#162: The Other Survivors of PT 109; JFK, Part VIII

The other men involved in the PT 109 lived very different lives and had many different fates. One didn't survive the war, two more failed to outlive their skipper, and the rest had lives as varied and one should expect - but they were all connected by two things, their trauma bonding about their survival epic in the waters around the Solomon Islands, and their love for Jack Kennedy.

This week's Ghosts are Arlington are:

1. Navy Seaman First Class Raymond Albert - Bet Olam Cemetery, Beachwood, OH
2. Navy Lieutenant Leonard Thom - Calvary Cemetery, Youngstown, OH
3. Navy Ensign Leon Drawdy - Drawdy Rose Cemetery, Orlando, FL
4. Navy Motor Machinist's Mate First Class William Johnston - Wildwood Cemetery, Seabrook, NH
5. Navy Torpedomen's Second Class Ray Starkey - ashes scattered at sea
6. Navy Ensign George "Barney" Ross - St. Luke's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Bethesda, MD
7. Navy Motor Machinist's Mate First Class Patrick McMahon - Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, CA
8. Navy Radioman Second Class John Maguire - H. Warren Smith Memorial Cemetery, Jacksonville Beach, FL
9. Navy Motor Machinist's Mate Second Class Ed Drewitch - Locus Grove Cemetery, Philo, IL
10. Navy Chief Engineman Gerard Zinser - Arlington National Cemetery; Section 54, Grave 4089
11. Australian Royal Navy Lieutenant Reginal Evans - Northern Suburbs Memorial Garden, Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
12. Native Coastwatcher Biuku Gasa - Vavuvu Village, Kauvi Island, Western Solomons
13. Native Coastwatcher Eroni Kumana - Kumana Family Cemetery, Gizo, Western, Solomon Islands

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So what ultimately happened to the crew of PT one hundred nine? We know that Torpedoman's mate second class Andrew Jackson Kirksy, age twenty six, and Motor Mac second class, Harold Marney, age eighteen, are killed when PT one hundred nine collides with the Japanese destroyer IJN Amagiri. Both of their names are listed on the wall of the missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. Marney also has a cenotaph at the Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Agawa, Massachusetts. One other member of the crew never makes it home from the South Pacific. On october seventh, just two months after the rescue, seaman first class Raymond Albert is serving on PT one hundred sixty three during one of the final fights for the Solomon Islands. The Japanese are attempting to evacuate a six hundred man garrison from Vella Vela Island in the midst of a raging battle. During the fight, the Japanese destroyer Yagumo is sunk. PT one hundred and sixty three and other boats go about pulling survivors from the water and taking them prisoner. One of these prisoners tells Albert he needs some water. As Albert goes to give the man a drink, the POW grabs Albert's gun and shoots him in the chest at point blank range. An attempted mutiny occurs as several other POWs jump to their feet and try to take over the boat. Albert and one other American are killed in the attempt. Albert is buried in a temporary Allied cemetery in the Solomons until his remains are returned to the United States in nineteen forty eight and are interred at Bet Olam Cemetery in Beachwood, Ohio near Akron, in section nine, row seven, grave thirteen. He is either twenty or twenty one years old. 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 vignettes of the others made famous in the PT one hundred nine sinking. Thank you for joining me for episode one hundred and sixty two The Other PT one oh nine Survivors JFK Part eight. After the rest of the survivors return home from World War II, as could be expected, their lives take various turns. Two fail to outlive their skipper. Executive officer Ensign Linny Tom eventually receives command of his own boat, PT five hundred eighty seven. When he is released from active duty, he returns home and enroll in a master's program at his alma mater, Ohio State University, where he had played football as an undergraduate before the war, and begins working at an insurance company. Unfortunately, on october fourth, nineteen forty six, his car is hit by a train and he is killed. Navy Lieutenant Leonard J. Tom, survived by his wife and two young children, is twenty nine years old. When his funeral is held at the Calvary Cemetery in Youngstown, Ohio, his close friend John F. Kennedy is one of his pallbearers. I was unable to find many post war details about motormac Leon Drody, not at all uncommon for a regular guy who wanted nothing more than to return home from the war and lead a normal life, as so many veterans desired to do. We already know that he was one of the men who joined Kennedy when he got his new command after PT one hundred nine, so he was likely present