“It is said that famous men”: Winston Churchill, Marlborough (University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 33.
“My mother never hugged me”: Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (Macmillan, 2006), p. 55.
“They really didn’t have a real home”: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Little, Brown, 2003), p. 32.
“Which room do I have this time?”: ibid.
Kennedy boyhood reading: Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga (Macmillan, 1991), p. 354.
“so surrounded by books”: Cari Beauchamp, “Two Sons, One Destiny,” Vanity Fair, December 2004.
“History made him what he was”: Theodore White, “For President Kennedy: An Epilogue,” Life, December 6, 1963.
“He’d read in the strangest way”: In Her Voice: Jacqueline Kennedy, The White House Years, A Shared Love of Words, JFKL online exhibit, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Exhibits/Special-Exhibits/In-Her-Voice-Jacqueline-Kennedy-The-White-House-Years.aspx?p=4.
“He had read almost every book on the American presidents”: Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 544.
“The War which found the measure of so many”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), p. 87.
“Whether Jack realized it or not”: John Hellmann, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (Columbia University Press, 2013), p. 33.
JFK marked copy of Pilgrim’s Way: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 549.
“didn’t have to lift a finger to attract women”: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Little, Brown, 2003), p. 48.
“Dad told all the boys”: Lance Morrow, The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948 (Basic Books, 2006), p. 184.
“Still can’t get use to the co-eds”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 48.
“I’ve known many of the great Hollywood stars”: Lawrence Quirk, The Kennedys in Hollywood (Cooper Square Press, 2004), p. 146.
“I can’t help it”: Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 114.
“It was a great opportunity”: JFK biographical film on exhibition in JFKL theater, November 2014.
“I saw the rock where our Lord ascended”: Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 114.
“She is still pretty young”: John F. Kennedy to Claiborne Pell, undated letter, circa early 1939, Claiborne Pell Papers, Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library.
“nearly as big as Versailles,” “I have seen much, traveled far”: Will Swift, The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm: A Thousand Days in London, 1938–1940 (HarperCollins, 2008), p. 174.
“when he inspected her he had an urge”: Donovan, PT 109, p. 17.
“Small though they were, the PT boats”: Robert Bulkley, At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy (Naval Historical Division, 1962), p. iii.
Chapter 2: Summit Meeting on Fifth Avenue
“Bulkeley, you’ve taken me”: William Breuer, Sea Wolf: The Daring Exploits of Navy Legend John D. Bulkeley (Presidio, 1989), p. 64.
“ruthless businessman and investor”: Jacob Heilbrunn, “The Patriarch: Joseph Kennedy Sr.’s Outsized Life,” The Daily Beast, November 21, 2012.
“From the beginning, Joe knew”: Profile of Joseph P. Kennedy by Richard Whelan, Fortune, January 1963.
“his quick smile radiated confidence,” “down to his underwear”: Cari Beauchamp, “The Mogul in Mr. Kennedy,” Vanity Fair, April 2002.
“operated just like Joe Stalin”: Cari Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years (Vintage, 2010), p. 307.
“He’s a charmer”: Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (University of California Press, 1998), p. 156.
“Kennedy was the first and only outsider”: Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, p. 403.
“A smart, rough competitor,” “a passion for facts”: Profile of Joseph P. Kennedy by Richard Whelan, Fortune, January 1963.
“Joe led people into camp”: John Fred Weston, Financial Management in the 1960’s: New Challenges and Responsibilities, Readings from Fortune (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966), p. 26.
“those who had worked with him in the past marveled”: David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (Penguin, 2012), p. 120-121.
“It takes a thief to catch a thief!”: Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, p. 328.
“Joe Kennedy had been fired”: Breuer, Sea Wolf, p. 108.
“Things don’t happen”: Amanda Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy (Viking, 2001), p. 670.
“Joe wanted to know”: Breuer, Sea Wolf, p. 108.
“The PT boat is a great weapon”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 501.
