#157: Ripped in Two; JFK, Pat IV

Jack Kennedy finally takes command of a PT boat in a combat zone and begins to settle in to what turns our to be a fairly rough existence is a place that turns out to be less of a paradise than thought at first glance.

His commander, not a PT man himself, comes up with a plan to attack a Japanese convoy but the plan isn't great to start with and after it's implementation, everything that can go wrong, seems to; which will nearly cost Jack his life.

The introduction and transition music heard on the podcast is composed and recorded by the eldest Ghosts of Arlington, Jr. While the rest of his catalogue is quite different from what he's performed for me, you can find his music on bandcamp.com under the names Caladrius and Bloodfeather.

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Transcript

It's a moonless night in the Blackett Strait off the coast of the Solomon Islands; August 1, 1943, to be exact. Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy, barely two months past his twenty-sixth birthday, skips his patrol torpedo boat PT-109 across oily black waters at 23 knots. Radar picks up Japanese destroyers—big, fast killers. Jack orders one engine idled to dim the glowing wake, hiding from spotter planes overhead.

Then, catastrophe. The Imperial Japanese destroyer INJ Amagiri materializes from nowhere, ramming PT-109 amidships at full speed. The 80-foot boat splits like matchwood in seconds. Fuel ignites in a roaring inferno. Two crewmen vanish instantly. Jack dives into the flaming chaos, grabs injured engineer Patrick McMahon by the life jacket strap—in his teeth—and swims him through the blaze to the floating bow section.

As the flames die, Jack rallies the survivors with the simple words: "We have a long night ahead of us."

Welcome back to Ghosts of Arlington. I'm your host, Jackson Irish, tracing the shadows of Arlington National Cemetery through the lives buried there. Today, the chaos and poor command decisions that nearly cost the future president of the United States his life. Thank you for joining me for Episode 157: Ripped in Two; JFK, Part IV.

[INTRO MUSIC]

PT-109 is designed for a crew of 9-10 sailors and 2-3 officers. PT boats typically include a radio operator, quartermaster, torpedoman’s mates, gunner’s mates, mechanics called motor machinist mates (or motormacs), and often (but not always) a cook. Each member of the crew is cross-trained for many of these duties, in order to pitch in when injury or crisis strikes a specialist.

Jack soon discovers for himself that life aboard a PT boat in the South Pacific could be a wretched existence. The incessant pounding when traveling at high speeds (and they were often traveling at high speeds) wreak havoc on his back. The mountainous Solomon Islands, while scenically beautiful, are rich with cockroaches, rats, lizards, sand crabs, black flies, mosquitos, malaria, dengue, dysentery, trench foot, tropical fever, elephantiasis, and periods of unrelenting rainfall. 

Crews often sleep aboard the boats where clothes and mattresses are drenched in sweat and stink from the stifling tropical heat. In the words of Navy historian Charles Koburger, “They were hot. They were rich in only mud and coconuts. They were wet from May to October, rainy from November to April, and humid all the time.”

Amid the misery, PT boat crews occasionally savour flashes of tropical beauty: a sandy cove flanked by lush vegetation, a sun-drenched vision of deep, crystal clear water, or a passing breeze with honeysuckle scent. The food also leaves much to be desired - crews eat mainly out of cans, take vitamins to supplement nutrients the food lacks, and occasionally augment meals with powdered eggs or Aircraft Emergency rations.

On PT-109, Jack deputizes seaman and quartermaster Edman Edger Mauer as the cook, though he had little culinary experience. His repertoire revolves largely around variations of Spam - a favorite of the children in the Irish house, but not necessarily by US sailors in the 1940s. Whenever he can, Jack scrounges, begs, and trades with cargo or Army PX stations in the region for delicacies like Oh, Henry candy bars, real eggs, powdered ice cream and can be reconstituted with ice in the boat’s small refrigerator, and bread and cheese for his treasured cheese sandwiches. 

PT boat patrols are either tediously boring or terrifyingly dangerous. At this point in time, allied victory in the Solomon Island campaign is not a sure thing and PT-109 is frequently subjected to sudden air attacks by Japanese planes.

In the weeks between taking command of PT-109 on April 25 and July 20, 1943, the final crew of the boat takes shape. Jack’s executive officer - the boat’s second in command - is Ensign Leonard Thom - a former collegiate football star from Sanduskie, Ohio. Lennie is a holdover from PT-109’s previous skipper, who happened to have been a student of Jack’s back when he taught at the PT boat schoolhouse. The two officers quickly become fast friends and get along well.

The same day Jack takes command, Gunner’s Mate Second Class Charles “Buckey” Harris joins the crew; a twenty-year-old former tire factory worker from Watertown, Massachusetts. He is followed by the quiet, friendly Torpedoman Second Class from Georgia, Andrew Jackson Kirksey. He is married with two sons, ages five and three. Early on, Jack grows fond of Kirksey and enjoys looking at his family pictures and hearing stories about his boys.

