United States Ship
PT-109 was a
PT boatPT Boats were a variety of motor torpedo boat , a small, fast vessel used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships...
last commanded by then-
Lieutenant, junior gradeIn the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, lieutenant is a junior officer, with the pay grade of O-2. Lieutenant, junior grade ranks above ensign...
(LTJG)
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
(later
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
) in the
Pacific TheaterThe Pacific Ocean theater was one of four major naval theatres of war of World War II, that pitted forces of Japan against those of the United States, the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands and France....
during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Kennedy's actions to save his surviving crew after the sinking of the
PT-109 made him a war hero, which proved helpful in his political career.
The incident may have contributed to Kennedy's long-term back problems. After he became President, the incident was thoroughly studied and celebrated, becoming a cultural phenomenon inspiring a
songPT-109 was a song by Jimmy Dean about the adventures of John F. Kennedy and the crew of the PT-109. The boat was famous even before Kennedy ran for office because it was cut in two after being rammed by a Japanese destroyer, after which came a survival story, and rescue by native islanders Biuku...
, many books, movies, television series and collectible objects and toys. Interest was revived in May 2002, with the discovery of the wreck by
Robert BallardThis article is about the United States oceanographer. For the French lutenist of the same name see Robert Ballard.Robert Duane Ballard is a former commander in the United States Navy and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater...
.
Specifications
PT-109 belonged to the
PT 103 class, hundreds of which were completed between 1942 and 1945 by
ElcoThe Electric Launch Company was a United States boat building company that operated from 1892 until 1949. It was run by Henry R. Sutphen from 1895 to its demise.-History:...
. PT-109s keel was laid 4 March 1942 as the seventh
Motor Torpedo BoatMotor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Navy.During World War II the US Navy boats were usually called by their hull classification symbol of "PT" and are covered under PT boat though the class type was still...
(MTB) of the 80-foot long PT 103 class boat built at Elco, and she was launched on 20 June. Delivered to the Navy on 10 July 1942, she was fitted out in the New York Naval Shipyard at Brooklyn.
The Elco boats were the largest PT boats operated by the US Navy during World War II. At and 40 tons, they had strong wooden hulls of 2 layers of mahogany planking. Powered by three 12-cylinder
PackardPackard was an American luxury automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...
gasoline engines (one per propeller shaft), their designed top speed was . For space and weight-distribution reasons, the center engine was mounted with the output end facing aft, with power directly transmitted to the propeller shaft. Because the center propeller was deeper, it left less of a wake, and was preferred by skippers for low-wake loitering. Both of the wing engines were mounted with the output flange facing forward, and then power was transmitted through a Vee drive gearbox to the propeller shaft. The engines were fitted with mufflers on the
transomIn naval architecture, a transom is the surface that forms the stern of a vessel. Transoms may be flat or curved and they may be vertical, raked forward , or raked aft...
to direct the exhaust under water, which had to be bypassed for anything other than idle speed. These mufflers were used not only to mask their own noise from the enemy, but to be able to hear enemy aircraft, which were rarely detected overhead before firing their cannons or machine guns or dropping their bombs.
PT 109
could accommodate a crew of 3 officers and 14 enlisted, with the typical crew size between 12 and 14. Fully loaded, PT 109 displaced 56 tons.
The principal offensive weapon was her torpedoes. She was fitted with four 21-inch (53 cm) torpedo tubes containing Mark VIII torpedoes. They weighed 2,600 lb (1,200 kg) each, with 466 lb warheads, and gave the tiny boats a punch at least theoretically effective even against armored ships. Their typical speed of was very effective against shipping, but because of rapid marine growth buildup on their hulls in the South Pacific theater and austere maintenance facilities in forward areas, American PT boats ended up being slower than the top speed of the Japanese
destroyerIn naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers .Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels without the endurance...
s and
cruiserA cruiser is a large type of warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. The first cruisers were intended for individual raiding and protection missions on the seas...
