August 2, 1943: The Attack On PT-109

August 2, 1943: The Japanese destroyer Amigiri hits PT-109, an American patrol torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, cutting it half. Of the 13 men on board, 2 are killed instantly.

Those 2 men were Torpedoman's Mate 2nd Class Andrew Kirksey of Reynolds, Georgia; and Motor Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Harold Marney of Springfield, Massachusetts. How the other 11 men survived became legend.

PT-109 was launched on June 20, 1942, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. On April 23, 1943, it received a new commanding officer, from Boston: Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy.

A Harvard graduate, the son of a former U.S. Ambassador to Britain, 26 years old, already not the healthiest of men, and with an older brother already serving in the U.S. Navy, it would have been easy for JFK to fall back on all of those things. Instead, he used whatever influence he could to get into the war. He had already seen combat on the USS Rochambeau, the ship that took him to his Solomon Islands post, and had seen its Captain killed as a result.

The crew came to like Kennedy quickly, in spite of his background. Ray Starkey had transferred off another boat due to the attitude of a captain he called an "Ivy League snob." But he liked serving under Ivy Leaguer Kennedy, and recalled afterwards that he was "all business, but with a sense of humor, and modest and considerate of enlisted me."

PT-109 had already taken Japanese fire on August 1, and 2 other PT boats had been sunk. At 2:27 AM on August 2, she was hit. The crew never saw the Amigiri coming. Whether the crew of the Amigiri saw PT-109, or even knew it was there before it was too late, has been debated.

With the surviving crew treading water and hanging on to the broken hull until about 1:00 the following afternoon, Kennedy ordered his men to swim out in each direction, to see if they could find land. All returned, with one saying that he saw what turned out to be Plum Pudding Island, 3 1/2 miles away.

The men could swim there, even Kennedy, who already had a bad back. But one couldn't: Pappy McMahon was the only man in the engine room during the collision, and was badly burned. Kennedy towed McMahon by sticking a strap from McMahon's life jacket in his teeth, and the men swam to the island. It took 4 hours. Kennedy's bad back was further injured.

Surviving on coconuts and drinkable water left behind by formerly occupying Japanese troops, Kennedy and the other 10 men were finally rescued on August 8. Kennedy, frequently sick, was down to 120 pounds by the time he was examined at a naval hospital.

He recovered. His brother, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was killed the next year, when his plane exploded at the start of a bombing run. The intention of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. had been for Joe Jr., his oldest son, to be the politician. Without him, JFK, or "Jack," stepped in. He ran for Congress from a Boston-based district in 1946. During the campaign, his military service was played up, earning him good publicity. Someone asked him, "How did you become a war hero?" Without even thinking about it, he told the truth: "It was involuntary: They sank my boat."

He won, easily, and was re-elected in 1948 and 1950. In 1952 and 1958, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1960, he became the 1st World War II veteran -- aside from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who never saw combat -- to be elected President.

The ship that hit PT-109, Amagiri, hit a mine and sank 8 months later. As a gesture of postwar goodwill, its commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Kohei Hanami, was invited to JFK's Inauguration in 1961. So were the surviving PT-109 crewmembers. In the Inaugural Parade, a float was decorated to look like PT-109.

In 1963, the film PT-109 was made about the adventure. JFK personally chose Cliff Robertson to play him. Country singer Jimmy Dean sang the theme song, and it hit Number 8 on Billboard magazine's pop chart and Number 3 on its country chart. JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

Of the other PT-109 survivors:

* Seaman 2nd Class Raymond Albert, from Akron, Ohio, a gunner on PT-109, was killed in action on October 8, 1943.

* Ensign Leonard J. Thom, from Sandusky, Ohio, the boat's executive officer, who had been a football player at Ohio State University, was killed in a car accident in Ravenna, Ohio on October 8, 1946.

* Motor Machinist's Mate 2nd Class William Johnston, from Boston. He became a truck driver, attended the Inauguration, and lived until July 5, 1968.

* Torpedoman's Mate 2nd Class Ray L. Starkey, from the Los Angeles suburb of Garden Grove, California. He worked on oil rigs, attended the Inauguration, and lived until October 8, 1970.

* Quartermaster Edman E. Mauer, the quartermaster and cook, from St. Louis. He attended the Inauguration, and lived until September 22, 1974.

* Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Charles A. Harris, from the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, was nicknamed "Bucky" Harris, after the baseball manager. He attended the Inauguration, and lived until May 6, 1982.