Next comes Radioman Second Class John Maguire, a twenty six year old from Dobbs Farry, New York who quit his factory job to follow his brother in PT boat service in the South Pacific. He later confided to a friend that when he first met Jack his immediate thought was, “Geez, I don’t know if I want to go out [to sea] with this guy. He looks fifteen.” Keep in mind, the two are about the same age.

In the following weeks, other crewmen arrive, including: Twenty-year-old Seaman First Class Raymond Albert of Akron, Ohio, and four motor machinist mates: six-year Navy veteran Gerard Zinser from Illinois; nineteen-year-old Harold Marney from Massachusetts; thirty-three year old, Scottish-born, former truck driver William Johnston; and PT-109’s oldest crewmember, forty-one-year old former school teacher Patrick McMahon, from Pasadena, California - who everyone called “Pappy” or “Pop” because of course they did. As motormacs, these four have the tough job of working down in the hot engine room, tending to PT-109’s loud, temperamental engines.

Torpedoman Second Class Raymond Starkey, a 29-year-old with a wife and son back in Garden Grove, California transferred to PT-109 from another PT boat because his former skipper was <<QUOTE>> “an Ivy League snob." Despite Jack’s Harvard background, Starkey found his new skipper “all business, but with a sense of humor and modest and considerate of the enlisted men.”

Other crewmen would rotate in and out due to injuries and routine manpower shuffles, but the 12 above named sailors form the core of the PT-109 crew and would soon be forever bonded together.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

Jack quickly gains the respect and admiration of his crew. They see him as fair, humble, approachable, and relaxed, yet also confident, highly capable, and willing to dirty his hands when the boat needs painting and other manual labor.

When not at sea, Jack shares a tent with a few other PT boat captains. One tent mate, Johnny Iles, later told historians, “His boat was shipshape and his crew was well organized, orderly. He was twenty-five - he was an old man - the rest of us were a bunch of kids.” Another tentmate - and future US Ambassador to Australia, William Battle, said, “Jack Kennedy impressed me as almost being right out of central casting for a job as skipper of a PT boat. He was exciting. He was smart, quick, great sense of humor. He could laugh at himself. Just a wonderful companion.”

Jack also impresses his superiors. In May, his squadron commander gives him a perfect 4.0 fitness report rating in ship handling and a 3.9 in ability to command, writing that he “met all situations with proficiency and daring that make him a credit to the Naval service.”

Yes, many officers knew who this rich, best-selling-author, son-of-an-ambassador, is, but that is a hindrance if anything. Having already developed preconceived notions of the man - most are surprised to find he is both competent and likeable. Most of the enlisted men didn’t know who he was - or didn’t care - and are just happy to have a capable commander.

In his spare time, Jack devours all the books and magazines he can lay his hands on and holds informal discussion groups about politics or the events of the day. He also has an old victrola record player on which he spins his favorite pop and show tunes, including “That Old Black Magic,” “Blue Skies,” and Frank Sinatra’s “All or Nothing at All.” The song he plays the most is Ira Gershwin’s “My Ship” from the Broadway show Lady in the Dark. The lyrics seem perfect for a daydreaming sailor: Play from “My ship has sails that are made of silk - when my ship comes in.  

Now there is one teeny-tiney, absolutely massive problem with PT Boats, they are completely useless in combat. The torpedoes the US Navy gave them in 1943 were based on a terribly inaccurate model from World War I that even in the rare event it hit a target, it almost always failed to detonate. It will take the navy senior leadership a long time to realize this and try to remedy the situation. In the meantime, PT-boats have to get within two miles (less than three and a half kilometers) of their target to even have a chance at hitting it; this almost always puts them well within range of their much larger targets' deck guns.

Thirty years after the war, former PT Boat skipper Leonard Nikoloric said, “Let me be honest, Motor Torpedo Boats were no good. You couldn’t get close to anything without being spotted. I suppose we attacked capital ships maybe forty times. I think we hit a bunch of them but whether we sank anything is questionable. I got credit for sinking a destroyer, but I don’t think it sank. The PT brass were the greatest con artists of all times. They got everything they wanted, the cream of everything, especially personnel. But the only thing the PT’s were really effective at were raising War Bonds.”

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

In mid-July 1943, PT-109 moves to a new base in the Solomons, the island of Rendova, a base on the front line of combat. From this tiny island they operate under three main missions: 1. Intercept Japanese commercial barge traffic between nearby enemy-held islands, 2. To harass Japanese navy supply convoys known as the “Tokyo Express”, and 3. To block Japanese attacks in the area.