for the rescue of the Marines we talked about in episode one hundred and sixty. A native Floridian, he returned to the Sunshine State after the war and worked in orange groves for a time. According to his obituary, a blurry copy of which can be found on findagrave. com, he died in Orange County, Florida on november twelfth, nineteen sixty two as a result of injuries sustained when a tree fell on him. He was forty nine years old. Recently elected, the president was unable to attend his former crewman's funeral. He did, however, send a letter that was read for all present by Navy chaplain Commander Robert Deal, who conducted the service. All other one hundred nine survivors outlived Jack. After the rescue, Scottish born William Johnston, who had swallowed a large amount of gasoline while in the ocean and was violently ill for several days, is eventually found unfit for further service in the Navy. He is promoted to motor machinist mate first class and discharged. After he returns to the United States, he finds a job with the Gulf Oil Company and works as a truck driver for the next thirty three years in New England. He is also an active member of the American Legion and the Masonic Lodge in New Hampshire. He dies on july fifth, nineteen sixty eight and is buried in Wildwood Cemetery in Seabrook, New Hampshire. He was fifty eight years old. After the war, Ray Starkey returns home to Orange County, California and gets a job with the Signal Oil Company in Huntington Beach. In nineteen sixty he gets some notoriety as the chair of the Citizens for Kennedy of Garden Grove and works hard to get his skipper elected. That same year, Ray attends the opening of a life size diorama from the PT one hundred nine film at the Movyland Wax Museum in Buenaporte. Torpedoman's mate second class, Ray Lee Starkey, dies in Anaheim, California on october eighth, nineteen seventy at age fifty six. According to his wishes, Ray's remains are cremated and scattered at sea from an airplane. Barney Ross, the ensign who joins the PT one hundred nine patrol that fateful night because he had nothing better going on, goes into the insurance business after the war. In nineteen fifty nine, JFK asks him to join his presidential campaign. After the election, Jack appoints Barney to the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. Barney also drafts proposals for the Peace Corps and VISTA, its domestic counterpart, both of which are Kennedy presidential programs. He stays in the National Capitol Region and dies on july twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three at age sixty five. Inson George Henry Robertson Barney Ross is buried in Saint Luke's Episcopal Church Cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland. Before he passes away but after the cardiac event that puts him in a coma he is not expected to recover from, the mayor of Bethesda declares july twentieth Barney Ross Day. After the war, Pappy McMahon speaks often of the night JFK drags him along as he swims, with a strap of his life vest clenched firmly in his skipper's teeth. McMahon recovers from his severe burns and stays in the South Pacific to train mechanics preparing to join PT boats. When he is discharged from the Navy in nineteen forty five, he returns to Southern California and goes to work at the US Post Office. He begins his career as a letter carrier and eventually becomes postmaster of Cathedral City near Palm Springs. After his retirement in nineteen seventy five, he moves to Incinitas, just north of San Diego, where he lives until his death on february eighteenth, nineteen ninety, one month after his eighty fourth birthday. Pappy's obituary runs in the LA Times newspaper and in it it quotes his stepson William Kelly. My dad always liked and treasured Kennedy not only for their heroism, but also for keeping in touch long after the war. President Kennedy once traveled with a crew of Secret Service agents from Los Angeles to Cathedral City just to have coffee with an old friend. He was rather quiet, subdued and loved to read, Kelly said. In his prime, he could read a novel a week. He enjoyed woodcarving, he was an outstanding gentleman, a great guy and husband, and very modest for a guy who had done so much, who had been all over the world. Because my own father died at an early age, I really saw my stepfather as my father. He will be missed very much. The obituary also says that McMahon had been the primary caregiver for his wife who had Alzheimer's, which was very taxing on his own health. When he joined the Navy at thirty seven, Pappy was exempted from the draft due to his age, but after his stepson joined the Navy, he too decided to serve. He felt if my son is in there, I couldn't face him after the war if I was sitting around the house having a beer. Motor machinist's mate first class, Patrick Henry