s they were tasked with targeting in the Solomons. Torpedoes were also useless against shallow draft barges, which would become the majority of the PT targets. With their machine guns and 20 mm cannon, the PT boats could not return the large caliber gunfire carried by destroyers, which had a much longer effective range, though they were effective against aircraft and ground targets. Because they were normally fueled with 100 octane aviation gasoline, a direct shell hit in a PT boat's engine compartment sometimes resulted in a total loss of boat and crew. In order to have a chance of hitting their target, a boat would have to close to within 2 miles (5 km) for a shot, well within the gun range of destroyers; at this distance, a target could easily maneuver to avoid being hit. The boats would have to approach masked by darkness, fire their torpedoes which sometimes gave away their positions, and then flee behind a smoke screen. Sometimes retreat was hampered by seaplanes which dropped flares and bombs on the boats. The Elco torpedo launching tubes were powered by a 3 inch black powder charge to expel the torpedo from the tube. Additionally, the torpedo was well greased so it would slide out of the tube. Sometimes, the powder charge caused the grease to ignite upon firing, and the resulting flash could give away the position of the PT boat. PT boats had to rely on their smaller size, speed, maneuverability and darkness to survive. They were often seen in the context of David and Goliath, pitting wooden boats filled with gasoline against steel destroyers with large-caliber shells. A less optimistic description might be "plywood coffins".
Ahead of the torpedoes were two
depth chargeThe depth charge is an anti-submarine weapon intended to defeat its target by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a predetermined depth. Some have been designed to use nuclear warheads...
s, omitted on most PTs, one on each side, about the same diameter as the torpedoes. Normally designed to be used against submarines, they were sometimes used to confuse and discourage pursuing destroyers. The PT-109 lost one of its two Mark 6 depth charges a month before Kennedy showed up when the starboard torpedo was inadvertently launched during a storm without first deploying the tube into firing position. The launching torpedo sheared away the depth charge mount and some of the footrail.
PT-109 was configured with a single, 20 mm
OerlikonOerlikon Contraves is a Swiss anti-aircraft artillery manufacturer made famous by its Oerlikon 20 mm autocannon design of 1914, used in the First and Second World Wars, and still in use today. Copies and derivatives of these designs were used by the Germans, French, British and Japanese weapon...
anti-aircraft mount at the rear with "109" painted on its mounting base, two open rotating turrets (designed by the same firm that produced the Tucker automobiles), each with twin, .50-caliber (12.7 mm) anti-aircraft machine guns, at opposite corners of the open cockpit, and a smoke generator on her transom. These guns were effective against various aircraft.
The day before the fateful mission, PT-109 was retrofitted with a US Army 37 mm antitank gun that the crew had commandeered and lashed to the
foredeckForecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast.The syncope of the word, fo'c'sle , is common among nautical terms due to the nature of their pronunciation during the age of sail by sailors with strong accents and varying language skills.Among defensive troops on...
, replacing a small, 2-man life raft. However, the timbers used to secure the weapon to the deck would later help save their lives when used as a float.
Under Kennedy's command
Kennedy had used his family influence to get into the war quickly. The Allies were in a campaign of
island hoppingIsland hopping is a term that has several different definitions as it is applied in various fields. Generally, the term refers to the means of crossing an ocean by a series of shorter journeys between islands, as opposed to a single journey directly across the ocean to the destination.-World War...
since securing
GuadalcanalGuadalcanal is a 2,510-square mile island in the Pacific Ocean and a province of the Solomon Islands. The World War II Guadalcanal Campaign took place on and around the island...
in a bloody battle in early 1943. Kennedy was assigned PT-109
upon arriving at Tulagi. By August 1943, the Allies had captured Rendova and moved PT boat operations there. The US Army was driving the Japanese out of Munda airfield at New Georgia by August. All of the islands around Blackett StraitBlackett Strait is a waterway in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It lies between the islands of Kolombangara to the north, and Arundel Island to the south...
were still held by the Japanese.
In August 1943, Kennedy's PT-109 was sent out north on a night mission through Ferguson Passage to Blackett Strait, and was one of 15 boats sent to intercept the
Tokyo ExpressThe Tokyo Express was the name given by Allied forces to the use of Imperial Japanese Navy ships at night to deliver personnel, supplies, and equipment to Japanese forces operating in and around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands during the Pacific campaign of World War II...
.
In the PT Attack, 15 boats loaded with 60 torpedoes counted only a few observed explosions. However, of the thirty torpedoes fired by PT boats from the four divisions not a single hit was scored. Many of the torpedoes had exploded prematurely or ran at the wrong depth. The boats were ordered to return when their torpedoes were expended, but the boats with radar shot their torpedoes first. When they left, remaining boats, such as PT-109
, were left without radar, and were not notified that other boats had engaged the enemy.
