Kennedy and the Coconut

Kennedy’s Coconut

On August 2, 1943, Kennedy was placed in a situation in which his personal courage was required to offset some very realistic fears. He had entered the US Navy and managed to use family contact with the former Naval attaché in London to volunteer for a combat assignment instead of the safe assignment in the United States facilitated by his well connected father, the recent US Ambassador in London. After completing training, he was assigned to a PT Boat squadron in the Solomon Islands and while idling at 2 AM on a single engine with muffler depressed and moving slowly to prevent a phosphorescent wake from developing that would expose PT-109 to Japanese aircraft, Kennedy’s PT boat was struck by the Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, moving at 40 knots, and split in two. Two men were lost but the remaining crew remained on the floating portion or in the water while holding on until the wreckage began to sink after 12 hours. At approximately 1 PM, Kennedy towed the severely burned man while the others swam or were towed over three and a half miles for four hours to arrive at Plum Pudding Island.

A secret military After Action Report, “Sinking of PT 109 and Subsequent Rescue of Survivors” was prepared from interviews by two Navy Intelligence officers on August 22, 1943. Part of it described Kennedy’s actions on the first night on Plum Pudding Island:

“That evening Lt. Kennedy decided to swim into Ferguson Passage in an attempt to intercept PT boats proceeding to their patrol areas. He left about 1800, swam to a small island ½ mile to the southeast, proceeded along a reef which stretched out into Ferguson Passage, arriving there about 2000. No PT’s were seen, but aircraft flares were observed which indicated that the PT’s that night were operating in Gizo not Blackett Strait and were being harassed as usual by enemy float planes. Kennedy began him return over the same route he had previously used. While swimming the final lap to the island on which the others were, he was caught in a current which swept him in a circle about 2 miles into Blackett Strait and back to the middle of Ferguson Passage, where he had to start his homeward trip all over again. On this trip he stopped on the small island just southeast of “home” where he slept until dawn before covering the last ½ mile lap to join the rest of his group. He was completely exhausted, slightly feverish, and slept most of the day.”1

During the summer of 1944, Kennedy encountered John Hersey who was a reporter for the New Yorker and discussed the PT 109 story. When Hersey asked if he could write the story, Kennedy asked him to talk with his crew members first and he met with three of them at the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Centre at Melville, Rhode Island. Hersey was accepted by the men who were immediately forthcoming, as was Kennedy, since Hersey had been a war correspondent during the Solomon Island campaigns and received a commendation from the Secretary of the Navy for his role in evacuating wounded men from Guadalcanal.2 Hersey’s story was more detailed than the more formal report prepared by the intelligence officers:

“It was early evening. It took half an hour to swim to the reef around the next island. Just as he planted his feet on the reef, which lay about four feet under the surface, he saw the shape of a very big fish in the clear water. He flashed the light at it and splashed hard. The fish went away. Kennedy remembered what one of his men had said a few days before, ‘These barracuda will come up under a swimming man ….’ He had many occasions to think of that remark in the next few hours.

“Now it was dark. Kennedy blundered along the uneven reef in water up to his waist. Sometimes he would reach forward with his leg and cut one of his shins or ankles on sharp coral. Other times he would step forward onto emptiness. He made his way like a slow-motion drunk, hugging the lantern. At about nine o’clock he came to the end of the reef, alongside Ferguson Passage. He took his shoes off and tied them to the life jacket, then struck out into open water. He swam about an hour, until he felt he was far enough out to intercept the PT’s. Treading water; he listened for the muffled roar of motors, getting chilled, waiting, holding the lamp. Once he looked west and saw flares and the false gaiety of an action. The lights were far beyond the little islands, even beyond Gizo, ten miles away. Kennedy realized that the PT boats had chosen, for the first night in many, to go around Gizo instead of through Ferguson Passage. There was no hope. He started back. He made the same painful promenade of the reef and struck out for the tiny island where his friends were. But this swim was different. He was very tired and now the current was running fast, carrying him to the right. He saw that he could not make the island, so he flashed the light once and shouted ‘Roger! Roger!’ to identify himself….

“Kennedy had drifted right by the little island. He thought he had never known such deep trouble, but something he did shows that unconsciously he had not given up hope. He dropped his shoes, but he held onto the heavy lantern, his symbol of contact with his fellows. He stopped trying to swim. He seemed to stop caring. His body drifted through the wet hours, and he was very cold. His mind was a jumble. A few hours before he had wanted desperately to get to the base at Rendova. Now he only wanted to get back to the little island he had left that night, but he didn’t try to get there; he just wanted to. His mind seemed to float away from his body. Darkness and time took the place of a mind in his skull. For a long time he slept, or was crazy, or floated in a chill trance.