McMahon, is buried at the Riverside National Cemetery in a place I lived for a short while as a young kid, Riverside, California. PT one hundred nine's radio operator, John McGuire, works on Kennedy's congressional and presidential campaigns after the war. President Kennedy appoints Mack as a U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Florida, a position he holds for nine years until Nixon's presidency. After JFK's assassination, Mack says he was my commanding officer, my president, and my friend. I will never forget him. Radioman second class John Edward McGuire dies on december sixteenth, nineteen ninety and is buried in the H. Warren Smith Memorial Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida. He was seventy four years old. His grave is marked by a bronze government plaque and a beautiful large stone, I'm gonna guess granite or something similar, Celtic Cross. It seems like the longest lived PT one hundred nine survivors also had the least publicly available post war information about their lives. Before the war, Motor Mac Edmund Drewich was an accomplished jazz pianist and worked as a steel inspector during the day while taking law classes at night. Whether he continued with the law after the war or if he kept up with the piano, I unfortunately did not know. Motor machinist's mate second class Edmund Theodore Drewich died on march ninth, nineteen ninety six in Urbana, Illinois at age eighty three, and is buried in nearby Locust Grove Cemetery in Philo. Motor Mac Gerard Zenzer stays in the Navy after the war and makes a career out of it. After he retires, he settles in Florida and, like Pappy McMahon, becomes a postmaster. When he passes away on august twenty first, two thousand one at age eighty three, he is widely reported to be the last surviving member of the PT one hundred nine crew. Chief Engineman Gerard Emil Zinzer is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section fifty four, grave four thousand eighty nine. What about the others who played important roles in the crew's rescue? Almost no one knows of the role Australian coast watcher Reg Evans plays. Reg is one of the few people involved in the event older than Jack. Born in Sydney in nineteen oh five, he works as the assistant manager of a coconut plantation in Vanuatu, and then with a shipping company in the Solomon Islands for a decade before the war. When war breaks out, he makes his way back to Australia intending to join the Royal Australian Navy. They were all braid and ho hum then, Reg writes. They knocked me back cold. What use did they have for an old beach comer like me, they wanted to know. So I said to hell with you, and join the army. He serves as an artillery warrant officer in the Middle East from nineteen forty to nineteen forty two until his unit is recalled to protect the home island from the Japanese menace after Pearl Harbor. As soon as inner service transfers were possible, he continues, I had another crack at the navy. They weren't so fussy this time. They sent me with a group for a short course teaching rough army types how to be naval gents, you know the drill. His practical knowledge of Vanuatu and the Solomons quickly catches the eye of naval intelligence and he is told about the Coast Watchers, Allied intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific Islands to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied personnel. Hiding behind enemy lines, Coast Watchers play a vital intelligence gathering role, warning of Japanese airstrikes, reporting on shipping and troop movements, and not to put too fine a point on it, saving lives. He takes the job and hides amongst the enemy, remaining unseen and unheard, all the while relaying intel back to headquarters so others can take action. I already explained Reg's specific role in JFK's rescue back in episode one hundred and fifty nine. After the war, he tells no one of his PT one hundred nine exploits until nineteen sixty one when he sits for an interview with the men's adventure magazine Cavalier. He describes the rescue as a routine job but adds quote, for seventeen years, I've kept my trap shut. In the interview he describes his brief encounter with Jack Kennedy and says I sent him off in the canoe and he kept his rendezvous with the other boat, led the rescuers, and got the survivors back to Rendova. And that, for me, was it. I never heard any more. How could I know he would become President of the United States? I am glad he made it. He was a nice bloke. For his bravery and enterprise in reconnaissance operations, Reg is awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in february nineteen forty five and discharged from the Navy in may nineteen forty six. After the war, he returns to Sydney and becomes an accountant. Although Jack keeps a note Reg wrote to him at the time of his