#160: Jack's War is Over; JFK, Part VII

While the PT 109 survivors's saga comes to an end, it is not the end of the story. In this episode we learn why JFK decides to get into politics after the war - it was NOT his decision - and when his political career plateaus, we'll see the insane thing Joe, Sr. has his son do to take his political career to the next level. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The less than popular PT boss, Commander Warfield, can't believe that Jack and his crew are alive. Despite the radio message relayed by the Coast Watchers and the Native Scouts with Jack's carved coconut message and Linny's note in hand, he calls a meeting with all the PT boat skippers. This has to be a Japanese trick. They're using the natives to lure boats into a rescue attempt that will really be a trap, right? But those who have worked closely with the Solomon Islanders in the past, like the commander of PT-157, Bud Liebenau, consider them trustworthy allies and immediately believes their story. Eventually, Warfield agrees to risk one and only one boat, allowing Bud and his crew the chance to try to bring back Jack and his crew. In subsequent years, Bud will downplay the danger and difficulty of this rescue, which he will call a routine pickup. But it was unquestionably a hazardous journey into enemy held waters with no air cover and no reinforcements in case of attack. It is another dark night with occasional showers and poor to fair visibility, but the crew of one hundred fifty seven is anxious to see if their friends are still alive. Welcome back to Ghosts of Arlington. I am your host Jackson Irish tracing the shadows of Arlington National Cemetery through the lives buried there. Today, the rescue of the PT one hundred nine survivors and some of what the future holds for their commander once they get off their small island in the South Pacific. Thank you for joining me for episode one hundred and sixty Jack's War Ends JFK Part seven. By chance, two reporters from two of the largest syndicated American news sources happen to be on Rindova that day, and when they hear Ambassador Kennedy's son is going to be rescued, both manage to get a seat on PT one hundred and fifty seven to be there as it unfolds. When Commander Warfield tries to convince the native scouts that the mission will be dangerous, that they might encounter the Japanese and that they should stay at the base, John Carrie tells him there's no problem. If they live, we live. If they die, we die. Warfield lets them go but makes them sign statements saying they are going voluntarily before they head out. After a few more radio messages, it is decided one hundred fifty seven will first pick up Jack and Jack will guide them to Olisana Island and his crew. one hundred fifty seven heads out around seven PM on august seventh, nineteen forty three, just after sunset. Traveling as fast as he dares without giving away his position, but slower than he fears necessary to help those seriously wounded, Bud times his arrival in Japanese waters during the darkest time of this cool night, around midnight. For over four hours the boat crawls through the water while the native scouts direct Bud to Coast Watcher Reg's new outpost. One of the last radio messages before one hundred fifty seven left Rindova had everyone agree on a signal to identify that both groups are friendly forces. First, Bud would fire four shots and then Jack would answer with four of his own. As planned, Bud pulls out his forty five and fires four shots. To answer, Jack draws one of the thirty eights that survived the wreck and fires four shots of his own. Bang. Bang bang. Click. When he realizes he is out of ammo, but still one shot short of the signal, Jack uses a captured Japanese rifle Reg had lent him and fires the fourth shot. The recoil is so strong, or more likely, Jack is so weak from his ordeal, he almost falls out of his little canoe. As Jack approaches 157, Bud calls. Hey Jack, we've got some food for you. Jack jokes back. No thanks, I just had coconut. Jack boards the PT boat and quickly hugs the scouts and some of his rescuers. Bud is shocked at his friend's appearance. He later says he had a thick beard and appeared to weigh only one hundred ten pounds. He had made numerous long swims in the week before the pickup trying to intercept our regular patrols. I'm sure he was in great pain, but physical pain was part of life in those days. You just kept doing what you had to do. With your shipmates getting killed around you, you felt lucky to be alive and to be able to feel pain. The next thirty minutes consists of tricky navigation around shallow reefs and the near total dark. One member of the fifty seven crew described as an old sailor who had already been an experienced seaman when he joins the Navy, stands at the front of the boat with a lead line. He takes depth measurements and fathoms and safely guides the boat through the shoals right up to Olisana. It is a little after twelve thirty in the morning. The one hundred nine crew is asleep in the bushes but are soon aroused by Jack yelling for them. PT one hundred and fifty seven has some quote unquote medicinal whiskey and little