "At the moment when he had screwed up irreparably, he managed to comport himself with courage and selflessness. The way he risked his life made up for anything he might have done wrong."
Only JFK himself knows how the PT boat, a small, quick vessel designed to patrol island areas and shoot torpedoes towards far-off targets, managed to get so close to the destroyer and also managed not to evade it. People unfamiliar with ships may think that at night a destroyer could simply sneak up on you and run you over. A Japanese destroyer was noisy with engine sounds and the actual sound of a large piece of metal moving quickly through water. If the PT boat crew was paying attention they would have heard it approaching and moved away. They were supposed to be lobbing torpedoes from a distance into a Japanese ship group and that mission was a complete failure. No, the PT-109 was the only PT boat ever rammed and it never should have happened.
JFK's commanders realized that he had screwed up. It is likely that they saw his heroism in the aftermath and his eagerness to engage the enemy beforehand as more than enough to make up for the mistake. They gave him another PT boat, the PT-59, and he fought on without any unusual incidents after that until his physical problems curtailed his military career.
I suspect that Kennedy was literally or figuratively "asleep at the wheel" on that coal-dark night. Perhaps the crew was napping, speculation can only take you so far. But certainly an awake and alert captain and crew would no more likely get run over by a destroyer than you would get run over by a freight train. You would hear the train and get off the tracks, unless you were asleep on the tracks...
The great thing about Kennedy is that despite his mistake he did everything in his power to save his crew and performed absolutely heroically in doing so. That one incident may have awakened greatness in a young man. I do not applaud him for getting his boat sunk. I applaud him for saving the remaining crew. I applaud him for getting back into the fight and later deciding that he would take on even bigger fights. All of this is exemplary behavior.
~~~~~~~
One of my commenters was livid that I would say anything negative about JFK and the PT-109 and asked me "how do I sleep at night?" Very well, thank you! I believe I know the reasonable truth about the incident and I suppose that is better than blithely believing in a myth.