rescue, his identity remains a mystery until the interview, and he goes unthanked because, in Jack's own words, I couldn't read his handwriting, specifically talking about the signature at the bottom of the letter. After this interview is published, Jack confirms that Reg is indeed the Coast Watcher who helped him. Following JFK's inauguration, Reg sends him a congratulatory letter and a handwriting expert conclusively matches the handwriting in that letter with the handwriting in the letter from the PT one hundred nine rescue. After that, Reg is invited to the US to meet PT boat veterans in New York and then with Kennedy himself at the White House. During this visit, Jack quips, I'm sorry I never returned the Japanese rifle you loaned me to signal the rescue boat with. It's okay, Reg replies. It didn't take me long to get another one. Australian Royal Navy Lieutenant Arthur Reginald Evans dies in Sydney, Australia on january thirty first, nineteen eighty nine at age eighty three. His ashes are interred at the Northern Suburbs Memorial Garden and Crematorium in the nearby city of Ride. His wartime papers currently reside in the Australian War Memorial and include a logbook with coded entries, newspaper cuttings, and letters. Sometime after JFK's daughter Caroline is appointed US Ambassador to Australia in twenty twenty two, she visits the memorial to meet with and thank two surviving coast watchers for what they and their comrades did for her family personally and for countless Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines collectively. While at the memorial, she also attends the last post ceremony and lays a wreath in memory of all who served. I owe personal gratitude to an Australian coast watcher and two Solomon Islander scouts who saved my father's life, she said after the ceremony. And what of those two Solomon Islanders? In the decades following Kennedy's assassination, his popularity steadily soars in the wake of the largely broken and failed presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter, but the cultural memory of JFK's moment of destiny, the PT one hundred nine incident, gradually fades. As such, so does the memory of Buku Gasa, Eroni Kumana, and the Solomon Islanders who played such an important role in his rescue. In two thousand two, Bobby Kennedy's son Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, himself named after a future ghost of Arlington, journeys to the Solomon Islands to meet and thank the men who saved his uncle Jack and the rest of the PT one hundred nine crew. He is invited to join a National Geographic Society expedition to find the wreckage of the PT boat and jumps at the chance. In an interview for William Doyle's twenty fifteen book PT one hundred nine, an American Epic of War, Survival and the Destiny of John F Kennedy, Max Kennedy reflects PT one hundred nine was really etched in my life since I was a small child. We were raised in Virginia but grew up in Cape Cod. Whenever there was some kind of dangerous situation or difficulty or challenge on the water, I would always think of President Kennedy and the PT one hundred nine, and the extraordinary bravery that he showed. And then we'd just kind of suck it up and do our best to get through whatever storm or difficulty we were facing when we were children. Over the years, Max talks with his cousin, John F. Kennedy junior about the possibility of trying to find PT one hundred nine. JFK Junior is a great scuba diver and has dived all over the world, but those plans end when his cousin tragically dies in a small plane crash in nineteen ninety nine. When Max arrives in the Solomons and is finally brought face to face with the now elderly Aroni Kumana, he is not prepared for the wave of emotion that overcomes both him and Aroni, and the two men embrace. Max recalls it had been way, way, way too long, it had been nearly sixty years. Too much time for them to have gone without meeting Jack or my father or some member of the family. The two men embrace each other in a long close hug, and Aroni begins to cry loudly and freely. It was so unbelievably moving, said Max. We very quickly had a connection at an extraordinarily deep level. He was so sweet. I had read all of the World War II books as a kid, and I heard all the stories of what the Japanese army had done to the people that helped Americans in the Pacific and the terrible atrocities these guys faced. They risked their lives. They risked everything. Max is delighted to see Aroni wearing a t shirt that is popular to this day in the Solomon Islands, but one hundred percent accurate in his case. It reads I rescued JFK. Max then holds a reunion with both Aroni and Buku, who haven't seen each other in years, and presents each with a bust of his uncle. He reads aloud to them a letter written by JFK's last surviving brother, the now late Senator Ted Kennedy. The note reads President Kennedy often spoke of the great courage of those who came to his aid, and he never forgot them. