The skipper of one of the other three boats on patrol with 109 said - quote “ When I heard 109 was hit, I asked myself ‘ I could see at 1500 to 1800 yards, why couldn't other people?’ I never got an answer. It could have been they were doping off (meaning goofing off not drug taking !)” Another skipper of a nearby boat said later “ It's amazing. You could see it at great distance. We saw it was more or less headed right at 109. We radioed Kennedy to look at his starboard bow. There was a bow wake coming directly toward him. No response. Nothing.”
He had only 1 of his 3 engines in gear which was against regulations. The squadron commander - Thomas Glover Warfield said JFK wasn't a particularly good boat commander.
No other motor torpedo boat was ever rammed by a destroyer in WWII on either side. The speed differential between the two would make that impossible for an alert boat ! It did not happen in the European\Mediterranean\Baltic theaters either where the Germans, Italians, Russians & British operated comparable craft. Also not in WWI. (Note the ship type destroyer originally came from a pre-WWI designation for torpedo boat destroyer. A ship specifically designed to destroy torpedo boats by rapid gunfire. When submarines entered fleets they displaced motor torpedo boats for the most part. The destroyer took on a different role one of firing torpedoes in fleet actions and antisubmarine.)
He was heroic in regard to saving his men. However he never should have gotten them in that fix.
Not making any of this up ! It's from the book “A Question of Character”: A Life Of John F. Kennedy” by Thomas C. Reeves. The book is meticulously sourced. Reeves admits at first he expected to write a glowing biography like most academics and others had done. However in his research he found a different story. In the bibliography I can go right to the basic sources. For 109 details: Blair's “The Search for JFK” and Robert J Bulkley’s definitive account on PT Boats in the USN - “At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy”.
JFK dodged a court martial because of his family connections. You or I would have had that court martial.
Read the book, read the sources ! I did ! Then decide !
According to Dick keresey in PT-105, there was "one garbled transmission" about destroyers running back down the strait, right after he had fired his torpedos at them. He said that the Jap DDs had fled "at flank speed" in the direction of the next division - Kennedy's.
He also said that it was a very black night and that everyone was exhausted on all the boats.
I don't care very much for JFK - but he was in combat, something that I respect and I don't listen to carping from people that were nowhere near that battle, that night.
The real scandal wasn't 109 being lost; It was the failure of anyone to bother looking for any survivors. The Navy was infamous for its negligence in searching for its sailors left in the water after actions. See the Battle of Savo Island or the Battle of Samar, or the loss of the USS Indianapolis.