bottles of brandy like you can get on an airplane today. Jack drinks two small brandies on the way to Olisana and on his near empty stomach, the effect is instantaneous, and Jack isn't thinking he should be quiet so as not to alert the Japanese of their presence at that moment. Linny emerges from the bushes feeling a little foolish. They had set up guards to watch for Jack in the night, but everyone had fallen asleep as exhausted as they are, and the rescue party snuck up on them. A dinghy is dropped over the side of one hundred fifty seven and makes its way ashore to the survivors. The most severely wounded are collected by a pharmacist's mate who has joined the rescue party, and by twelve fifteen AM everyone is aboard one hundred and fifty seven and ready to head back to Rendova. As the ship leaves Olisana behind, the crew of PT one hundred nine breaks out into a celebration, all except for Jack. He breaks down crying in a bunk below decks, bitter about the other skippers who left them behind. If they had come to look for us at the time of the collision, he thinks, maybe Marney and Kirksy could have been saved. At five hundred fifteen Sunday morning, august eighth, six days and three hours after the Amagiri split PT one hundred nine in half, the castaways make it back to the PT base on Rendova. In their short time together, Jack forms a strong bond with the two native scouts who saved him. He swears that if he lives long enough to get another command, he will come visit them and give them a ride in his new boat. During the celebratory feast that follows their arrival at Rendova, Yuku and Aroni sit in places of honor on either side of Jack at the head table. In the years that follow the rescue, some of the other PT boat captains criticize Jack's command of his boat that night, but even the notoriously difficult Warfield praises his actions after the one hundred nine sinks. I think you have to give him a hell of a lot of credit for getting out there and swimming out almost every night. Whether it was the most intelligent thing to do or not, you have to give him a hell of a lot of credit for doing it. He really tried to take care of his boys, no question about it. According to the On the Scene Reporters, the entire crew of PT one hundred nine praise Jack. To high heaven. Charles Harris said, Kennedy is the hero. He saved our lives. We owe him our lives. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here. I really feel that. I venture to say that there are very few men who would swim out in that ocean alone without knowing what is underneath you. Brother, I wouldn't do it. You could give me a million dollars and I wouldn't swim out there. It takes a lot of guts. I think he is great. Everyone in the crew thinks he is top notch. The debates about Jack's performance will continue for years, but as Bud later puts it, not one of the crew ever had anything bad to say about JFK, and they are the ones who know. After the rescue, the survivors moved nearby Tulagi for medical treatment. In addition to the burns some suffer, they are all treated for infected cuts and abrasions, skin funguses, and ear infections. The two severe burn victims are transferred to other hospitals, and Jack tells the rest of the crew they have earned a chance for some rest and relaxation. They can either take a month of RNR in New Zealand, or they can stay in the combat zone and go home a month sooner. They all choose the latter. Everyone likes the idea of getting back to the United States just a little bit earlier than planned. New orders arrive and the crew of PT one hundred nine scattered to the four winds. Jack closely follows the rescue of his injured, especially Pappy McMahon. In an unpublished nineteen forty six account of the rescue, Jack says When the survivors were finally picked up, McMahon was sent to a hospital at Guadalcanal. He remained there for over four months, and on his release he was ordered back to the United States for release from the service because of his badly scarred hands. McMahon, however, requested that he be permitted to remain in Tagali and help in the repair of old engines. Because of the great shortage at the time of experienced engineers and because of McMahon's persistent requests, he was allowed to stay for nearly six months more. He worked every day training new engineers, often disregarding doctors' advice and working on the engines himself. I saw him often with the thin skin of his hands cut and bleeding at the end of a day's work. But he still had that smile. McMahon's courage was an inspiration to us all. Jack Kennedy's war could have also ended right there. By losing his boat and enduring his agonizing ordeal of survival, he had earned himself a one way ticket home to the safety of shore duty, to a long rest and recuperation in the United States, the luxurious life of a globetrotting super rich bachelor with a golden future. But that is not what Jack does. He chooses to stay in the Solomon Islands, in the line of fire, and fight. Just three weeks after his rescue, a barely recovered Jack is given command of PT fifty nine, an older boat than one hundred nine, but one that will be modified for the new tactics