Patrol torpedo boat PT-109
PT-109 was an Elco PT boat last commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, future United States president, in the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific theater during World War II. Kennedy's actions in saving his surviving crew after PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer earned him several commendations and made him a war hero. 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 often referred to his service on PT-109.
Specifications
Hubert Scott-Paine of the British Power Boat Company had developed Air Sea Rescue fast motor boats in the UK. He took his PT boat to Elco in 1939, as there was a shortage of suitable engines in the UK at the outbreak of war. British Powerboat Company continued production of his designs in Britain throughout the hostilities. The seakeeping qualities of boats and ease of construction matched to the available Packard engines made a perfect combination.PT-109 was an, 40-ton Elco motor torpedo boat, one of hundreds built by the firm between 1942 and 1945 in Bayonne, New Jersey.
The seventh MTB of the PT-103 class, her keel was laid 1942, she was launched on, and delivered to the Navy on 1942 to be fitted out in the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Fully loaded, she displaced and could accommodate a crew of three officers and 14 enlisted men, with the typical crew size between 12 and 14.
The Elco MTBs were the largest PT boats operated by the U.S. Navy during World War II. They had strong wooden hulls, constructed of two layers of mahogany planking, excellent for speed and reasonably adequate for seakeeping, but providing limited protection in combat.
Engines
PT-109 was powered by three 12-cylinder Packard 4M-2500 marinized aero gasoline engines, with a designed top speed of.To accommodate three engines in the boat's narrow beam, they were staggered fore-and-aft, with the two outboard motors mounted with their output shafts facing forward and power transmitted through V-drive gearboxes to their respective propeller shafts. The center engine was mounted forward of the outboard pair in a conventional orientation, with power transmitted directly from its output end to an extended propeller shaft.
The engines were fitted with mufflers on the transom, both to mask the engines' noise from the enemy and to improve the crew's chance of hearing enemy aircraft. These directed the exhaust underwater at idle and extremely low speeds and were bypassed for anything faster.
Armament
The PT boat's principal offensive weapon was its torpedoes. She was fitted with four torpedo tubes containing Mark 8 torpedo| torpedoes. They weighed each, with warheads and gave the tiny boat a punch believed at the time to be effective even against armored ships. The Mark 8, however, was both inaccurate and ineffective until its detonator was recalibrated by the Navy at the end of the war. A major issue was that in the unlikely instance that they hit their target, they rarely detonated, even when they hit at a 90-degree angle to their target. Also noteworthy was that the torpedoes were slow, traveling at only, and were unable to catch faster-moving Japanese vessels. In contrast, the Japanese Type 93 destroyer torpedo, later called the "Long Lance", was faster at, had an accurate range of, was far more powerful with of high explosives, and unlike the Mark 8, its detonator usually worked when it hit a target.One naval officer explained that 90% of the time, when the button was pushed on the torpedo tube to launch a torpedo, nothing happened, or occasionally the motor spun the propeller until the torpedo motor exploded in the tube, showering the deck with metal fragments. For safety, a torpedoman's mate was frequently required to hit the torpedo's firing pin with a hammer to get one to launch. Kennedy and contemporary writers noted that torpedo mates and other PT crew were inadequately trained in aiming and firing the Mark 8 torpedoes, and were never informed of the torpedoes' ineffectiveness and low rate of detonation.
PT-109 had a single Oerlikon 20 mm cannon| Oerlikon anti-aircraft mount at the rear with "109" painted on the mounting base, two open circular rotating turrets mounting twin M2.50 caliber anti-aircraft machine guns at opposite corners of the open cockpit, and a smoke generator on the transom, operated as needed when engaging the enemy at close range. The boat's guns were used both offensively and defensively.
Seeking to augment the boat's firepower, the day before her final mission, Kennedy had the PT-109s crew lash a U.S. Army 37 mm antitank gun he had bartered for to the foredeck, replacing a small, two-man life raft. Timbers used to secure the weapon to the deck later helped save their lives when used as a float while swimming over three miles to safety on an uninhabited island.
Ahead of the torpedoes on PT-109 were two depth charges, omitted on most PTs, one on each side, about the same diameter and directly in front of the launchers. Though designed to be used against submarines, they were sometimes used to confuse and discourage pursuing destroyers. With Kennedy's squadron commander, Lt. Alvin Cluster, at the wheel in storm conditions, PT-109 port depth charge was knocked through the foredeck unexpectedly by an inadvertent launch of the port forward torpedo. Cluster had asked Kennedy for a turn at PT 109s wheel, as he had only had experience with the older, Elco PTs. The torpedo stayed in the tube, half in and half out on a hot run, its propellers spinning, until Kennedy's executive officer, Ensign Leonard Thom, deactivated it. PT-109 returned to Tulagi for repairs to the foredeck and the replacement of the depth charge.
PT-109 was not equipped with radar.