* Ensign George H.R. Ross, from the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, was nicknamed "Barney" Ross, after the champion boxer who had, himself, become a hero in the Pacific Theater of the war. He was not a part of the crew: He had been picked up after his own boat was lost. He went into the insurance business, attended the Inauguration, and lived until July 24, 1983.

* Motor Machinist's Mate 1st Class Patrick H. McMahon, from Wyanet, Illinois, was nicknamed "Pappy" because he was the oldest member of the crew, 37. He worked for the U.S. Postal Service, becoming a postmaster, and lived until February 18, 1990.

* Radioman 2nd Class John E. "Mac" Maguire, from the New York City suburb of Dobbs Ferry. He served as a U.S. Marshal, attended the Inauguration, and lived until December 16, 1990.

* Motor Machinist's Mate Gerard E. Zinser, from the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Illinois. He was the only one who stayed in the Navy to make it his career, also serving in the Korean War, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Like McMahon, he later worked for the Postal Service, and attended the Inauguration. He was the last survivor of the ramming, living until August 21, 2001. Like Kennedy, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Gunner's Mate Maurice Kowal, of Worcester, Massachusetts, had been a member of Kennedy's crew, but had been transferred off before the ramming. Along with Zinser, he also served in the Korean War. He later worked for the U.S. National Park Service, and attended the Inauguration. He outlived all the others, dying on August 30, 2011.

*

August 2, 1943 was a Monday. There were 3 baseball games played that day:

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

April 18, 1943: The Assassination of Isoroku Yamamoto

April 18, 1943: Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is assassinated, as U.S. Army Air Forces planes shoot his plane down near the Solomon Islands. He was 59 years old.

Born on April 4, 1884 in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture (Japan calls its administrative divisions "prefectures" instead of "states"), Yamamoto had samurai training, and graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in Hiroshima. (It was not destroyed in the atomic bomb attack, but it was closed when the American occupation force abolished the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan's current Naval Academy, Etajima Base, was built on the site, and opened in 1956.)

He served in the Russo-Japanese War, including at Japan's biggest military victory up to that point, the Battle of Tsushima, losing the index and middle finger on his left hand. He taught at the Naval Staff College, and was a naval attaché to America, learning to speak fluent English.

He received his 1st command in 1928, and participated in the London Naval Conferences of 1930 (as a Real Admiral) and 1935 (as a Vice Admiral). He was a promoter of naval aviation, but opposed Japan's invasions of Manchuria in 1931 and China as a whole in 1937, and the Axis pact with Nazi Germany and Italy in 1940.

Due to his experience there after World War I, he opposed going to war with America. Despite this, and the enmity between him and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, he was promoted to full Admiral, and placed in command of the Combined Fleet. (On October 18, 1941, Tojo was replaced as Prime Minister by Fumimaro Konoe, but was still in charge of Japanese military forces, answerable only to Emperor Hirohito and Konoe.)

On November 5, 1941, Yamamoto said, in his "Top Secret Operation Order no. 1," issued to the Combined Fleet, the Empire of Japan must drive out Britain and America from Greater East Asia, and hasten the settlement of China, whereas, in the event that Britain and America were driven out from the Philippines and Dutch East Indies, an independent, self-supporting economic entity will be firmly established.

Two days later, he set the date for the intended surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He chose December 7, for one simple reason: It was a Sunday, the day that American military personnel would be the least alert to an attack.

The 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! -- named for the code given that the attack was on -- is usually still considered the best film about the attack, more so than From Here to Eternity (1953, in which the attack is secondary to the story), The Final Countdown (1980, ditto), and Pearl Harbor (2001, in which the acting has been heavily criticized). Playing Yamamoto, Japanese actor Sō Yamamura said, "I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve." Yamamoto may have believed this, but there is no record of him actually saying it.

The U.S. defeated Japan at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, and again at Guadalcanal in early 1943. (By this point, Tojo was again Prime Minister.) After this, Yamamoto decided to make an inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. On April 14, 1943, the U.S. naval intelligence effort, codenamed "Magic," intercepted and decrypted a message containing specifics of Yamamoto's tour, including arrival and departure times and locations, as well as the number and types of aircraft that would transport and accompany him on the journey. Yamamoto, the itinerary revealed, would be flying from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, on the morning of April 18.

It's not clear whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally ordered Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to have Yamamoto killed. What is known is that Knox gave the option to Admiral Chester Nimitz, who authorized the decision. A squadron of U.S. Army Air Forces Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft were assigned, informed that they were intercepting an "important high officer," with no specific name given.

