Remembering PT-109
A carved walking stick evokes ship commander John F. Kennedy's dramatic rescue at sea
- By Owen Edwards
- Smithsonian magazine, November 2010, Subscribe
Photo Gallery (1/3)
Never-seen, previously unpublished photographs of the history-making election of John F. Kennedy from LIFE.com
John F. Kennedy—elected 50 years ago this month—may not have been the most photographed of America’s presidents, but, like Abraham Lincoln, the camera loved him. His enviable thatch of hair and wide smile, plus his chic wife and two adorable children, turned serious photojournalists into dazzled paparazzi.
One of the most compelling Kennedy portraits shows him as a young naval officer, leaning on a cane, his smile giving no indication that he was recovering from serious injuries incurred during a near-fatal ordeal at sea. The fellow officer who took that picture, Ted Robinson, recently donated a rare original print of the image—as well as the ironwood cane he lent the future president during his recovery in the Solomon Islands—to the National Museum of American History.
According to the official Navy report, written shortly after the event by Lt. j.g. Byron White (the future Supreme Court justice), 14 PT boats—three-engine wooden vessels armed with two .50-caliber machine guns and torpedoes—left their Rendova Island base at 6:30 p.m. on August 1, 1943, with the mission of intercepting Japanese ships in the Blackett Strait. The group divided into four squadrons, with PT-109 patrolling near Makuti Island.
One of the boat’s men, Ensign George Ross, was on lookout when, around 2:30 a.m., a Japanese destroyer suddenly loomed off the starboard bow, rammed the 109 and cut it in half. Spilled fuel ignited on the water, causing crews of the other PT boats to assume there had been no survivors. Two crew members were never seen again, but 11 who survived, all wearing life vests, managed to board what was left of PT-109. One had been badly burned and couldn’t swim. Lieutenant Kennedy, who had suffered a ruptured spinal disk in the collision, had swum and towed him to the boat.
By dawn, the men abandoned the sinking vessel. Kennedy decided that they should swim to a coral island—100 yards in diameter with six palm trees—three and a half miles away. Again, Kennedy, who had been on the Harvard swim team, towed his crewmate the whole way. The report states undramatically: “At 1400 [2 p.m.] Lt. Kennedy took the badly burned McMahon in tow and set out for land, intending to lead the way and scout the island.”
For the next two nights, Kennedy—sometimes with Ross, sometimes alone—swam from the island into the strait with a waterproof flashlight, hoping to intercept a U.S. torpedo boat. Battling injuries, exhaustion and strong currents, he saw no patrols. On August 5, Kennedy and Ross swam to a neighboring island and found a canoe, a box of Japanese rice crackers and fresh water. They also saw two islanders paddling away in a canoe. When they returned to the island where the crew waited, they discovered that the two natives had landed and were gathering coconuts for the crew. On display at the Kennedy Library in Boston is the coconut shell on which Kennedy scratched a message: “Nauru Isl commander / native knows posit / he can pilot / 11 alive need small boat / Kennedy.”
Kennedy asked the islanders to take the coconut to the base at Rendova. The next day, eight natives appeared on Kennedy’s island with a message from an Australian coast watcher—a lookout posted on another island—to whom they’d shown the coconut. The islanders took Kennedy by canoe to the scout, Reginald Evans, who radioed Rendova. Again, in the measured words of Byron White: “There it was arranged that PT boats would rendezvous with [Kennedy] in Ferguson Passage that evening at 2230 [10:30]. Accordingly, he was taken to the rendezvous point and finally managed to make contact with the PTs at 2315 [11:15]. He climbed aboard the PT and directed it to the rest of the survivors.” The boat Kennedy climbed aboard was PT-157: Ensign Ted Robinson was in the crew.
Robinson, now 91 and living in Sacramento, California, recalls that he and Kennedy were later tentmates in the Solomons. “His feet were still in bad shape,” Robinson says. “So I loaned him a cane I’d received from a village chief and took his picture.”
Not long after, Robinson adds, Marines were trapped during a raid on Japanese-held Choiseul Island. “They landed on the enemy island in the middle of the night,” he says. “Their commanding officer radioed the next morning that he and his men were surrounded and heavily engaged. The CO who received the message said he’d get them out after dark.” According to Robinson, the Marine responded, “If you can’t come before then, don’t bother coming.”
The CO asked for a volunteer to make a daylight dash to save the Marines. “I wasn’t there,” Robinson told me, “but if I’d been, I’d have hidden behind the biggest palm tree I could find.” But Kennedy volunteered. “With a full load of fuel that would get him there and halfway back to where he could be towed home,” Robinson says, “he took off and got the Marines out.”
Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.
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Comments (10)
why? why? why?
Posted by yash on May 5,2012 | 04:16 AM
Regarding the comments herein by Michael D. Ciavolino - he would also like it mentioned that his LST number was 395. Thank you.
Posted by Laura Hart on January 30,2012 | 09:00 AM
I am submitting this story below by my father who was in the Navy in WWII:
When JFK and his crew were rescued after the sinking of P.T. 109, it was our LST (Landing Ship, Tank) that took them to Guadalcanal, from where they flew home. Our Captain, coincidentally, was from Boston. Apparently our Captain roomed and boarded them royally. When JFK returned home, he located our Captain's father and told him how wonderfully he had treated him and his crew; and that he was very well.
After the war, both JFK and the Captain met at naval reserve meetings which continued their friendship
- Michael Ciavolino (I was MOMM 1C - Diesel Mechanic)
Posted by Laura Hart on July 26,2011 | 01:35 PM
This is to Tania Braun. Look at the PBS website and find History Detectives. You can submit a request there to have them check out your cane. Good story.
Posted by Mike Bresnahan on July 4,2011 | 07:55 AM
I would like to see the pictures of the cane from the article to see if it is the cane I have. I cant say how I got it but I was told it had belonged to JFK. Its a hand carved cane please someone help me to find out if it this cane I need to see the picture and on the internet I can only see JFK from the waist up. Frustrating!!
Posted by Tania Braun on April 17,2011 | 04:17 AM
Kennedy disobeyed orders about not going out that night.
Posted by bv on December 19,2010 | 02:27 PM
When my father Ernest E. Moore CQM USN, was shipped home after nine months on Guadacanel with Malaria, in his sea bag was a cane nearly identical to the one pictured with JFK. He had two stories how he got it. He arm wrestled a cheif for it or they gave it to him when they made him an honorary cheif! Dad's been gone for thirty years but I still have the cane.
Posted by Betty Watson on December 10,2010 | 04:14 PM
why?
Posted by sanfy on November 13,2010 | 03:53 PM
What's this? Only positive stories mentioned here? What's next more Kennedy stories? How about a nice Teddy Story? You guys need to get new writers and some new blood. It's not all about liberals ya know? How bout something from South TEXAS for a darn change.
Robert from South Texas
Keep deleting this e-mail...i'll keep posting!
Posted by robert moreno on October 29,2010 | 01:36 PM
Re: Kennedy photo with "the cane"
Looks like one of the two photos with the story of PT-109 has to be wrong -- the cane in Kennedy's hand is not the one pictured as having been donated to the Smithsonian. The one in his hand has a metal covering at the top and shows two round bulges above where the metal meets the wood below. The "donated" cane photo is a single piece of dark wood, with squared off sides with carved and painted decorations. Doesn't seem to be any way that these could be the same object.
Posted by Ralph McGeehan on October 24,2010 | 06:35 PM