JFK’s courage remembered in PT-109 sinking account

The second in command to Kennedy married a woman from Youngstown.

STAFF REPORT

The commander of the PT-109, Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy made the sinking of PT-109 arguably one of the most famous small-craft engagements in naval history.

It was of particular significance to Youngstown, because Ensign Leonard Jay Thom, who was Kennedy’s second in command of PT-109, married a Youngstown woman, Catherine Jane Holway.

Here are excerpts from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s account of the sinking of patrol torpedo boat 109 on Aug. 1, 1943. Kennedy and Thom were awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for courage and leadership, and Kennedy received a Purple Heart for injuries.

Fifteen PT boats, including PT-109, had set out to engage the Japanese navy’s regular resupply convoy that enabled resistance to the advance of U.S. forces in the islands farther south.

PT-109 was at its station with two other PT boats in Blackett Strait, south of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, when at about 2:30 a.m., a shape loomed out of the darkness 300 yards off PT-109’s starboard bow. It turned out to be the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. PT-109 attempted to turn and fire its torpedoes at Amagiri, but did not have time, and the Amagiri ripped away the starboard side of PT-109.

The impact tossed Kennedy around the cockpit, and his radioman, John E. Maguire, was thrown from it. Most of the crew were knocked or fell into the water. The one man below decks, engineer Patrick McMahon, escaped, although he was badly burned by exploding fuel. Fear that PT-109 would go up in flames drove Kennedy to order the men who still remained on the wreck to abandon ship. But the destroyer’s wake dispersed the burning fuel, and when the fire began to subside, Kennedy sent his men back to what was left of the boat.

The heroic rescue

From the wreckage, Kennedy ordered the men with him, Edgar Mauer and John E. Maguire, to identify the location of their shipmates still in the water. Thom, Gerard Zinser, Ensign George Ross, and Raymond Albert were able to swim back on their own. Kennedy swam out to McMahon and Charles Harris. Towing the incapacitated McMahon by a life-vest strap, Kennedy returned to the boat alternately cajoling and berating the hurt, exhausted Harris, who followed behind, to get him through the difficult swim. Meanwhile, Thom pulled in William Johnston, who was debilitated by the gasoline he had accidentally swallowed and the heavy fumes that lay on the water. Finally Raymond Starkey swam in from where he had been flung by the shock.

Two men, Harold Marney and Andrew Jackson Kirksey, had disappeared in the collision, likely killed at the impact. All the men were exhausted, a few were hurt, although none as badly as McMahon, and several had been sickened by the fuel fumes.

The men stayed with PT-109 until it capsized on the morning of Aug. 2, when they struck out for an islet, 31/2 miles away, that they hoped was unoccupied.

Kennedy had been on the swim team at Harvard, and even towing McMahon, he was undaunted by the distance. Several of the other men were also good swimmers, but several were not. Two, Johnston and Mauer, could not swim. These last two were lashed to a plank that the other seven men pulled and pushed as they could. Kennedy arrived first at the island, named Plum Pudding.

Alarmed by a Japanese barge that passed close by, Kennedy determined to swim down into Ferguson Passage, through which the American PTs passed when they were operating in Blackett Strait. Clinging to reefs, Kennedy made his way out into the passage, where he treaded water for an hour before deciding that the PTs were in action elsewhere that night. The return voyage nearly killed him as strong currents spun him out into Blackett Strait and then back into Ferguson Passage.

Making the trip again, Kennedy stopped on Leorava Island, where he slept long enough to recoup himself for the final leg. Returning to Bird Island, Kennedy slept through the day but also made Ross promise to go out on the same trip that night. Ross also did not see any sign of the PTs.

Searching for food

On Aug. 4, Kennedy led the men back into the ocean, striking out for Olasana Island in hopes of finding food and fresh water, but also trying to get closer to Ferguson Passage. Olasana Island proved to be something of a disappointment. Fresh water was not in evidence, and the men were too nervous about Japanese patrols to explore this larger island. When the night of Aug. 4 turned wet and cold, Kennedy determined to try the next island over the following day.

Naru, or Cross Island, is the last in the chain, and its eastern shores look out over Ferguson Passage. Kennedy and Ross climbed up onto its beach a little past noon on Aug. 5. Fearing enemy patrols, the two men stepped carefully through the brush but only saw the wreck of a small Japanese vessel on the reef. On the beach they spotted a small box with Japanese labels. They were delighted to discover it contained Japanese candy. A little further up the island they discovered a tin of water and a one-man canoe hidden in the bushes. Kennedy and Ross were just walking back onto the beach when they saw two men out at the Japanese wreck. The men, clearly islanders, paddled away from the wreck in a canoe, despite Kennedy’s hails.

Kennedy decided to take the canoe back to Olasana, stopping off long enough to gather the candy and the water to bring to the other men, leaving Ross to rest until the next morning. Arriving at Olasana, Kennedy discovered that the two men he and Ross had seen at Naru had made contact with the rest of the crew. The two men, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, were islander scouts for the Allies. Their hasty departure from Naru had left them tired and thirsty, and they had stopped for coconuts at Olasana, where Thom had been able to convince them that the crew was American. The next morning, Aug. 6, Kennedy returned with Gasa and Kumana to Naru, intercepting Ross along the way as he was swimming back. The islanders showed the two Americans where a boat had been hidden on Naru. When Kennedy was at a loss for a way to send a message, Gasa showed him how it could be scratched into a green coconut husk.

Gasa and Kumana left with the message —

NAURO ISL

COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS

POS’IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE

NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY — as well as a backup note that they had gotten from Thom when they stopped at Olasana.

The next morning, Aug. 7, eight islanders appeared at Naru shortly after Kennedy and Ross awoke. They brought food and instructions from the local Allied coastwatcher, Lt. A. Reginald Evans, that Kennedy should come over to Evans’ post. Stopping long enough at Olasana to feed the crew, the islanders hid Kennedy under a pile of palm fronds and paddled him to Gomu Island in Blackett Strait. Early in the evening of the 7th, Kennedy stepped on to Gomu. There was still a rescue to be planned with Evans, but the worst of the ordeal of PT-109 was over.

Evans had already notified Rendova base of the discovery of PT 109’s survivors, and the base commander was proposing to send the rescue mission directly to Olasana. Kennedy insisted on being picked up first so that he could guide the rescue boats, PTs 157 and 171, among the reefs and shallows of the island chain. Late on the night of Aug. 7, the boats met Kennedy at the rendezvous point, exchanging a prearranged signal of four shots.

The PTs crossed Blackett Strait under Kennedy’s direction and eased up to Olasana Island early in the morning of Aug. 8. The exhausted men of PT-109 were all asleep, and Kennedy began yelling for them, much to the chagrin of his rescuers, nervous about the proximity of the Japanese. But the rescue went forward without incident, and the men of PT-109 reached Rendova at 5:30 a.m.on Aug. 8.

A 2002 Cincinnati Enquirer story expanded on Thom’s role during the ordeal. Historian Michael Bell said Thom also towed an injured shipmate to a South Pacific island after the boat was rammed. Also, Bell maintained that it was Thom’s detailed note on paper, more so than Kennedy’s note on the coconut shell, that led to the rescue of the crew.