1

SEVENTEEN YEARS EARLIER…

The Solomon Islands

August 2, 1943

The sky is black. There’s no moonlight to illuminate the choppy waves breaking softly against the boat’s hull.

The vessel is roughly eighty feet long and twenty feet wide. It’s a U.S. Navy motor-torpedo patrol boat, or a PT as they’re often called, patrolling the Blackett Strait, a stretch of water in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. On the opposite side of the world, in Southern and Eastern Europe, the United States and its allies Great Britain and the Soviet Union are engaged in a massive land war against Nazi Germany. Here in the South Pacific, the United States is battling the forces of Germany’s ally Japan in brutal combat for control of sea, air, and land.

The U.S. has mostly gained control of the waters surrounding this part of the Solomon Islands, east of New Guinea, but the Japanese still send naval convoys through the region and launch air and sea attacks from nearby bases. That’s why small American PT boats like this one patrol the area at night, on the lookout for intruding enemy ships.

On this particular PT, four of the thirteen crew members are asleep, the others manning their stations.

At the helm is the ranking officer on board, twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy, from Boston, Massachusetts. Like the other members of the crew, he wears a tattered life jacket and beat-up lightweight olive-green combat fatigues.

In the summer of 1943, during World War II, twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy is stationed in the South Pacific. He’s the pilot and ranking officer aboard PT-109, an armed mobile patrol vessel. (Credit: circa 1943)

At 2:30 a.m., the boat is on the lookout for a Japanese transport thought to be in the vicinity. Only one of the PT’s three engines is running so that the vessel will be as quiet as possible. For the PT’s crew, these overnight patrols are common; they’ll work in small shifts through the night while the others sleep.

That is, until the silence is broken.

“Ship at two o’clock!” one of crewmates, Harold Marney, calls out from the side deck. From behind the wheel, Kennedy turns to look, and, sure enough, the shadow of a ship can be made out against the dark water and sky. For a moment, he thinks it’s another PT boat. But then he squints to get a better look.

That’s not a PT boat. It’s larger. Much larger.

The men on deck grasp it all at once. That ship they’re looking at is a Japanese destroyer—a fully outfitted warship—from the Imperial fleet. It’s roughly five times the length of the PT, with exponentially more armor and firepower. Still, Kennedy quickly spins the wheel to starboard, facing the PT’s flank toward the larger vessel so the PT can fire off one of its small torpedoes. The problem is there’s no time to even load a shell—because the hulking shadow is getting rapidly larger. The destroyer is coming right at them, racing on the water at a speed of roughly forty miles per hour.

To Kennedy, it’s unclear whether the Japanese ship is intentionally trying to ram them, or if its captain simply doesn’t see the smaller boat in the darkness.

Doesn’t matter. There’s no time. Frantically spinning the wheel, Kennedy tries to swerve out of the way. But with only one engine engaged, the PT can’t move fast enough. Now the destroyer is only seconds away, coming right at them.

So this is how it feels to die, Kennedy thinks to himself, shutting his eyes as the huge vessel SMASHES into their small boat. An explosion sends debris and plumes of flame through the air.

Two of the U.S. crew members are killed instantly in the collision. Others are badly injured as they’re thrown around the hull and flung into the water by the force of the crash.

Only one crew member is below deck for the impact, the machinist Patrick McMahon, who is working in the boat’s cramped engine room. He’s completely unprepared for the shock of the collision. Water immediately gushes in from the smashed walls, and then, only moments after impact, flames from the explosion rip through the vessel, burning his shoulders, back, torso, and legs before he’s submerged in water.

At first, the wreckage pulls McMahon straight down, but he somehow frees himself from the sinking debris. He has the surreal sensation of being several yards underwater, looking up to see flames on the water’s surface. His body is too damaged to swim, but his life preserver pulls him toward the surface.

On what’s left of the deck, Kennedy opens his eyes. He’s clearly not dead. Getting his bearings and emerging from a daze, he hears men shouting, some nearby, some from the water. The Japanese destroyer has already disappeared into the darkness as quickly as it appeared, cleaving the smaller boat in two and leaving mostly floating wreckage in its wake.

A searing pain slices through Kennedy’s back. He’s had chronic back pain for years, ever since a teenage sports injury, but here, the impact has made it worse. Otherwise, he seems to be intact. Quickly gathering his wits, he knows what takes priority.

Wasting no time, he takes off his boots, strips down to his underwear and life jacket, and dives into the dark water strewn with debris and pools of burning oil.

The water is illuminated only by flames, and Kennedy follows the shouts, swimming in the direction of his injured crew. Two men have floated farther away than the rest, Gunner’s Mate Charles Harris and the machinist, McMahon. Nearly unconscious and with severe burns all over his body, McMahon can barely move.

“How are you, Mac?” Kennedy asks.

“I’m kind of burnt,” MacMahon replies, hardly able to talk.

Grabbing the wounded man and pulling him slowly back toward the debris, Kennedy swims against the current, tugging McMahon the whole way. Harris swims alongside them, struggling with an injured knee and the weight of his life jacket and sweater.

Meanwhile, those sailors who have the strength do their best to aid the rescue mission, pulling those who can’t swim themselves up onto the damaged boat. Some of the men have broken bones. Others are nearly passed out from inhaling noxious fumes. In the end, rescuing the injured crew takes over three hours. Eleven crew members are accounted for, with two crewmates still missing. Their bodies will never be found.

As the sun rises over the Solomon Sea, some crew are lying on top of what’s left of the boat’s sinking hull, while a few simply float in the water. Some have slept an hour or two; others, like Kennedy, not at all.