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him and miss him, and it means a great deal to know that my brother is still remembered with affection in the Solomon Islands. Max spends several days with Aroni and Biuku exploring the islands, sharing food and laughter, and telling each other stories of their lives. The National Geographic Expedition uses photos and sonar to identify a PT boat's forward torpedo and launch tube on the floor of the Blacket Strait. That the Navy concludes is probably PT one hundred nine, but the expedition is unable to recover any of the wreckage which is necessary to make a definitive identification. Today the likely remains of PT one hundred nine lie somewhere more than one thousand feet or three hundred meters on the ocean floor. The site is considered a war grave and memorial for the two crew members killed in the crash and rests too deep for recreational diving. In two thousand seven, Ironi is invited aboard the USS Peleu, a US Navy aircraft carrier that is visiting the Solomon Islands on a humanitarian and diplomatic mission in the wake of a devastating earthquake in tsunami that killed more than fifty people and damaged Ironi's house. The ship's commander, Captain Ed Rhodes, presents Aroni with an American flag and an assortment of gifts. I mourn for a whole week upon hearing of my friend Jack Kennedy's death, Aroni said. I can now be at peace since through my friend's legacy, people have come to know me, my people, and my country. Aroni stays overnight on the carrier and when he leaves, the crew gift him with fifteen hundred dollars to help repair his home. The following year, Aroni asks Mark Roach, a visiting American in the Solomons, to place a prized family heirloom on the grave of my chief. It is a white circular piece of shell money or custom money fashioned out of a giant clamshell. At a private family ceremony held on november first, two thousand eight at Arlington National Cemetery and arranged by JFK's daughter Carolyn, Roach places the tribute at JFK's gravesite. Also attending the ceremony are JFK's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her son Tim Shriver, and Sidney Lawford McKelvy, the daughter of JFK's other sister, Patricia. Bukugasa dies on november twenty third, two thousand five, which was, for those west of the international dateline, the forty second anniversary of JFK's assassination. He was eighty two years old. Aroni Kumana passes on august third, twenty fourteen, seventy-one years to the day the search for PT one hundred nine and any survivors began. He was ninety six. It is believed that Aroni had nine children, including one named John Fitzgerald Kennedy Kumana. After the celebratory dinner following Jack and his crew's rescue, Jack never sees Aroni or Byuku again. The two men are supposed to travel to Washington to meet with Jack at the White House after his inauguration, but colonial officials stop them at the airport and cancel their trip, apparently concerned that their poor English language skills and unsophisticated appearance will cast a poor light on the Solomon Islands. They instead send Benjamin Kevu, their old wartime leader who spoke English well and with a British accent. In the summer of nineteen sixty three, seven veterans of the PT one hundred nine crew go on a ten day grand tour of Japan in conjunction with the Japanese premiere of the movie PT one hundred nine. They hold three separate reunions with former crew members of the Amagiri, Tour Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, and Niko, and meet the mayor and governor of Tokyo. We were hosted by dignitaries of manufacturing, business, and finance in Japan, Pappy McMahon writes to Jack in a letter after the trip. We received medals, honors, and presents galore. The friendships, courtesies and generosities extended to us were simply overwhelming. Had you seen us with the Amagiri crew in a huge circle holding hands, singing audlang sign at the conclusion of a garden party in the crown prince's grounds one midnight in Tokyo, I am sure you would have been astounded. This is exactly the kind of reunion Jack hopes to have the following year when he travels to Japan himself. But as we said last week, that is not meant to be. Before or after the assassination, none of the survivors ever have an unkind word to say about Jack and often praise him repeatedly when reporters come to call. In nineteen ninety eight, Gerard Zenzer goes so far as to say that when Kennedy died, he felt that he had lost his best friend. William Johnston declared Lieutenant Kennedy was one hell of a man. I didn't pick him for my skipper, but I kept thanking God that the Navy picked him for me.