PT boats are to be used for barge hunting. Over the course of the next several months, the torpedo tubes and depth charge launchers are removed and large deck guns are added, a twenty millimeter Orlacon cannon, ten fifty calibre machine guns, and two forty millimeter Beauforce cannons. Its deck is also reinforced with armor plate. The Navy will no longer go after warships with the PTs, but will use them to hunt the cargo ships doing most of the island resupply runs. In October, Kennedy is promoted to full lieutenant, despite still being underweight and using a cane to get around after the wreck exacerbates his already bad back, he manages to pass the promotion physical. A month later, he is diagnosed with an early dude and all ulcer, but that doesn't slow him down either. His new boat is almost finished, but he still lacks a new crew. One day out of the blue, he sees two familiar faces on the pier next to fifty nine, Maurer and Maguire, also now recovered. They both give their old skipper a hard time for getting a new boat and not telling them. They are the first two to volunteer to serve on the fifty nine. Jack is choked up at the gesture and nearly brought to tears. In time, three others who have previously served with Jack prior to the wreck also volunteer to sail with him again. Others, like Jack's new executive officer, Lieutenant JG Dusty Rhodes, sees this and comments on how well it reflects on Jack as a leader. Jack proudly writes home about his new command, have a picked crew, all volunteers and all very experienced, every man but one has been sunk at least once, and they have all been in boats for a long time. He also restarts the discussions on politics, history, and current events with his fellow officers, using back issues of popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, Life, and Colliers he finds or has sent from home. By the time a few PT boats are converted into gunships, the Japanese barge threat is largely over. Jack takes fifty nine out on a few patrols, is fired at by seaplanes a handful of times and fires on a few empty barges, but the Japanese have largely been pushed out of the Solomons. They have abandoned Ginzo and Columbangara and are slowly being pushed back to their home islands, a process that will take another two years. Like much of the PT boat experiment in World War II, the gunship conversions are also largely a failure, but Jack is able to use his to save about twenty lives on the night of one to two November. A group of US Marines are being pushed back into the sea at the mouth of the Warrior River by a Japanese garrison on an island called Lambu Lambu. When fifty nine arrives, most, but not all of the Marines have been evacuated, a few are in the water with a much larger Japanese force firing on them. Jack moves his boats between the Marines and the enemy and stays there shielding them until all Marines are pulled aboard. Jack never receives a medal for this action. His commander puts him in for a silver star for the one hundred nine incident, but the Navy downgrades that to the Navy and Marine Corps medal, which is a lifesaving medal, since the real heroics of that action occur outside of combat. It is awarded to the three officers from the crash, Jack, Linny, and Barney. I can hear all the enlisted folks listening in right now, muttering a collective that figures under their breath. They are probably also muttering a few more colorful things about officers too. Because his is the best known of the group, I am going to finish Jack's story before I move on to the rest of the crew, and I'm going to try to be as brief as possible, so wish me luck. Spoiler, I am going to bleed into at least one more episode. By November nineteen forty three, Jack is a physical wreck. He is relieved of command when he comes down with both malaria and colitis, an inflammable bowel disease, and is sent to the hospital. While there, even more issues are found with his back and this time they are recorded in his medical records. By late December, it is clear that he will never fully recover and he is officially detached from the PT squadron. He returns to the US on the escort carrier USS Britain via Samoa and Pago Pago back to San Francisco. He spends the rest of the war stateside and is medically discharged and placed on the retired list on march first, nineteen forty five. Jack Kennedy had begun the war as a pampered, globetrotting young man barely out of college, but now after nine months in a combat zone between the PT one hundred nine crash and the rescue of his crew and the Marines at Warrior River, he had proven to himself and to others that he was capable of leadership and command and possessed considerable courage under fire. Though he was back in the States he continued to travel, first to see an old girlfriend in Hollywood who is now a syndicated newspaper columnist. It is clear to both of them that their romance is over, but she interviews Jack for an article that is picked up on the front page of the Boston Globe, in which he eschews all reference to his own gallantry, saying None of that hero stuff about me. The real heroes are not the men that return, but those who stay out there, like