PT boat historian Frank Andruss Jr. offered this additional background on Kennedy’s PT boat chronology and his path to the South Pacific: “Kennedy was selected for PT Training in 1942, while attending indoctrination class at Northwestern University in the summer of 1942. He reported for duty at the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center on October 1, 1942. He was an Ensign at the time and was a student in the seventh class, assigned to hut 41. Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade) on October 10th. After training Kennedy was assigned to the training squadron, Squadron 4. He reported for duty aboard PT-101, a Huckins PT, on December 3 1942, and relieved Lt. (jg) Stuart Hamilton, USNR, as commanding officer on December 7. On January 8, 1943, he was ordered to take three Huckins PT Boats, numbered 98, 99, and 101 to Jacksonville, Florida to become part of Squadron 14. During the journey, Kennedy fell ill and reported to the base hospital in Morehead City, North Carolina. The boats continued to Florida and Kennedy would make his way there on his own, reporting back to PT-101 on January 25. He remained with the boat until he was relived of command by Ensign J. T. Thompson on February 23. From there he would receive orders to report to Squadron 2, already in the Pacific.” Email to the author.
Chapter 3: Into the Labyrinth
Background on April 7, 1943, attack, “I happened to be looking back”: “NOAA CORPS History of the Wartime Experiences of the USS PATHFINDER,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website, http://www.history.noaa.gov/stories_tales/pathfinder12.html.
“A gallant sight at that hour”: Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: Breaking the Bismarks Barrier (University of Illinois Press, 2001), p. 182.
“Now we are approaching”: Edwin Hoyt, Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned the Attack on Pearl Harbor (Lyons Press, 2001), p. 242.
“I was only sixteen years old”: The Kennedy Reader (Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), p. 27.
“We went to pick him up”: David Pitts, Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings, The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship (Da Capo, 2008), p. 97.
“Welcome to the South Pacific”: Donovan, PT 109, p. 4.
Chapter 4: The Front Line
Background on history of PT 109: “History of USS PT-109,” January 5, 1961, Navy Department, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval History; in President’s Office Files, Box 132, Personal Secretary Files, PT 109: History JFKL. Also, http://www.ptboatforum.com is an excellent forum for historical discussions on PT boats, including the 109. An invaluable collection of wartime reports on PT boat actions is available at: http://www.ptboatforum.com/PT_Boat_Documents.html.
“Dead in the water”: Bulkley, At Close Quarters, p. 29.
“We eat entirely out of cans”: Chandler Whipple, Lt. John F. Kennedy—Expendable! (Universal, 1962), p. 88.
“PT sailors thought of themselves as having rugged duty,” Bulkley, At Close Quarters, p. 153.
“Even before one ripe corpse”: Charles W. Koburge, Pacific Turning Point: The Solomons Campaign, 1942–1943 (Greenwood, 1995), p. 10.
“catatonic trance”: Dick Keresey, “Farthest Forward,” A
merican Heritage, July 1998.
“KILL JAPS”: William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of the United States, 1932–1972 (Little, Brown, 1974), p. 329.
“Geez, I don’t know if I want to go out with this guy”: Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 587.
“Have my own boat now”: Smith, Hostage to Fortune, p. 550.
“He was a very strong and nice guy”: Interview with Hoyt Grant.
“the best type of college kid”: Donovan, PT 109, p. 75.
“He was terrific”: “A Conversation with PT Boat Veterans,” forum at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, June 27, 2005, C-SPAN broadcast.
“He was amiable”: Richard Keresey, PT 105 (Naval Institute Press, 1995), p. 136.
Battle on Kennedy: William C. Battle Oral History, JFKL; and “A Conversation with PT Boat Veterans,” forum at JFKL.
“JFK was respected and liked by his crew”: William Liebenow, “The Incident,” article in Knights of the Sea by PT Boats Inc. (1982), courtesy of William Liebenow.
“The biggest shit in the Pacific”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 551.
“Things are still about the same,” “I have an entirely new crew”: Martin Sandler, The Letters of John F. Kennedy (Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 25.
“Have a lot of natives around”: Annette Tapert, Lines of Battle: Letters from American Servicemen, 1941–1945 (Pocket Books, 1989), p. 91.
“What actually happened,” “No one out here has the slightest interest”: Sandler, The Letters of John F. Kennedy, p. 26.
“As far as the length of the war”: Blair and Blair, The Search for JFK, p. 186.
“Feeling O.K.,” “I figure should be back within a year”: Sandler, The Letters of John F. Kennedy, p. 28.
“As to conditions, they are not bad,” “We go out on patrol every other night”: Smith, Hostage to Fortune, p. 550.
“That bubble I had about lying,” “I read in Life magazine”: John F. Kennedy to Kathleen Kennedy, June 3, 1943, John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, Box 5, JFKL.
“There was an old Catholic missionary”: Interview with Joseph Brannan.
“Crash Kennedy”: Blair and Blair, The Search for JFK, p. 193.