Early operations
PT-109 was transported from the Norfolk Navy Yard to the South Pacific in August 1942 on board the Liberty ship SS Joseph Stanton. Originally Navy grey, it is believed the ship was painted a flat, dark green at Nouméa, New Caledonia after being offloaded. She arrived in the Solomon Islands in late 1942 and was assigned to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 2 based on Tulagi island. She participated in combat operations around Guadalcanal from 1942 to 1943, when the Japanese withdrew from the island.Kennedy's training in motor torpedo boats
Despite having a chronically bad back and a history of other illnesses, including abdominal pain and scarlet fever as an infant, John F. Kennedy used his father's Joseph P. Kennedy influence to get into the war. In 1940, the U.S. Army's Officer Candidate School had rejected him as 4-F, for his bad back, ulcers, and asthma. Kennedy's father persuaded his old friend Captain Allan Goodrich Kirk, USN, head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, to let a private Boston physician certify his son's good health. Kennedy started in October 1941 before Pearl Harbor as an ensign with a desk job for the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was reassigned to South Carolina in January 1942 because of his affair with Danish journalist Inga Arvad. On 27 July 1942, Kennedy entered the Naval Reserve Officers Training School in Chicago.After completing his Naval Reserve Officers' Training on, Kennedy voluntarily entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island, where he was promoted to lieutenant . In September 1942, Joseph Kennedy had secured PT Lieutenant Commander John Bulkeley's help in placing his son in the PT boat's service and enrolling him in their training school, after meeting with Bulkeley in a New York Plaza suite near his office at Rockefeller Plaza. Nonetheless, Bulkeley would not have recommended John Kennedy for PT boat training if he did not believe he was qualified to be a PT captain. In an interview with Kennedy, Bulkeley was impressed with his appearance, communication skills, grades at Harvard, and awards received in small boat competitions, particularly while a member of Harvard's sailing team. Exaggerated claims by Bulkeley about the effectiveness of the PTs in combat against larger craft allowed him to recruit top talent, raise war bonds, and cause overconfidence among squadron commanders who continued to pit PTs against larger craft. But many in the Navy knew the truth; his claims that PTs had sunk a Japanese cruiser, a troopship, and a plane tender in the Philippines were false. Kennedy completed his PT training in Rhode Island on, with very high marks and was asked to stay for a brief period as an instructor. He was then ordered to the training squadron, Motor Torpedo, to take over the command of motor torpedo boat PT-101, a Huckins PT boat.
Kennedy's transfer to the Pacific
In January 1943, PT-101 and four other boats were ordered to Motor Torpedo Boat , which was assigned to patrol the Panama Canal. Kennedy detached from in February 1943, while the squadron was in Jacksonville, Florida, preparing for transfer to the Panama Canal Zone. Still desperately seeking a combat assignment, and on his own volition, Lieutenant Kennedy then contacted family friend and crony, Massachusetts Senator David I. Walsh, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, who diverted his assignment to Panama, and had him sent to PT combat in the Solomon Islands, granting Kennedy's previous "change-of-assignment" request to be sent to a squadron in the South Pacific. His actions were against the wishes of his father, who had wanted a safer assignment.The Allies had been in a campaign of island hopping since securing Guadalcanal in a bloody battle in early 1943. Kennedy transferred on 1943, as a replacement officer to Motor Torpedo Boat, which was based at Tulagi Island, immediately north of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Traveling to the Pacific on the large troop carrier, Kennedy witnessed a fierce air strike that killed the ship's captain, and found Kennedy helping to hand shells to supply a large gun on board, giving him his first taste of battle. He arrived at Tulagi on and took command of PT-109 on. Although PT-109 was less than a year old, it had seen heavy combat service since its arrival in the Pacific, and considerable repairs were required on the boat; leading by example, Kennedy pitched in to help the crew get his vessel seaworthy. On, several PT boats of MTBRON 2, including PT-109, were ordered to the Russell Islands in preparation for the invasion of New Georgia.
After the capture of Rendova Island, the PT boat operations were moved north to a crude "bush" berth there on. The Rendova base held the potential for its residents to contract a host of unpleasant diseases like malaria, dengue, dysentery, and elephantiasis. The Navy men stationed there also contended with cockroaches, rats, foot diseases, ear fungus, and mild malnutrition from the monotonous and mostly canned food. On his first desk assignment with the Navy after his return to the States, Kennedy suffered from the aftereffects of malaria, colitis, and chronic back pain, all caused or aggravated by his experiences in combat or during his stay at the Rendova base.
From their crude base on the northern tip of Rendova Island, on a small spit of land known as Lumbari, PT boats conducted daring and dangerous nightly operations, both to disturb the heavy Japanese barge traffic that was resupplying the Japanese garrisons in New Georgia, and to patrol the Ferguson and Blackett Straits to sight and to give warning when the Japanese Tokyo Express warships came into the straits to supply Japanese forces in the New Georgia–Rendova area.
On, an attack by 18 Japanese bombers struck the base, wrecking PT-117 and sinking PT-164. Two torpedoes were blown off PT-164 and ran erratically around the bay until they ran ashore on the beach without exploding.