“The currents of the Solomon Islands are queer. The tide shoves and sucks through the islands and makes the currents curl in odd patterns. It was a fateful pattern into which Jack Kennedy drifted. He drifted in it all night. His mind was blank, but his fist was tightly clenched on the kapok around the lantern. The current moved in a huge circle—west past Gizo, then north and east past Kolombangara, then south into Ferguson Passage. Early in the morning the sky turned from black to gray, and so did Kennedy’s mind. Light came to both at about six. Kennedy looked around and saw that he was exactly where he had been the night before when he saw the flares beyond Gizo. For a second time, he started home. He thought for a while that he had lost his mind and that he only imagined that he was repeating his attempt to reach the island. But the chill of the water was real enough, the lantern was real, his progress was measurable. He made the reef, crossed the lagoon, and got to the first island. He lay on the beach awhile. He found that his lantern did not work any more, so he left it and started back to the next island, where his men were. This time the trip along the reef was awful. He had discarded his shoes, and every step on the coral was painful. This time the swim across the gap where the current had caught him the night before seemed endless. But the current had changed; he made the island. He crawled up on the beach. He was vomiting when his men came up to him. He said, ‘Ross, you try it tonight.’ Then he passed out.”3

Kennedy took this highly dangerous swim alone at night in the Solomon Islands where there were more predators than just the fearsome barracuda. Sharks and the highly aggressive saltwater crocodiles were also found in these waters where being captured by the Japanese was just as hazardous for American prisoners as the crocodiles. Ensign George Ross was soon taking his turn in the darkness. From the Navy’s classified report:

“Nothing was observed on August 2 or 3 which gave any hope of rescue. On the night of the 3rd Ensign Ross decided to proceed into Ferguson Passage in another attempt to intercept PT patrols from Rendova. Using the same route as Kennedy had used and leaving about 1800, Ross ‘patrolled’ off the reefs on the west side of the passage with negative results. In returning he wisely stopped on the islet southeast of ‘home’, slept and thereby avoided the experiences with the current which has swept Kennedy out to sea. He made the final lap the next morning.”4

When the coconut supply was nearly depleted, the men left the island at noon, August 4, and swam to another small island with Kennedy again towing McMahon as before and arriving first of the men who had been caught in a strong current and had been slowed. Neither Kennedy nor Ross attempted the longer swim into Ferguson Passage that night but these two men swam to nearby Cross Island on the morning of August 5 in search of food, water, boats, or anything else that might be useful to the survivors. Before they began their swim, one of three New Zealand Curtis P-40 Warhawk aircraft made a strafing run on Cross Island, suggesting the presence of Japanese troops, but because of the increasingly acute food shortage the two officers started their swim and immediately hid in Naru Island’s brush while watching and listening for any indications of the Japanese.

After neither seeing now hearing anything that would have led them to believe that Japanese were on the island, the two men slipped through the concealing brush to the east side of Naru where they found a small rectangular box with Japanese writing on its side that was quickly pulled into the concealing brush. The box contained 30-40 small bags of hardtack and candy and a little further on the beach there was a small lean-to shelter with a one-man canoe and a very welcome small barrel filled with fresh water. Further out in the water they saw a wrecked Japanese barge that was aground on a reef with two men standing nearby. They were not wearing trousers, were obviously members of the local population and not Japanese soldiers, and despite the energetic efforts of Kennedy and Ross to get their attention, the two Solomon Islanders returned to their outrigger canoe and quickly paddled off to the northwest. While still isolated within enemy-controlled territory, the two men considered their risky trip successful since they had acquired a small canoe, some food, and fresh water.

Kennedy took the canoe during the night, paddled into Ferguson Passage where he remained until 9 PM without making contact with any patrolling PT boats, and returned to retrieve the food and water on his return to the rest of the crew. Since there was no room in the small canoe, he left Ross who had decided to swim back the following morning. When he arrived at the crew’s location, he found that the two islanders he and Ross had seen at the wrecked Japanese barge had circled around the island and had landed where the rest of the men were located. When Kennedy’s Executive Officer, Ensign Leonard J. Thom, managed to convince the two nervous men that the sailors were Americans and not Japanese, the two men landed and began to assist the crew. Thom was creative in his efforts to convince the Solomon Islanders:

“The natives seemed hesitant about approaching the bedraggled men. It was not until big Lenny Thom stepped forward that the tension eased. He repeated the phrase “white star, white star” over and over again. The natives knew that “white star” referred to the insignia on U.S. planes and that these were Americans. The natives gave the crew some C rations and water. Lenny then convinced them to take him back to their contact so he could get in touch with the base at Rendova. Lenny got into their canoe, but the canoe promptly swamped.

‘Lenny then used a pencil stub and wrote on the back of an invoice a note that the natives could take with them to Rendova.”5

On August 6, the next day, Kennedy and the two islanders paddled outward, intercepted Ross who was in the act of swimming back, and they searched the island for Japanese. When the two men were satisfied that they were still safe, they took the two officers to a hidden two-man outrigger canoe. As the two men departed, they were given messages to take to the nearby Australian coastwatcher. They had Ensign Thom’s penciled note from the previous day and Kennedy carved a second message into a green coconut. “ELEVEN ALIVE NATIVE KNOWS POSIT AND REEFS NAURU ISLAND KENNEDY.”

1 Narrative XXXX Kennedy Library pp. 3-4.

2 https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/25/obituaries/john-hersey-author-of-hiroshima-is-dead-at-78.html accessed December 20, 2020.

3 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1944/06/17/survival accessed December 20, 2020.

4 Narrative, Kennedy Library pg. 4.

5 https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2018/12/29/leonard-j-thom-jfks-xo-on-pt-109/ accessed January 3, 2021.