Kennedy's PT Boat Found in Pacific

AP | 5/29/02

[kattracks]

SYDNEY, Australia, May 29, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Shipwreck hunter Robert Ballard said Wednesday he has found the World War II patrol boat commanded by John F. Kennedy in the Pacific Ocean off the Solomon Islands.

The remains of the wooden boat, PT 109, were lying on the seabed in the Blanket Strait near Gizo in the New Georgia group of islands, Ballard told Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Gizo is 235 miles northwest of the capital of the Solomons, Honiara.

Ballard, who led a team that found the Titanic shipwreck in 1985, said he located the wreckage of Kennedy's boat last week after searching for about a week. He did not provide further details of the discovery, citing contractual obligations over film and magazine rights to the search.

The radio report said a National Geographic documentary will be released in November. Members of the National Geographic team in the Solomon Islands did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The PT 109 sank in August 1943 after it was hit by a Japanese warship.

It is unknown how much of the boat remains besides the engines. Water is expected to have caused extensive damage to the hull.

Ballard, who found the wreck of the Titanic and other historic ships, had planned to use remote cameras to search for the boat.

The late president's brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and daughter, Caroline Kennedy, agreed to the expedition after being assured that the site would not be disturbed. Two members of Kennedy's crew died when the boat was hit.

In a 1999 interview, Ballard said PT 109 is "not lost, just misplaced." But he added searching for the vessel in an area full of unexploded ordnance would be "no fun."

Kennedy was commanding a patrol in August 2, 1943, when the boat was hit and cut in two by a Japanese destroyer.

Kennedy and 10 other survivors swam 15 hours to reach a nearby island. He towed one injured survivor, engineer Patrick Henry McMahon, by swimming with a strap from McMahon's lifejacket in his teeth.

They later swam to another island where there were coconuts to eat. Kennedy carved a message into one coconut and gave it to a native islander to take to rescuers.

Patrol torpedo boats, such as the PT109, had mahogany hulls. Plywood was used for the internal structures, chart houses and gun turrets. They were 80 feet long and powered by 12-cylinder gasoline engines.

The boats were used primarily to attack surface ships, but they also were used to lay mines and smoke screens, to rescue downed aviators and to carry out intelligence operations.

Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved

[reg45]

If you think about it,

11. Gore - Army - PFC - Viet Nam (Photographer)

doesn't fit well either!!!

[Bobby777]

You know, I have often wondered how one could get a very light, very fast, and extremely manueverable craft athwartships a destroyer. Unless the engines were out, I would have to say it is incompetence.

I believe, they were idling on just the one center engine to conserve fuel, as was often the case on long patrols ... the two outboard engines were switched off ... amazingly, even a large ship at night, in combat conditions, is hard to hear or even see unless there is much moonlight or starlight (cloud cover that is) ...

anyway, as I understand it, by the time they realized the ship was upon them, the craft is too sluggish on one engine to perform any decent evasive manuevering ...

[Ann Archy]

I thought that the Kennedy family OWNED MacCormack Place in Chicago.....is this not correct?

[dfwgator]

Never get into a car, a boat or a plane with a Kennedy.

[Shooter 2.5]

Ballard's last book after the Titanic book is "The Lost Ships Of Guadalcanal". He's mapping the ships that were lost in World War II.

I thought finding ships in the South Pacific must have been an easy task until I read the book. Every island is like a volcanic mountain top. Finding ships at the bottom isn't easy.

[Ann Archy]

You can have your own opinion but you can't hav your own facts.

[Ann Archy]

Jimmy Carter ALSO said nucular.

[pfflier]

If Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagon, he'd be former President Kennedy today.

Come on now, no need to terrify us all. I've seldom had worse nightmares.

[mystery-ak]

The last person to die in Afghanistan was a National Guardsman frow WV.....enough already!

[Ann Archy]

Wouldn't it be great if this turned out like the Skakel thingy? Mr. Skakel hired a PI to PROVE that his son didn't KILL Martha Moxley and instead he's now on TRIAL for the murder 27 years ago!!!! It would be the Ironies of Ironies if this JFK story told a different truth! One can only hope.

[shaggy eel]

,,, JFK in a PT boat and now Billy-Jeff fencing BMWs in Auckland - one way or another you've got to stop sending democraps down here. They're only called travellers, they don't really have to do it.

[newcats]

Reagan - Army Air Corps - - WWII

1942 The Army Air Force called Reagan to active duty and assigned Lieutenant Reagan to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California, where he made over 400 training films.

Guess with a stretch of the imagination you could concider this "service".

[leadpenny]

Point well taken. I was just trying to be cute. However, even though the Kennedy Clan may not take advantage of this story, the lib media will be more than glad to.

[general_re]

Hate to say it shags, but JFK might be a pretty wrenching shift to the right for most of your neighbors. Kennedy was president back when the Dems remembered what a tax cut was, and why it was sometimes a good idea. When was the last time you folks had one of those? ;)

[Fry]

During WWII most of the US army veterans of the Bataan Death March were Reserve/National Guard members.
If you get a chance check out Hampton Sides' "Ghost Soldiers" there is an anecdote in there about the large number of American Indians from the 200th Coast Artillery (formed from the New Mexico National Guard). Japanese doctors sorted out the Indians one day, asked them to estimate the amount of Indian blood each had and then proceeded to sniff them and record their odor on a "finely calibrated odor scale." No one ever found out why they were doing this.

And it wasn't just going to Oxford, it was lying to his draft board and jerking the system around to save himself.
Clinton's letter to Colonel Eugene Holmes included the line, "I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer..."
Col Holmes' 92 affidavit had better lines, "The information in that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States Military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for later military service."

Sadly, some think he qualified to be Commander in Chief.

[Shooter 2.5]

Why would it take a stretch of the imagination? He wore the uniform, didn't he?

[reg45]

Reagan - who was 31 at the time was almost at the maximum age for non-veteran military service. That is one of the reasons he was probably assigned to stateside duty.

[SamAdams76]

Any dead women found aboard?

[shaggy eel]

,,, you do realise I was winding you up? [LOL] Admittedly, we've had a string of promised tax cuts, not eventuating in any tax cuts - but then, it's not the 1960s, a time when NZ enjoyed a high standard of living and our dollar was equal to yours. The GDP output for 3,8 million people can't be scoffed at, on the other hand, for all the bickering I do.

You'll probably be able to answer this - I've never really got into it at a great depth... the late 1950s and most of the 1960s really was a boom time for the US. At what point would you say that later post WWII boom tailed off?

[shaggy eel]

back when the Dems remembered what a tax cut was, and why it was sometimes a good idea. When was the last time you folks had one of those? ;)

,,, come to think of it, well before we scrapped subsidies.