Yamamoto's plane, a Mitsubishi G4M bomber designated T1-323, had an escort of another G4M (as a decoy) and 6 Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes. They were no match for 16 P-38s. 1st Lieutenant Rex T. Barber is credited with firing the shot that brought down T1-323, which crashed into the jungle on the island of Bougainville. Yamamoto's body was found by a Japanese search party the next day. His staff cremated him, he was given a full state funeral, and his ashes were divided between the public Tama Cemetery in Tokyo and his hometown of Nagaoka.

Like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination happened on a Sunday. And it happened one year to the day after Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led the raid to avenge the Pearl Harbor bombing, the one that would be depicted in the 1944 film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

Barber remained in the U.S. Air Force until 1961, also serving in the Korean War, rose to the rank of Colonel, and received The Navy Cross, the Silver Star, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. He lived until 2001.

A 2002 episode of the NBC drama The West Wing was titled "We Killed Yamamoto." It included this exchange, written by series creator Aaron Sorkin, based on the fact that the Defense Minister, and brother of the monarch, of an alleged ally of America's, had plotted that universe's thankfully-prevented version of the 9/11 attacks, and debated whether the U.S. government could, or should, have him killed:

Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (played by John Amos): Can you tell when it's peacetime and wartime anymore? (In other words, with the threat of terrorism being as bad as it is right now, can you tell the difference?)

Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff (John Spencer): No.

Fitz: I don't know who the world's leading expert on warfare is, but any list of the top has got to include me, and I can't tell when it's peacetime and wartime anymore.

Leo: Look, international law has always recognized certain protected persons who you couldn't attack. It's been this way since the Romans.

Fitz: In peacetime.

Leo: Yes.

Fitz: The Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415, in northern France, in the Hundred Years War): This was the French fighting against the British archers. This was like a polo match. The battles were observed by heralds, and they picked the winners. And if a soldier laid down his arms, he was treated humanely.

Leo: Yeah.

Fitz: And the "international laws" that you're talking about, this is where a lot of them were written, at a time, in a place, where a person could tell between peacetime and wartime.

Fitz then invoked William Pitt the Younger, who was Prime Minister of Britain at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, and did die young, at 46 in 1806, from a bleeding ulcer. His father, William Pitt the Elder, previously served as Prime Minister, but not during a war between Britain and France.

Fitz: The idea of targeting one person was ridiculous. It wouldn't have occurred to the French to try to kill William Pitt. That all changed after Pearl Harbor.

Leo: I don't like where this conversation's going.

Fitz: Leo...

Leo: In the Situation Room, Fitz?

Fitz: We killed Yamamoto! We shot down his plane!

Leo: We declared war!

Fitz: And if Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been successful...

Leo: And the plot to kill Hitler was an internal rebellion. (And Bonhoeffer, though accused and executed after the fact, had nothing to do with it. Sorkin had him confused with Claus von Stauffenberg.)

Fitz: ...there would've been statues built of an assassin. We'd have to explain that to our kids!

Leo: I'm going to get back to the office.

Fitz: We measure the success of a mission by two things: Was it successful? And, How few civilians did we hurt? They measure success by how many. Pregnant women are delivering bombs! You're talking to me about international laws/ The laws of nature don't even apply here! I've been a soldier for 38 years, and I've found an enemy I can kill. He can't cancel Shareef's trip, Leo. You've got to tell him he can't cancel it!

But since war had been declared by both sides, and Yamamoto was a military officer who had ordered the biggest attack on an American military installation since Fort Sumter, he was a legitimate target. Perhaps among the less evil men in the Japanese command, and by some measures an honorable man. But a legitimate target nonetheless.

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April 18, 1943 was a Sunday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. Baseball season didn't start for another 2 days. And the NHL season ended 10 days earlier, when the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup. So there were no scores on this historic day.

February 9, 1943: The Battle of Guadalcanal

February 9, 1943: Japanese forces with draw from the island of Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, ending one of the biggest battles of the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the 1st major land victory for U.S. forces in the war.

On August 7, 1942, Allied forces, predominantly United States Marines, under the command of Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida Island, with the objective of using Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases in supporting a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain.

The Japanese defenders, who had occupied those islands since May 1942, were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Allies, who captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as the airfield, later named Henderson Field, that was under construction on Guadalcanal.

Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November to retake Henderson Field. In December, the Japanese abandoned their efforts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by February 7, 1943.

This led to the "island-hopping" campaign by U.S. forces, including New Guinea, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Mariana Islands, Palau, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Admiral Ghormley lived until 1958.

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February 9, 1943 was a Tuesday. Actor Joe Pesci was born. This was also the day the Volhynian Massacres began in Poland. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.