Video: 'American Experience: JFK & the PT 109'

(Monday, August 2, 1943, 2:27 a.m. local time; part of the the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific theater of World War II) — The U.S. Navy patrol torpedo boat PT-109, with a crew of 13 commanded by Lieutenant (j.g.) John F. Kennedy, future United States president, was traveling this morning through the Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, when it was rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.

Though two of the crew were killed, Kennedy and the other ten men swam three miles to a small island and then to Olasana Island, both of which were uninhabited.

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Kennedy and Ensign George H. R. Ross would make their way to Naru Island where they were found by natives Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who delivered a message that Kennedy had carved on a coconut to the PT base at Rendova Island.

The PT-109 survivors were rescued on Aug. 8, 1943, and Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroism.

Back problems stemming from the incident required months of hospitalization at Chelsea Naval Hospital and plagued him the rest of his life.

Kennedy’s postwar campaigns for elected office referred often to his service on PT-109.