“a long, shining arrow”: Gene Kirkland, “The Unknown History of PT 109, July 1942–April 1943,” http://pt-king.gdinc.com/PT109-3.html.
“We always ran with all three engines”: Interview with William “Bud” Liebenow.
“Most of the torpedoes we had”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 612.
“super-human ability”: Ted Sorensen, Kennedy (HarperCollins, 2010), p. 18.
“The use of PT boats as barge destroyers”: Bulkley, At Close Quarters, p. 131.
Attack on McCawley, actions of July 17–18, “I got confused”: Bulkley, At Close Quarters, pp. 118–20.
“My shoes were soaked”: Maurice Kowal interview by Frank J. Andruss, Sr., courtesy of Frank Andruss Sr.
“He had been somewhat shocked”: Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and his Times (Houghton Mifflin, 2012), p. 25.
Chapter 5: The Raid
“All twenty PT boats”: Keresey, PT 105, p. 71.
“that I had seen one pilot’s”: Ibid., p. 74.
“We’d been playing poker”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 555.
“He was a friendly, capable PT boat officer”: Interview with William “Bud” Liebenow.
“Most of us had been out”: Keresey, PT 105, p. 76.
“I was down on the dock”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 556.
Kirksey’s premonition and dialogue, PT 109 casting off: Donovan, PT 109, pp. 89–90.
“It was as dark”: Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, p. 557.
“things were going along”: Ibid., p. 571.
Chapter 6: The Battle of Blackett Strait
Unless otherwise noted, details and dialogue of “the Battle of Blackett Straight,” the sinking of the PT 109, the stranding of the crew and their rescue, in this book, are from: John Hersey’s New Yorker article “Survival”; PT 109 by Robert J. Donovan (pp. 88-165); The Search for JFK by Clay and Joan Blair (pp. 209-270); JFK: Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton (pp. 556-602); Lonely Vigil by Walter Lord (pp. 255-275); interviews with William Liebenow (PT 157), Welford West (PT 157), John Sullivan (PT 107), Chester Williams (PT 106); William Liebenow, “The Incident,” in Knights of the Sea by PT Boats, Inc. (1982); “Sinking of PT 109 and subsequent rescue of survivors,” an after-action overview report favorable to Kennedy and probably based in part on extensive interviews with Kennedy, Ross, and Thom, written in the days after the rescue by Navy intelligence officers Lieutenant Byron R. White and J. G. McClure; and Commander Thomas Warfield’s (somewhat defensive) after-action report dated August 21, 1943, “PT Operations 1–2 August 1943 (revised)”, both in JFKL, John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, Box 6, Folder: Souvenirs— Narrative on Sinking of PT 109 and rescue, August 22, 1943. The Blairs donated their extensive collection of oral histories for The Search for JFK to the University of Wyoming archives, where they are open to researchers. Unless otherwise noted, quotes in this book from George Wright, Thomas Warfield, Johnny Iles, Bryant Larson, Al Cluster, Philip Potter, Paul Fay, Richard Keresey, John Hersey, Leonard Nickoloric, Hank Brantingham, Dusty Rhodes, Glen Christiansen, Homer Facto and Barney Ross are from the Blair Oral Histories at the University of Wyoming.
“PT 109” is an undated narrative by David Powers, in the Powers Papers “PT 109” file, JFKL. Based on its contents, this seven-page document may have been based in part on conversations Powers had with Kennedy over the years about PT 109.
Three other essential accounts of the incident are: Associated Press, “Kennedy’s Son Is Hero in Pacific as Destroyer Splits His PT Boat,” in New York Times, August 20, 1943; Leif Erickson, “11 on Rammed PT Boat Saved from Jap Isle,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1943; and Stephen Plotkin, “Sixty Years Later, the Story of PT-109 Still Captivates,” Prologue magazine, National Archives, Summer 2003.
In 2014, author John J. Domagalski published a valuable history of the PT 109 and its commanders: Into the Dark Water: The Story of the Officers of PT 109 (Casemate).
Kennedy’s medical records are in JFKL, John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, Series 8, Navy Records, Officer Misc. Correspondence.
