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PT-109 was an 80-foot (24 m) Elco PT boat (patrol torpedo boat) last commanded by Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, future United States president, in the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific theater during World War II.
A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the war by ineffective torpedoes, limited armament, and comparatively fragile construction that limited some of ...
MaritimeQuest - USS PT-109 Final Crew List. Website with searchable ship database about warships, passenger liners, merchant ships, photo galleries, technical details, stories, news and much more.
Though a comparatively new weapon in naval warfare, PTs have operated in every theatre of war and have proven themselves an important part of the fleet. The object of TP-9 "Know Your PT Boat" is to bring information and hints to acquaint new PT personnel with the ships on which they are to serve.
On August 1, 1943, PT 109 was one of fifteen boats which departed Rendova, informed by American code breakers of Japanese Naval activity. Kennedy was in command of 109, which carried a crew of ten enlisted and, in addition to Kennedy, two commissioned officers.
On August 2, 1943, PT 109 was struck by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and the entire crew was thrown into the Pacific. After fifteen hours at sea, eleven survivors made it to a nearby island with Kennedy towing one injured crew member to land.
According to the official Navy report, written shortly after the event by Lt. j.g. Byron White (the future Supreme Court justice), 14 PT boats—three-engine wooden vessels armed with two...