PT-109
, along with PT-162
and PT-169
, were ordered to continue patrol of the area in case the enemy ships returned. Around 0200, on a moonless night, Kennedy's boat was idling on one engine to avoid detection of her wake by Japanese aircraft. With only about ten seconds warning, PT-109s crew realized they were squarely in the path of the Japanese destroyer
Amagiriwas the fifteenth of twenty-four s, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy following World War I. When introduced into services, these ships were the most powerful destroyers in the world. . They served as first-line destroyers through the 1930s, and remained formidable weapons systems well into the...
, which was returning to
RabaulRabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of feet into the air. It caused...
from Vila, Kolombangara after offloading supplies and 900 soldiers. Amagiri was traveling at high speed in order to be safely back in harbor before dawn, when Allied air patrols were likely to appear.
The crew spotted the destroyer bearing down on them at speeds reported by some sources as high as 30 or 40 kt (55 to 75 km/h). However, others believe it might have been as slow as . With no time to get the engines up to speed, they were run down by the destroyer on 2 August 1943 in the Blackett Strait between
KolombangaraKolombangara is an island in the New Georgia Islands group of the Solomon Islands. Almost perfectly round in shape and about 15 km across, the island is a stratovolcano that reaches an altitude of 1,770 meters at Mount Veve...
and
ArundelArundel Island is an island, part of the New Georgia Islands in the Solomon Islands. It is located between Kolombangara and New Georgia, at . It is separated from Kolombangara by Blackett Strait....
in the
Solomon IslandsThe Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. Together they cover a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres . The capital is Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal.The Solomon Islands are believed to have been...
near .
Conflicting statements have been made as to whether the destroyer captain had spotted and steered towards the boat; author Donovan, who interviewed members of the destroyer crew, believed the collision was not an accident, though other reports suggest the
Amagiri's captain never realized what happened till after the fact. Damage to a propeller slowed the destroyer's trip to its home base.
PT-109 was cut in two. Seamen Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold W. Marney were lost, and two other members of the crew were badly injured. For such a catastrophic collision, explosion, and fire, it was a low loss rate compared to other boats that were hit by shell fire.
PT-109 was gravely damaged, with watertight compartments keeping only the forward hull afloat in a sea of flames.
PT-169 launched two torpedoes that missed the destroyer and PT-162s 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.
Survival
All of the nearby large islands had Japanese camps on them. The survivors carefully chose the tiny deserted Plum Pudding Island, southwest of Kolombangara Island. They placed their lantern, shoes, and nonswimmers on one of the timbers used as a gun mount and began kicking together to propel it. It took four hours for the survivors to reach their destination, away, braving the danger of sharks and crocodiles. Kennedy, who had been on the varsity swim team at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, used a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth and towed his badly-burned senior enlisted machinist mate, MM1 Patrick McMahon. The island was only a hundred yards in diameter, with no food or water. The crew had to hide from passing Japanese barge traffic. Kennedy swam about 4 kilometers more, to Naru and Olasana islands in search of help and food. He then led his men to Olasana Island, which had coconut trees and water.
Rescue
The explosion on 2 August was spotted by an Australian
coastwatcherThe Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section "C" Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied...
, Sub Lieutenant
Arthur Reginald EvansSub-Lieutenant Arthur Reginald Evans DSC RANVR was an Australian coastwatcher who secretly manned an observation post atop Kolombangara Island while over 10,000 Japanese soldiers were camped at Vila, on the southeastern tip of the same circular volcanic island....
, who manned a secret observation post at the top of the volcano on Kolombangara Island; over ten thousand Japanese troops were garrisoned in the southeast. The Navy and its squadron of PT boats held a memorial service for the crew of PT-109
after reports were made of the large explosion. However, Evans dispatched Solomon IslandersThe Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. Together they cover a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres . The capital is Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal.The Solomon Islands are believed to have been...
Biuku Gasa and Eroni KumanaBiuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana were Solomon Islands natives of Melanesian descent who discovered John F. Kennedy and the rest of PT-109's crew following the boat's collision with the Japanese destroyer Amagiri near Plum Pudding Island on August 2, 1943.During World War II, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana...
in a dugout canoe to look for possible survivors after decoding news that the explosion he had witnessed was probably from the lost PT-109. These canoes were similar to those used for thousands of years by people in the Pacific and by Native Americans. In retrospect, these were by far the oldest technology and smallest manned craft used by the Allies in the war, but they could avoid detection by Japanese ships and aircraft and, if spotted, would likely be taken for native fishermen.