Even if the senior officials back in the states didn’t realize it, by now, most frontline commanders realized PT boats didn’t have the strength, range, or accuracy to engage surface warships like destroyers - but they could go up against cargo ships.

On August 1, 1943, Jack’s new commander, the largely unliked Commander Thomas Warfield, received a communication that included intelligence from broken Japanese naval codes that the “Tokyo Express” would pass nearby that evening. While famed-Admiral Arleigh Burk’s destroyer squadron and another larger PT squadron would be the main force in an attack on the convoy, Warfield could send out his fifteen operational PT boats on the very northern edge of their patrol zone.

Warfield was not an experienced PT Boat commander and the plan that he came up with - to split his 15 boats up into four teams to hunt for targets - was problematic. You see, the night was supposed to have no moon and be pitch black. This was potentially good for the PT Boats until you factor in that they were ordered to maintain radio silence and stay within visual sight of each other. In these low light conditions it was hard enough to see a hand in front of your face, let alone the boat next to you. Also, only four boats - one in each group - had radar which would also make it difficult for the other boats to see enemy targets. Warfield might have known this if he ever went out on patrol with his boats, but he didn’t. He preferred to manage things from his command tent back on base.

After being briefed on the night’s operation, Jack goes to break the news to his crew when he runs into Ensign George “Barney” Ross - an acquaintance from the PT training base. Ross is a man without a boat - his had been sunk a few days earlier in a friendly fire incident. Ross asks if he can join PT-109 for the operation and Jack, who is already short a couple of crewmembers, welcomes him aboard. The addition of Ross brings the crew count to unlucky number thirteen in the superstitious navy. At least one member of PT 109 thought the number, and late addition of a guest, were bad omens for the operation.

At dinner that night, before the boats went out, crewmember Andrew Jackson Kirksey’s hands are shaking so severely that he had to place his cup on the table to drink from it. He had been talking about a premonition of his death for several days. Now that the boat was going out on a scheduled night off, he told anyone who would listen that he would not be coming back. Edman Mauer tries to talk Kirksey into taking the night off, saying, “I think you should stay ashore tonight. No one will make anything of it. You’ll be okay in the morning.” Though terrified, Kirksey refuses. His primary concern is that the rest of the crew will think he’s yellow - he apparently fears that more than death.

After dinner Kirksey, and the rest of the crew board PT 109, don their life jackets, and cast off, while Jack from the boat’s small cockpit, pushes the three throttle handles forward and puts to sea as dusk falls over the overcast sky.

By 9:30 pm, the patrol is well underway. To increase the area they cover, the teams of four boats are divided again into teams of two boats. Now it’s only every other team that has a radar; Jack’s boat, now paired with PT 162, does not have a radar and they are the western-most boats in the formation and the enemy is expected to be traveling west to east.

Around 11 pm, a search light from a Japanese-held island lights up PT-109 and artillery from the shore opens fire. After some evasion maneuvers by Jack, the light goes out but now the enemy knows that PT boats are in the area. While PT 162 is able to more-or-less remain near PT 109, they both lose contact with the two-boat team nearest them and as such, the rest of the patrol, too.

A little after midnight, some of the boats make contact with the enemy. They think they are attacking relatively harmless barges but it turns out to be Japanese destroyers - the “Tokyo Express” is about an hour ahead of schedule; because of this, the American destroyers aren’t even in the area yet.   

PTs 109 and 162 start hearing garbled radio traffic over the unreliable ship-to-ship radios but it is very hard to make out and doesn’t paint a clear picture of what’s going on. This confusion continues for the next two and a half hours. 

While the US sailors in the Blackett Straight don’t really know what’s happening that night, hopefully I can paint a picture for you. The Tokyo Express continues traveling away from 109 and 162. It passes the next picket line and is fired on by PT Boats to no effect. This happens again and again and again. Every American torpedo fired - so far, 24 in total - all miss.

One of the other boat commanders there that night later says, “There was more confusion in that battle than at any other time in the history of PT boats. We had fifteen boats, everybody attacked on their own. Nobody communicated anything of value. Shouts and screams over the radio were all I heard.”

The Tokyo Express reached its destination on the island of Kolombangara at 12:30 am and began unloading its supplies for the Japanese garrison there, including 900 reinforcements.With their mission complete, four destroyers began their return voyage to Rabaul around two in the morning.

The five PT boats who have fired their torpedoes - including all four boats with radar sets - return to base, but the rest, stick around to see if they can hit the express as it returns home. 109 and four others remain in the straight where they encountered the destroyers in the first place; five others are just outside the straight. With the darkness and order to maintain radio silence, most boats quickly find themselves alone again; and their commander - in his tent back at base - was making no effort to coordinate this attack, much like he had done, or better yet hadn’t done, during the first attack. 

