Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
JFK's PT-109 famously collided with a Japanese ship in World War II—and it sent the future president on a quest to get even for the loss of two men.
PT-109 was an 80-foot (24 m) Elco PT boat (patrol torpedo boat) last commanded by Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, future United States president, in the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific theater during World War II.
Days before, on JFK’s very first patrol, a Japanese fighter dropped two bombs close on either side of the PT 109, sending two of JFK’s crew home with serious injuries. The memory of the bone ...
Commanding the Patrol Torpedo Craft (PT) PT-109, Lieutenant Kennedy and his crew participated in early Allied war campaigns. On August 2, 1943, PT 109 was struck by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and the entire crew was thrown into the Pacific.
Fifteen PT boats ("Patrol Torpedo" boats) had set out to engage, damage, and maybe even turn back the well-known "Tokyo Express," the Japanese navy's more or less regular resupply convoy that enabled resistance to the advance of U.S. forces in the islands farther south.
Nearly 60 years ago a Japanese destroyer materialized out of a moonless night and smashed through PT-109, sending 26-year-old skipper John F. Kennedy into fiery waters to save his crew. Six...
Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy (standing, far right) with the crew of PT-109. Many of Kennedy’s crew actively campaigned for him when he ran for president almost two decades after their ship’s mishap.