JFK: History in an Hour. Sinead Fitzgibbon

      Kennedy aboard PT-109, 1943

      Characteristically, the twenty-three-year-old refused to yield to this latest health-related setback and lobbied his father to intervene. Such was Joe Sr’s political influence that, in less than a month, his second son somehow managed to recover from his illness to be pronounced ‘physically qualified for appointment’ by a committee of medical examiners. In October 1941, Kennedy entered the United States Navy as a junior officer.

      A brief stint in the Foreign Intelligence Branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence was brought to an abrupt end in early 1942 when Kennedy was transferred from Washington DC to Charleston Navy Yard in South Carolina. In March, his recurrent back pain became intolerable, forcing him to seek medical help from a number of specialists, none of whom could agree on a diagnosis. Disheartened by his persistent ailments and upset by the recent breakdown of his romantic relationship with a beautiful Danish reporter named Inga Arvad – at the time suspected of being a Nazi spy – Jack requested a deployment to sea.

      Following an intensive sixty-day training course, he applied for the position of commander of a torpedo boat (also known as a Patrol Torpedo or PT), which were being used to attack Japanese ships in the Pacific. His back problems were initially expected to work against him, but again, some manoeuvrings by his father Joe Sr and his grandfather, Honey Fitz, navigated the problem. By March 1943, Lt Kennedy was posted to the Solomon Islands as commander of PT-109.

       Behind Enemy Lines

      Jack had never made any secret of his desire for front-line combat. This deployment to one of the central battlegrounds in the fierce fight for dominance in the Pacific would provide it.

      On the night of 2 August PT-109 was on a routine patrol when it was rammed by a huge Japanese destroyer. Given the size differential, the small PT boat didn’t stand a chance – it was virtually sawn in half by the enemy ship, before bursting into flames. Lt Kennedy was at the helm at the time of collision, trying in vain to steer clear of the oncoming destroyer, and was flung violently against the wall by the force of the impact, badly injuring his already weak back.

      He, however, was one of the lucky ones – of the twelve other crewmen on board, two lost their lives instantly. The remaining ten, along with Kennedy, were forced to abandon ship, plunged into the sea and had to cling to debris in order to remain afloat. Having sustained severe burns to his hands and face, one crewman, Patrick McMahon, struggled to reach the piece of floating hull that his comrades were using as a lifebuoy; Kennedy swam to the wounded man’s rescue and pulled him to safety.

      JFK (far right) and crewmen of PT-109

      After nine hours in the water, the men reached a cluster of small islands which were situated a few miles away from the collision site, behind enemy lines. Ignoring his own back injury, Jack had pulled McMahon the whole way by clamping a strap of his life jacket between his teeth, while the wounded man floated on his back.

      Having been discovered by natives who were sympathetic to their plight (and who may, in fact, have been Allied scouts), Jack arranged for a coconut shell to be smuggled to the nearest US naval base. The shell had inscribed on it the following message:

      NAURO ISL…COMMANDER…NATIVE KNOWS POS’IT…HE CAN PILOT…11 ALIVE…NEED SMALL BOAT…KENNEDY.

      The following morning, eight islanders arrived with food and water. They then concealed Kennedy under palm fronds and delivered him to Gamu, a nearby island where the local Allied coastwatcher could be found. From there, and with the help of the coastwatcher, Kennedy orchestrated the rescue of the rest of the crew, which was carried out under cover of darkness in the small hours of 8 August. The operation was a success. After six long days, the ordeal was over.

      Coconut shell with distress message

      Kennedy’s remarkable resourcefulness saved not only his own life but also the lives of his surviving ten crewmen. When news of his exploits reached US shores, he was lauded as a hero. In recognition of his bravery and leadership, he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal in June 1944, while the injuries to his back earned him the Purple Heart Medal.

      Receiving Navy and Marine Corps Medal from Captain Frederick Conklin

      There was, however, another memento that Jack seemed to value more than anything else. Upon returning home, he had the life-saving coconut shell mounted on a wooden base and enshrined in a plastic dome. The resulting paperweight remained in his possession for the rest of his life, and when he became President, it took pride of place on his desk in the Oval Office.

Triumph to Tragedy

      In keeping with their sibling rivalry, Joe Jr, in a letter dated 10 August, voiced his obvious scepticism. ‘Where the hell were you when the destroyer hove into sight,’ Joe Jr asked, ‘and exactly what were your moves, and where the hell was your radar?’ Suspecting that his brother was in some way culpable for the accident, Joe Jr became more intent than ever on outdoing his brother’s achievements. Joe Jr’s cynicism was also echoed in other quarters, with some suggesting that Kennedy could not have been paying attention to have allowed a destroyer to get so close. All such criticism was, however, drowned out by those extolling his courage and ingenuity during the subsequent rescue.

      Having gained his wings in 1942, Joe Jr had spent much of the war in England, flying around the coastline on anti-submarine patrols. His attitude became increasingly reckless. Refusing to return home after flying thirty missions (which was his entitlement), Joe Jr chose instead to stay on, volunteering for ever more dangerous assignments – until finally his luck ran out.

      On 12 August 1944, Lt Joseph Kennedy and his co-pilot, Lt Wilford John Willy, took to the air in a B-24 Liberator packed with 22,000 lbs of dynamite, the maximum amount of explosives that could be carried by a plane at the time. Their target, on the Belgian coast, was the launching site of the German V-1 flying bombs (Doodlebugs), which had been bombarding London since June. Their plan was to fly to 2,000 feet, activate the remote control system, arm explosives, and parachute from the aircraft. Joe Jr, no doubt aware that a number of previous attempts at such an attack had ended disastrously, reportedly asked a friend to ‘tell my Dad that I love him very much’, should he not come back.

      Joe Jr didn’t come back. The explosives ignited not long after take-off, engulfing the plane in a ball of fire in the skies over South East England. Joe Jr’s body, and that of his co-pilot, were never recovered.

      Lt Joseph Kennedy, Jr, 1942

      The death of the eldest son left the Kennedys shaken. Aside from his grief, Jack was also greatly upset by the realization that his brother had now become idealized in his father’s eyes and thus a figure of impossibly high comparison. ‘I’m shadowboxing’, he said, ‘in a match the shadow is always going to win.’

Passing the Baton

      No longer able to hide the extent of his medical problems – which, by this stage, ranged from stomach problems, intestinal problems including spastic colitis, incessant back pain, weight loss, and jaundicing of the skin – Kennedy was discharged from the navy on medical grounds in March 1945.

      He now tried his hand at journalism, writing a number of articles as he recuperated from back surgery. One particular piece, in which he called on the US to avoid entering