In November 2014, the author came across a six-page document at the JFKL, in Kennedy’s Pre-presidential Papers, House Files, Box 96, Patrick McMahon File, “Folder: Boston Office Files—Speech Files ’46-‘52” (with an additional copy marked “Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Archives” in the Paul B. Fay Personal Papers, Box 1, Folder PT 109, JFKL) that contained previously unpublished passages of Kennedy’s memories of the crash. The document appears to be a template of a speech draft that Kennedy adapted for different audiences in his 1946 campaign for Congress. Small passages from the document were quoted by Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers with Joe McCarthy in Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (Pocket Books, 1973), and author Michael O’Brien in John F. Kennedy: A Biography (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). The passages that are quoted in this book as “JFK narrative,” which the author believes are previously unpublished, are significant: Kennedy settles a historical controversy by confirming that he did receive a specific radio report of Japanese destroyers in the area; he refers to “mist” on the water, an otherwise little-reported condition; and he fixes the time of the crash at exactly 2:27 A.M.
If Kennedy’s back was injured as a direct result of the collision, he made no complaint of it, either at the time or in subsequent weeks. In years to come, much was made in the Kennedy literature of a supposed back injury Kennedy suffered at this moment, and a supposed previous college football injury, but neither supposed injury appears in Kennedy’s highly detailed naval medical records. According to Kennedy’s own private testimony to his doctors captured in the documents at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, two significantly acute events occurred in 1938, when he suffered intense back pain while on a motor trip on rou
gh roads in Europe; and in August 1940, while making a tennis serve, when he felt “something had slipped” in his back, which was followed by periodic episodes of severe, sometimes immobilizing pain that required hospitalization. In 1955, one of Kennedy’s physicians, Dr. Janet Travell, concluded that Kennedy was born with his left side slightly smaller than his right, and this minor congenital deformity may have contributed to his back troubles as an adult.
Speculation differs on what parts of the PT 109 sank at what times. Clay and Joan Blair interviewed four survivors and concluded that the boat was not immediately split in two by the crash, as most earlier accounts had reported, but that the sections remained connected below the water for an unknown time: “the rear section, containing the three heavy engines, was badly mangled and sank below the water and the bow lifted to an angle of perhaps 30 to 40 degrees. All four survivors we consulted remember the steep angle of the bow, which would indicate that Ross and Zinser are probably right [that the pieces remained connected].” Whether or not the rear starboard section of the boat was initially severed and separated from the forward port section, the testimony of survivors suggests that at least some piece of the starboard aft section of the boat was separated from the boat at the time of the crash.
Additional key material consulted on Kennedy’s naval career, PT 109, the crash and its aftermath, and the book and movie on the incident are in these files at the JFKL (thanks to archivist Stephen Plotkin for helping identify and assemble many of these resources): JFK Personal Papers, Box 4a, Folder: Kennedy, Joseph P., Letters to JFK, 1940-45; JFK Personal Papers, Box 5, Folders: 1943-Family and 1943-1944, Clippings; JFK Personal Papers, Box 6, Folders: Souvenirs—Narrative on Sinking of PT 109 and rescue, August 22, 1943 (this file includes a number of JFK letters from the period); JFK Personal Papers, Boxes 11 (three folders of various Official Navy Records of JFK) and Box 11a: 14 folders of various Official Navy Records of JFK, listed as Record Group 313, South Pacific Force, Miscellaneous Records 1942–43, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Hospital Charleston, S.C., Naval Hospital Chelsea, MA, Office of Naval Intelligence; Officer Fitness Reports Jacket; Officer Miscellaneous Correspondence and Orders Jacket; Officer Selection Board Jacket; Officer Service Record #1, Officer Service Record #2; Requests for Records; Medical File of Dr. William Herbst, 1961–64; Pre-Presidential Papers, Box 481, General Files, Folder: Japan: P.T. 109; Box 549, Folder: PT boat; Box 1049, Speeches and the Press, Folder: P.T. 109; Box 1100, Folder: PT 109; President’s Office Files, Box 132, Personal Secretary Files: Folders pertaining to PT 109 incident, history, book by Donovan and movie, listed as PT 109—Correspondence—General; PT 109—Correspondence—Japanese; PT 109—Correspondence—Robert Donovan; PT 109—Correspondence—Solomon Islanders; PT 109—History; PT 109—Movie; PT 109—Peter Tare Inc.; Dave Powers Personal Papers, Box 14, Folder JFK Issues: PT 109; Oral Histories: William Sutton, Robert Donovan, William Battle, William Liebenow, Paul Fay, Biuku Gasa; Vertical File: P.T. Boats/PT 109; JFK Scrapbook of wartime items, audiovisual archive; George Ross interview, audiovisual archive.
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