Kennedy and his men survived for six days on coconuts before they were found by the scouts. Gasa and Kumana disobeyed an order by stopping by Naru to investigate a Japanese wreck, from which they salvaged fuel and food. They first fled by canoe from Kennedy, who to them was simply a shouting stranger. On the next island, they pointed their
Tommy gunsThe Thompson submachine gun is an American submachine gun, invented by John T. Thompson in 1919 that became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals...
at the rest of the crew since the only light-skinned people they expected to find were Japanese and they were not familiar with either the language or the people. Gasa later said "All white people looked the same to me." Kennedy convinced them they were on the same side. The small canoe was not big enough for passengers. Though the Donovan book and movie depict Kennedy offering a coconut inscribed with a message, according to a National Geographic interview, it was Gasa who suggested it and Kumana who climbed a coconut tree to pick one. Kennedy cut the following message on a coconut
NAURO ISL
COMMANDER... NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT...
HE CAN PILOT... 11 ALIVE
NEED SMALL BOAT... KENNEDY
This message was delivered at great risk through 35 nautical miles (65 km) of hostile waters patrolled by the Japanese to the nearest Allied base at Rendova. Other coastwatcher natives who were caught had been tortured and killed. Later, a canoe returned for Kennedy, taking him to the coastwatcher to coordinate the rescue. The PT 157, commanded by Lieutenant William Liebenow, was able to pick up the survivors. The arranged signal was four shots, but since Kennedy only had three bullets in his pistol, Evans gave him a Japanese rifle for the fourth signal shot. The sailors sang
"Yes Jesus Loves Me"Jesus Loves Me is a Christian hymn written by Anna B. Warner The lyrics first appeared as a poem in the context of a novel called Say and Seal, written by Susan Warner and published in 1860. The tune was added in 1862 by William Batchelder Bradbury who found the text of "Jesus Loves Me" in a book,...
to pass the time. Gasa and Kumana received little notice or credit in military reports, books, or movies until 2002 when they were interviewed by National Geographic
shortly before Gasa's death.
The coconut shell was preserved in a glass container by Kennedy on his desk during his presidency. It is now on display at the John F. Kennedy LibraryThe John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and museum of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. It is located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, next to the Boston campus of the University of...
in Boston, Massachusetts.
PT-59
PT-59
was one of the first PT boats converted to a gunboat primarily tasked with hunting down targets their own size or smaller, and was crewed by Kennedy and those from PT-109
who chose to stay in the war rather than go home. On November 2, 1943, (in an incident which was portrayed as an action by PT-109
in the film PT-109
) PT-59
went on to rescue Marines ambushed during a raid on Choiseul Island. One gravely wounded Marine died in LT Kennedy's bunk aboard PT-59
that night.
Aftermath
One of the most detailed accounts ever published appeared in The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications...
with the title "Survival," written by a reporter who interviewed Kennedy after the incident. Another account was printed in Reader's DigestReader's Digest is a monthly general-interest family magazine co-founded in 1922 by Lila Bell Wallace and DeWitt Wallace, and based in Chappaqua, New York, United States of America...
just before Kennedy's first CongressionalThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
run. The campaign reproduced the article and distributed it to potential voters. A campaign pin of PT-109 was distributed during his presidential campaign.
Kennedy was awarded the
Navy and Marine Corps MedalThe Navy and Marine Corps Medal is the second highest non-combatant medal awarded by the United States Department of the Navy to members of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps...
for his lifesaving actions following the collision; it was established in 1941 for heroic actions at risk of the person's own life but not involving actual combat.
During his presidency, Kennedy privately admitted to friends he didn't feel he deserved the medals he had received, because the PT 109
incident had been the result of a botched military operation that had cost the lives of two members of his crew. When asked by interviewers how he became a war hero, Kennedy's grim reply was, "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
The search for Kennedy's PT 109
The wreckage of PT-109 was located in May 2002 when a
National GeographicThe National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
expedition headed by
Dr. Robert BallardThis article is about the United States oceanographer. For the French lutenist of the same name see Robert Ballard.Robert Duane Ballard is a former commander in the United States Navy and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater...
found a torpedo tube from wreckage matching the description and location of Kennedy's vessel in the Solomon Islands. The Boat was actually identified by Dale Ridder (Beach Park, Illinois). The stern section was not found, but a search using remote vehicles found the forward section, which had drifted south of the collision site. Much of the half-buried wreckage and grave site was left undisturbed in accordance with
NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
policy. At around this time, Max Kennedy also came to present a bust of JFK to the islanders who had found Kennedy and his crew.
