On 1 September 1939 the German army attacked Poland, and World War Two began.
In September 1941, Jack joined the US Navy. Three months later, on 8 December 1941, the US entered World War Two. Jack’s older brother, Joe, was already in the navy, flying war planes in Europe. After Jack finished training as a navy officer, the navy sent him to the South Pacific as leader of a patrol torpedo boat, the PT-109.
In the navy
In World War Two, the Americans and the Japanese were enemies. There was often heavy fighting between American and Japanese ships near the Solomon Islands, a group of islands east of Papua New Guinea. The Japanese had a lot of soldiers on these islands. The food and other things that they needed came to the islands on Japanese warships.
JFK on the PT-109
The American patrol boats had to try and stop these warships. When they found one, they attacked it with torpedoes. This was a very dangerous job because the patrol boats were much smaller than the Japanese ships.
At about 2.30 a.m. on 2 August 1943, Jack’s boat, the PT-109, was near the islands. The night was very dark with no moon or stars, and it was difficult to see anything. Suddenly, the men had a terrible shock. A large Japanese warship, the Amagiri, came out of the black night, very near the PT-109. Jack was holding the wheel of the boat. He turned it as quickly as he could, trying to move the PT-109 out of the Amagiri’s way.
But it was too late. The Amagiri crashed into the PT-109, and cut it into two pieces. A big fire started and two of Jack’s men died. Jack and the other men jumped into the sea. Some of the men had terrible burns on their faces and bodies. Jack had no burns, but his back was badly hurt in the crash. Jack and his men were in the water, holding on to pieces of the PT-109.
‘What do you want to do, men?’ Jack asked. ‘A lot of you have families, and some of you have children. I have nothing to lose. So you must decide. Do you want to fight, or surrender to the Japanese?’
‘We will never surrender!’ said the men.
The men thought that the US Navy would send a plane to look for them. They waited and waited, but no plane came. So the next morning, Jack told his men to swim to an island about five kilometres away. The swim was long and very difficult, and it took them five hours to get to the island. Two of the men could not swim, so the others pulled them. One man, Patrick McMahon, had terrible burns. Jack was a strong swimmer and he pulled McMahon behind him. Jack was very tired and his back was hurting, so every few minutes he stopped for a rest. Each time he stopped, McMahon asked:
‘How far is it now, Mr Kennedy?’
‘We’re doing fine,’ Kennedy always replied. ‘How do you feel, Mac?’
McMahon always answered, ‘I’m OK, Mr Kennedy. How about you?’
Jack pulled McMahon to the island and the other men followed. But when they arrived, they found that the island was very small. So after resting they decided to swim to a larger island, where there was food and water. A few days later, some islanders found them and went to get help.
After Jack arrived back in the US, he became a war hero. The US government gave him an award for courage, and for being a strong leader. Everybody admired Jack for saving the lives of McMahon and the other men. But he never thought of himself as a big hero. When people asked Jack, ‘How did you become a war hero?’ he just laughed. ‘It was easy,’ he said. ‘They cut my PT boat in half.’
Jack’s older brother, Joe, also got awards for courage. But later in the war, a terrible thing happened. On 12 August 1944, Joe was killed while he was flying on a dangerous job in Europe.
JFK (right) and the men from PT-109