Future US President John F. Kennedy, then a lieutenant in the US Navy, bravely swam between Pacific islands eighty years ago to save the crew of his torpedo boat, which had been sunk by a Japanese battleship during World War II.
Kennedy’s bravery as the PT-109 commander helped lay the groundwork for a military and leadership career that would help him become the 35th president of the United States in 1960.
His daughter Caroline Kennedy, who is currently the US ambassador to Australia, replicated part of her father’s accomplishment on Wednesday by swimming between two tiny palm-fringed islets in the Solomon Islands for around 30 minutes.
In a tweet on the US Embassy’s Twitter account, formerly known as X, the ambassador wrote, “It gave me a renewed appreciation of the heroism of my father and his crew.”
Kennedy, 65, completed the swim alongside her son, Jack Schlossberg, the late president’s grandson.
“I have a lot of appreciation and admiration for what my grandfather did, and the perseverance it must have taken to survive,” Schlossberg wrote on Twitter.
In the early hours of August 1, 1943, a Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer attacked JFK’s PT-109. The Japanese ship tore through the little boat’s wooden hull, causing it to capsize. Kennedy gathered his remaining crew, 11 out of the 13, and sent them swimming 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to the tiny Plum Pudding Island, which bears his name.
In the days that followed, JFK and his crew would swim to surrounding islands like Olasana and Naru in quest of food and rescue, according to a report from his presidential archive. On Wednesday, Ambassador Kennedy reenacted the several swims her father took between Olasana and Naru.
Two islanders named Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who served as scouts for the Allies and connected Kennedy to the US Navy, would eventually offer assistance to the PT-109 crew.
A week after the PT-109 was lost, on August 8, 1943, its surviving crew was once again in the care of the US Navy. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps medal later on “for his courage and leadership,” the presidential archive reports.
The late president’s daughter honoured her father, as well as Gasa and Kumana, whose families were there, in a speech on Kennedy Island on Tuesday.
She thanked them in person, saying, “My son and I are honoured to be able to thank you in person for what your fathers did 80 years ago.”
The US ambassador stated, “My father owes his life to their bravery, their willingness to put themselves in harm’s way, and to serve their country in the struggle for freedom.
She also elucidated the significance of the Solomon Islands in her heart.
“President Kennedy was the guy he was because of this area. It was then that he first learned what it meant to be a leader and realised how much his crew’s safety and life depended on him. He put his own life at danger to save theirs. He started living his life in that manner, Caroline Kennedy stated.
In 1963, JFK was shot dead in Dallas; he was eventually laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
On Monday, Caroline Kennedy recalled how she learned Kumana had created a monument that he wanted to be placed on the president’s grave 15 years earlier.
It turned out to be a valuable and uncommon specimen of “kustom money” that had been passed down through the family for more than a century. The shells, which were carved from a massive clam shell in ways that Western anthropologists do not completely comprehend, are used in significant events, such as official tributes to honour one’s leader, the US ambassador added.
She claimed that gestures like Kumana’s create ties that endure. She also had a present for the families of the islanders.
The only two PT Boat pins that I possess, which belonged to President Kennedy, are being given to you as a modest symbol of our gratitude, she stated.