plenty of them do, two of my men included. He next spends several weeks at the family's Mediterranean Palazzo style estate in Palm Beach, Florida, relaxing and continuing his recovery while his mother dotes on him. Then it is on to New York City for a few days before returning to the PT school in Rhode Island for a time. While at the school, Jack is approached by reporter John Hersey, wanting to write the story of PT one hundred nine for the wildly popular Life magazine. Jack agrees but insists the reporter first speak with several members of the PT one hundred nine crew to get their accounts of the story. This is relatively easy as by this time most of the crew is also teaching at the PT school. Hersey later said his insistence that I see the crew first struck me very favorably. It didn't seem to me to be self serving. There was a real kind of officer modesty about it. The crew was wildly devoted to him, all of them, no reservations about it, they really did like him. To Hersey's shock, life rejects the article for unknown reasons. It is eventually sold to the New Yorker which has a much smaller audience. Jack doesn't seem too disappointed by this, but Joe Sr. certainly is. He is hoping to get his son's story out there as a boost to his quickly approaching post Navy career. This is when inspiration strikes. Joe Sr. convinces the even more popular than life reader's digest to publish an abridged account of Jack's tale. The story, which is eventually published in the Digest, in june nineteen forty four, makes Jack Kennedy a national hero. The New Yorker piece is a sweeping five thousand word narrative that includes details of everyone who had a hand in the rescue. The reader's digest abridgement is chopped down to the point that Jack is by far the main character, and when it comes to the rescue, his carved coconut makes the cut, but Lenny's handwritten note does not. Neither do the Coast Watchers or any of the native scouts. Despite all this, it is not a typical propaganda piece of daring do, but an authentic meditation on human endurance against the primal forces of nature, from which Jack emerges as a youthful hero who has enormous bravery and energy, but who is transformed by chastening experience. This article becomes the founding document of the JFK myth. It is a promotional coup for Joe Sr. and his efforts to promote his son to the nation at large. When the other survivors of PT one hundred nine read the article, they are surprised by what they see, but not in a negative way. In Barney Ross's words, our reaction to the one hundred nine thing had always been that we were kind of ashamed of our performance. That Hersey article made us think that maybe we weren't so bad after all. We'd never go around saying, Hey, did you hear about us? But suddenly your name's in print and Hersey made you sound like some kind of hero because you saved your own life. I suppose my reaction to the article was to be pleased with myself. I had always thought it was a disaster, but he made it sound pretty heroic, like Dunkirk. Already a best selling author and now a decorated war hero and budding media darling, Jack is finally stepping out of his brother Joe Senior. For his part, by late summer 1944, Joe Sr. has flown 35 bomber missions over Europe, more than nearly every other pilot in the Army Air Corps. He has more than earned the right to return home, but instead, the ultra-competitive Joe Jr. volunteers for a dangerous mission that, if successful, could help ease the onslaught of German rockets on London. He takes off from a Royal Air Force base in England on August 12, 1944. Eighteen minutes into the mission, his aircraft blows up over Suffolk, most likely due to the premature detonation of 21,000 pounds of explosives aboard. Joe Jr. and his one crewmate are killed instantly. Of Jack's older brother, historian Alex Axelrod writes, driven by a hunger to redeem the Kennedy name from his father's errors of political and moral judgment, by lifelong competitiveness with his younger brother, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, hero of PT-109, and, more selflessly, by a passionate desire to spare London further rocket devastation, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. answered the call. With his brother's death, the heavy mantle of his father's political ambitions lands squarely on Jack's fragile, sickly shoulders. He laments to a friend, I'm now shadow boxing in a match where the shadow is always going to win. Jack is discharged from the Navy in December 1944, four months after his brother's death, and spends months in Arizona trying to recover his health. During his convalescence, he comes to an agreement with Joe Sr. that he is now the anointed one. Years later, he tells a reporter, It was like being drafted. My father wanted his oldest son in politics. Wanted wasn't the right word, he demanded it. You know my father. Jack would have preferred to remain a writer. Joe Sr. confirms this quote unquote understanding in 1957, saying, I got Jack into politics. I was the one. I told him Joe was dead and it was therefore his responsibility to run for Congress. He didn't want to. He felt he didn't have the