For nine hours, overnight and then through the morning, they cling to the debris, with the healthy crew aiding the wounded. They have no food or water, and with the morning light comes the blazing hot sun. They can already feel the first waves of dehydration. The remains of the hull are sinking, and some of the men desperately need medical attention.

For a while, they’re hopeful that the local command will stage a rescue mission to find them—but there are no ships on the horizon, no signs of U.S. aircraft above. With each passing hour, their hope of rescue fades.

They also know these waters aren’t safe. That destroyer probably wasn’t alone, and there are Japanese island bases not far away, just outside the perimeter of Allied control.

Kennedy, although barely a junior officer, has the highest rank in the group, so he’s the one who has to decide what to do. If they stay in the water, he knows it’ll bring almost certain death, especially with no sign of rescue.

The closest bit of land is a small strip of uninhabited rock and vegetation—Plum Pudding Island—three miles away. Getting there won’t be easy. The ocean is choppy, with unpredictable waves and currents. Making things harder, the men are weak and wounded. For some of them, a long swim could be fatal. But right now, Kennedy knows … there’s no choice.

From the floating debris, Kennedy and the crew extract a two-by-eight-foot plank of wood and tie a life jacket to it. The weaker men can keep a hand on the floating wood while the healthy take turns pushing the plank in the water, propelling everyone else. The plank also serves another purpose: they can tie their remaining shoes and the ship’s lantern to it while they swim.

There’s still one problem: the machinist, McMahon. He’s nearly incapacitated. His injured arms are too weak to even hold on to a plank in the water. For him, they’ll need to find another way.

Five years earlier, Kennedy was on the swim team at Harvard. Even with his injured back, he figures he’s the best swimmer in the water. Right there, a plan is made. While everyone else uses the plank, he’ll personally pull McMahon in the water, swimming for both of them, for three miles.

Thankfully, since McMahon is wearing a life preserver, the one thing he can do is float. Kennedy will need both arms to swim, so to pull him in the water he stretches a strap from McMahon’s life jacket and clasps it in his own teeth. That’s the only choice at this point. If he wants to get McMahon to the tiny island, it’s three miles with a clear objective: don’t drown.

At roughly 2:00 p.m.—that’s nearly twelve hours after the collision—the group sets out from the wreckage. Their progress is painfully slow. Even the uninjured men are dehydrated and weak. Kennedy does a simple breaststroke, trying to keep his head above water as he pulls McMahon with the strap in his teeth.

Every time Kennedy inhales, he gets a mouthful of salt water. Struggling to swim, he has to stop every ten minutes or so, coughing, gagging, and trying to catch his breath.

“How do you feel, Mac?” he keeps asking.

“I’m okay, Mr. Kennedy,” McMahon replies.

What starts as an hour-long swim becomes two hours, then three. Kennedy and McMahon get slightly ahead of the others. Pushing the plank while so many hold tight to it makes everyone’s movements awkward and slow.

Soon, though, the speck of land known as Plum Pudding Island starts growing bigger in the distance.

Just before dusk, after four straight hours of swimming, Kennedy is so exhausted he’s barely conscious. That’s when he feels it. Something solid beneath his toes.

It’s a bed of coral. He’s close. Only a few hundred feet to go.

He shouldn’t be surprised that it doesn’t get any easier. The coral is full of spikes and sharp edges, quickly lacerating his bare feet and legs as he stumbles toward shore, still pulling McMahon behind him.

As soon as Kennedy reaches solid ground he vomits and collapses, nauseous from the physical exertion and swallowing salt water. Pushing through the pain and the exhaustion, Kennedy and McMahon slowly crawl across the beach until they reach the bushes at the center of the tiny island.

It’s not much different for the others, who drag their damaged bodies toward the scraggly brush, using it as cover. For all they know, Japanese soldiers are lying in wait, or there’s a Japanese vessel nearby. For that reason, staying out of view is essential. As night falls, the men have all made it to the brush. They pass out in exhaustion, but somehow, they’re all still alive.

Looking back, it’s a miraculous swim. But their trials are far from over.

2

THE NEXT DAY…

August 3, 1943

In the morning, Kennedy and his crew take stock of their situation.

For the past thirty-six hours, none of them have had food or water. The injured are in terrible shape. McMahon’s burns are festering and swollen. He’s in excruciating pain, slipping in and out of consciousness.

On the tiny island they try foraging for sustenance, but after a few hours cautiously groping through the brush, rocks, grasses, and dried trees, they find no food or water.

Kennedy calculates that their island is a mile or two from a stretch of ocean known as Ferguson Passage. Sometimes the United States sends supply vessels and patrol boats through the passage, usually at night. Maybe, if one of them can swim out to the passage with a lantern, he could flag down a ship from the water.

The only question is, who should go?

Kennedy, who has been vomiting for much of the past twelve hours, and who has an injured back and wounds all over his feet and legs, chooses himself.

Wearing only his underwear and a pair of shoes to protect his feet from the sharp coral, he ties the ship’s lantern and a pistol to his life jacket. At roughly 3:00 p.m., he says goodbye to the rest of the crew and walks into the surf.

“These barracuda will come up under a swimming man and eat his testicles,” a seasoned sailor had warned Kennedy when he first arrived in the region.

As Kennedy swims along the reefs, the fish keep their distance, but the sailor’s words ring in his ears.

It takes a few hours of swimming through the waves to reach Ferguson Passage. Once there, he finds what he hopes is a location that’ll be visible to passing ships. Floating alone in the dark water, he readies the lantern.

At the slightest sound of a ship, he plans to wave the light. Maybe an American vessel will see him.

An hour goes by. Then another, and another. It’s dead silent. He spends most of the night there, floating by himself in the dark water. Not a single ship passes through.

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