Crew
A
standard uniformUniforms of the United States Navy are a distinction of the service and still follow many traditional patterns, for example, the changes in uniforms since World War II have been primarily in materials. This article examines dress uniforms, daily service uniforms, working uniforms, special...
was blue dungarees with a white, round dixie cap for enlisted sailors, washed khakis and service cap for officers. During
General QuartersGeneral Quarters or Battle Stations is an announcement made aboard a naval warship to signal the crew to prepare for battle.When the call to General Quarters is made, the crew prepares the ship to join battle. Off-duty or sleeping crewmembers report to their stations and prepare for action...
, the crew would man their battle stations wearing dark blue
kapokKapok is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae , native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, northern South America, and to tropical west Africa. The word is also used for the fibre obtained from its seed pods...
life vests and US Army/US Marine Corps-style steel helmets painted gray. The skipper's helmet would have stripes and an inverted star (approximating his dress uniform sleeve rank or shoulder board insignia...normally that of LTJG or LT), while the other officer would be labeled "XO".
The crew aboard PT-109 on her last mission:
- Lieutenant, junior grade (LTJG) John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston, Massachusetts), Commanding Officer ("CO" or "Skipper"). Became 35th President of the United States
- Ensign (ENS) Leonard J. Thom (Sandusky, Ohio), Executive Officer ("exec" or "XO")
- Ensign (ENS) George H. R. "Barney" Ross (Highland Park, Illinois); on board as an observer after losing his own boat, attempted to operate the 37mm gun but suffered from night blindness
- Seaman 2/c Raymond Albert (Akron, Ohio) KIA 8 October 1943. See
- Gunner's Mate 3/c (GM3) Charles A. "Bucky" Harris (Watertown, Massachusetts)
- Motor Machinist's Mate 2/c (MM2) William Johnston (Dorchester, Massachusetts)
- Torpedoman's Mate 2/c (TM2) Andrew Jackson Kirksey (Reynolds, Georgia) (killed in collision, listed as missing by National Geographic account)
- Radioman 2/c (RM2) John E. Maguire (Dobbs Ferry, New York)
- Motor Machinist’s Mate 2/c (MM2) Harold William Marney (Springfield, Massachusetts) (killed in collision, manning turret closest to impact point)
- Quartermaster 3/c (QM3) Edman Edgar Mauer (St. Louis, Missouri)
- Motor Machinist's Mate 1/c (MM1) Patrick H. "Pappy" McMahon (Wyanet, Illinois) (Only man in engine room during collision, was badly burned, but recovered from his wounds)
- Torpedoman's Mate 2/c (TM2) Ray L. Starkey (Garden Grove, California)
- Motor Machinist's Mate 1/c (MM1) Gerard E. Zinser (Belleville, Illinois) (erroneously called "Gerald" in many publications). Mr. Zinser, the last living survivor, died in Florida on 21 August 2001.
Survivors
Gerard Zinser, the last survivor of PT-109
, died in 2001. Both Solomon Islanders Biuki Gasa and Eroni Kumana were alive when visited by National Geographic in 2002. They were each presented with a gift from the Kennedy family.
Biuki Gasa died late in August 2005, his passing noted only in a single blog by a relative. According to Time Pacific
magazine, Gasa and Eroni were invited to Kennedy's inauguration. However, the island authorities tricked Gasa into giving his trip to more important local officials. Gasa and Eroni gained a little fame only after being identified by National Geographic
, but are among the most famous Solomon Islanders who ever lived. On 22 August 2007, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. WinterDonald C. Winter is an American businessman who served as United States Secretary of the Navy. A former top executive of Northrop Grumman, he was nominated in 2005 by President George W. Bush, confirmed by the United States Senate, and took the oath of office on January 3, 2006...
presented Eroni "Aaron" Kumana with the flag from USS PeleliuThe USS Peleliu is a Tarawa-class amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy, named after the Battle of Peleliu during World War II.-History:...
for his courageous efforts more than 60 years ago.
Legacy
In addition to a book, the episode of PT-109's sinking was also made into a 1963 movie, PT 109PT 109 is a 1963 biographical movie which shows the events of John F. Kennedy's actions in command of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 as an officer of the United States Navy during World War II. The movie was adapted by Vincent Flaherty, Richard L. Breen and Howard Sheehan from the book PT 109: John F....