ability and still feels that way. But I told him he has to. Part of the agreement is that the initial campaign will lean heavy into the combat veteran angle. In December 1945, Jack dedicates a VFW post named after his brother and begins building a campaign staff packed with young veterans for a run at the 11th Congressional District of Massachusetts. In April 1946, he formally announces that he is running for the U.S. Congress. Following the announcement, the press makes up a story about Jack deciding to serve his country in peace as well as at war while aboard PT-109 when people were dying all around him. During the campaign, Jack hones a stump speech that focuses on the heroics of PT-109 while downplaying his own role. It is a humble yet clever strategy that Jack will use for the rest of his career. The air of his ah shucks modesty, combined with his increasing fame, makes audiences love him even more. In 2014, a former Kennedy White House aide said, He wasn't much of a braggart, he wasn't much for self-psychoanalyzing either. He didn't like the campaign so much, but the story became well known thanks to the efforts of his father. The 1946 primary campaign is a hard-fought one, but in the late stages, Joe Sr. engineers a coup de gras, blanketing key election neighborhoods with thousands of copies of the Reader's Digest article in pamphlet form. Jack wins the primary and coasts to victory in the general election in November, winning more than 70% of the vote. In January 1947, Jack heads to Washington, D.C. to be sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the next six years, Jack's health grows worse. He loses weight and is sometimes mistaken for a skinny young congressional page or elevator operator, and he compiles an undistinguished political record as a carefree bachelor playboy congressman. Jack seems destined to languish in Congress as a bit player. The path to higher office is blocked by Kennedy family arch rival, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a liberal Republican, decorated World War II veteran, and the grandson of the man who had beat Jack's grandfather in a clash for a U.S. Senate seat in 1916. Lodge looks poised to be elected for a third term in the Senate in 1952, while Joe Sr.'s ambitions for his son seem doomed to disappointment. But as usual, Joe Sr. has an idea, a big one. He believes his son can defeat Lodge and move into the Senate. Following his own adage that things don't just happen, they're made to happen by the public relations field. Joe decides his son should boost his credentials as an expert in global affairs and foreign relations as befitting a senatorial candidate. So he sends Jack on an around the world fact-finding trip, accompanied by two of his siblings, his brother Bobby and his sister Patricia. The trip will climax, the elder Kennedy decides, in Japan, for a surprising photo op designed to generate headlines around the world and attach his son's face to an historic image of grace, humility, and mature diplomacy. Jack will go to Japan and track down the former commanding officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Amagiri and embrace the man who almost killed him. That will be next week on the Ghosts of Arlington podcast. Or maybe the week after that, possibly even the week after that. I have some family coming into town for a competition my daughter will be involved in, and things may get a little hectic around the Irish household. But whether it is in one or two or three weeks, I really think the next episode will be the last in this saga of John F. Kennedy and the crew of PT-109. But today I'm gonna leave you with a song from 1962. At this time, Kennedy is already president. I know.

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Spoilers.

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But it was written about the 109 crash, so it seems like the perfect song with which to end today's episode.

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In 43 they put the sea, thirteen men and Kennedy aboard the PP-109 to fight the brazen enemy, and off the Isle of Olaspana in the street beyond the room, a dead destroyer in the night, got the 109. And on the coast, I'll menar look into his telescope on him. Oh more flingin' out my water, my water, my last of a mana good many on the arch one was burned so badly couldn't swim, leave me here, go always with if you don't. We'll all be there. Couldn't leave them a man to die alone it's the trap wheat's team, don't be army putting through this thing. Oh the end of the day, the eating cop, oh yeah, had the best of a many good man He led his men through water's dark, rocky breeze and hungry shark, brave the enemy's bayonet, a 38 hung round his neck, four more days, four more nights, a rescue boat pulled in the side, the BT-109 was gone, but Kennedy and his crew lived on. Now who could guess, or who could possibly know, that this same man named Kennedy would be the leader of the nation, be the one to take the man BP109 was gone, but Kennedy lived to find again Smoking Fine on the Credit was the end of me, but DFK and it through lived on. Which proves it's hard to get the best of a man named John.