As the clock passes 2:15 am, Jack is at the wheel of PT 109 with radioman John Maguire standing next to him. Harold Marney mans the forward gun turret. Barney Ross is the lookout on the forward deck. Pappy McMahon is on watch at his post down in the engine room. Raymond Albert stands watch near the machine gun on the port side, gunnery Raymond Starkey is acting as lookout in the rear gun turret, and Gerard Zinser was on the deck, having just come off watch. Four men are not up and alert: Ensign Lenny Thom, Charles Harris, William Johnstone, and the still-sure-he-is-going-to-die Andrew Kirksey are off-duty, relaxing or dozing on deck.

The boat is caressed by a gentle ocean breeze and the sound of water lapping at its side. Only one of the three powerful engines are engaged, to keep down the boat’s telltale wake - this makes the boat harder to spot and makes it easier for the crew to hear the approach of ships or planes. According to Jack, visibility is poor - the sky is cloudy - and there is a heavy mist over the water. Suddenly, Ensign Ross - the forward look out - senses, more than sees, an immense shape less than 1,000 yards away and closing rapidly and yells “Ship at two o’clock!” Jack has less than 20 seconds to react.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

Lieutenant Commander Kohei Hanami stands at the helm of the 2,000-ton Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Amagiri - whose name means “Heavenly Mist” - as it speeds through the darkness. All he sees before him is blackness - the low clouds and rainsqualls see to that. Hanami later remembers, “I stood on the bridge, straining to see as we moved northward up Blackett Straight… I had ordered ‘battle alert,’ since we were under constant harassment by… torpedo boats [that] night.”

This 34-year-old grandson of a feudal samurai warrior graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1929, and joined a Japanese Navy goodwill training cruise to the United States shortly after. He traveled to Hawaii, several ports on the West Coast, and passed through the Panama Canal before heading on to New York City. He had grown fond of America and was impressed by the friendliness of its people. He recalled that on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, “All of us felt a terrible thing was about to happen. Most naval officers were opposed to a war with the United States. We realized Japan had virtually no chance of victory. But if it had to be war, we resolved to do our best.” And that is what he is trying to do on this night; his best.

Hanami’s ship is acting as a scout for the three other destroyers - Arashi (“Storm”), Shigure (“Drizzle”), and Hagikaze (“Clover Wind”) - on their return to the Japanese superbase at Rabal on the island of New Britain. By this point in the war, the tide seems to be turning against the Japanese after losses at the Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal. In the Solomons, Japanese shipping losses are heavy, and their aircraft and pilot casualties are alarming. 

All four ships are heading northwest, back toward base and picking up speed. Because of the recent PT boat activity, they travel under a blackout. That, and the poor weather,  Hanami briefly loses sight of the other ships but after some maneuvering, he spots them and once again takes the lead.

Many Japanese officers hate these supply runs that make them feel more like mail carriers than gallant warriors. Captain Yasumi Toyama - chief of staff to the Destroyer Squadron 2 commander, griped in a diary entry, “We are more a freighter convoy than a fighting squadron these days - the damned Yankees have dubbed us the Tokyo Express - we transport cargo to that cursed island - what a stupid thing! …we… [drop off supplies] and run away. It is a strenuous and unsatisfying routine.”

The destroyers travel at nearly 35 knots - truly breakneck speed for the reef-infested straight - when a lookout cries “ship ahead.” Hanami orders the man to look again and the call comes back, “Torpedo boat to the forward port.”

Hanami leans over the rail at the extreme starboard side of the bridge, straining to see forward. He spots a small dark object 800 to 1000 yards away, just slightly to the right - almost dead ahead. He figures the two ships would collide in less than 20 seconds. It would be too difficult to hit a target as small and as close as the torpedo boat is so he decides that ramming the boat is the best way to deal with it. He orders the helmsman to turn ten degrees to the right to take the target head on. The enemy vessel disappears as if swallowed up by the Amagiri; there is an instantaneous dull thud, followed by a brilliant flash of light.

“We crashed right into it,” remembers Hanami. “I saw the enemy ship break in two with a tremendous roar. White gasoline flames shot out. The torpedo boat disappeared in the dark. I knew that at least one half and probably both halves sank… I thought no one on the small boat survived.”

But Commander Hanami is wrong, the collision leaves eleven American men widely scattered across the surface of the ocean, several of them wounded, struggling in pools of burning gasoline, and choking on the fumes amid the wreckage of their boat. For these eleven men lost in enemy waters, their ordeal is just beginning.

Next week on the Ghosts of Arlington Podcast we will see what fate awaits Jack and his crewmates after they are thrown violently into the ocean… I know this is what he wanted, but I wonder if, just for a moment, Jack thinks of his old cushy desk job back at the Office of Naval Intelligence as he flies through the air.

Play the selection from My SHip again.