, starring
Cliff RobertsonClifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III is an American actor with a film and television career that spans half of a century. Robertson won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
. Though it had some historical inaccuracies, such as the Navy searching for the boat rather than holding a memorial service for the crew, it was nonetheless regarded as a fitting tribute to the events that transpired. Then-President Kennedy personally selected Robertson to play him in the film version.
A song entitled
"PT-109"PT-109 was a song by Jimmy Dean about the adventures of John F. Kennedy and the crew of the PT-109. The boat was famous even before Kennedy ran for office because it was cut in two after being rammed by a Japanese destroyer, after which came a survival story, and rescue by native islanders Biuku...
by
Jimmy DeanJimmy Ray "The Hurst" Dean , better known as Jimmy Dean, is an American country music singer, television host, actor, and businessman...
rose to #8 on the
pop musicPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
, and #3 on the
country musicCountry music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains...
charts in 1962, making it one of Dean's most successful recordings.
Tiny Plum Pudding Island was later renamed
Kennedy IslandKennedy Island is an island in the Solomon Islands that was named after John F. Kennedy. The island is remembered to be the area Lt. John F. Kennedy had aided his injured crew after his boat, the PT-109, was rammed by the Japanese Destroyer Amagiri in World War II...
. The island caused a controversy when the government sold off the land to a private investor who charged admission to tourists.
The 1958 movie South Pacific
preceded PT-109
as a drama about Navy sailors in the Pacific theater. In 1961, Premiere Theater
presented "Seven Against The Sea", a drama about a resourceful group of stranded American PT boat crewmen hiding out on a South Pacific island controlled by the Japanese Navy, a situation which would appear to be inspired by the adventures of Kennedy and his men. This later became the pilot of McHale's NavyMcHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11, to August 31, on the ABC network...
, a successful television situation comedyA situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms...
series. One episode of the series had a 'cameo' appearance of a PT boat marked "109"
PT-109 was also a famous subjects of toy, plastic and RC model ships in the 1960s, familiar to boys who grew up as
Baby BoomA baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2% of the total population size...
ers. It was still a popular 1/72 scale Revell
model kitThe popularity of the story of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 made it a very popular subject for ship model companies in the 1960s, and it is still popular even as newly manufactured kits in the 2000s...
available into the 21st century. Hasbro also released a special PT-109 edition John F. Kennedy
G.I. JoeG.I. Joe is a line of military-themed articulated "action figures" produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces with the Action Soldier , Action Sailor , Action Pilot and Action Marine . The term G.I. stands for...
action figure, dressed in Navy khakis with a miniature version of the famous coconut shell.
The tale is much less familiar to later generations, as the
VHSVideo Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, was a video tape recording standard developed during the 1970s. It was released to the public during the latter half of the decade. During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s it formed one-half of the VHS vs Betamax war, which it...
movie was out of print in the US by 2006. It is available outside of the US as a Video CD, but not yet as a DVD.
Spectrum HolobyteSpectrum HoloByte, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher originally based in Alameda, California.The company was founded in 1983 and was most famous for its simulation games, notably the Falcon series of flight simulators and Vette!, a driving simulator from 1989...
released a naval simulation game roughly based on the events named
PT-109PT-109 is a computer game developed by Digital Illusions and Spectrum HoloByte in 1987 for the MacIntosh and MS-DOS-compatible computers. This naval simulation game is roughly based on the events involving the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109.-Plot:...
for the Apple Macintosh and MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
-compatible computers in 1987. In the video game Battlestations Midway
, PT-109
is featured in the second mission of the US Campaign.
Gilligan's WakeGilligan's Wake is a 2003 retelling of the story of the 1960s CBS sitcom Gilligan's Island from the viewpoints of the seven major characters, written by Esquire film and television critic Tom Carson....
is a fictional re-imagining of Gilligan's island where the Skipper served with both John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and the skipper of McHale's NavyMcHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11, to August 31, on the ABC network...
.
Leslie Martinson directed both the PT-109
movie and Rescue from Gilligan's IslandRescue From Gilligan's Island is a two-part television movie that continues the adventures of the shipwrecked castaways from the 1964-1967 TV series Gilligan's Island starring Bob Denver and Alan Hale, Jr. The film first aired on NBC October 14 and October 21, 1978. It was directed by Leslie...
.
- A version of the story was published in comic book
A comic book is a magazine made up of narrative artwork, often accompanied by dialog and often including brief descriptive prose...
form by Classics IllustratedClassics Illustrated is a comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created by Albert Kanter, the series began publication in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues...
.