This is the children's book version of a much more comprehensive account by the same author of future-president John F. Kennedy's experiences in the South Pacific during WWII, which the amount of research even in this short volume demonstrates.
It's first worth noting a few things about the author, as his experiences mirrored JFK's in so many ways. They were almost the same age, although the author was born in New Jersey, in 1916. He, too, was Harvard educated, and worked as a journalist for the Boston Herald until the war, when he volunteered as what we would today call an "embedded journalist," a wartime correspondent for the International News Service.
The author therefore writes directly from what he himself witnessed and experienced; he was, in fact, one of only two journalists on location at Guadalcanal. Were it not for his tragic, untimely death from drowning at age 56 near his home in Hawaii, he may have become as renowned as yet another war correspondent, the one who famously reported JFK's death that fateful day in Dallas (and later, the moon landing), Walter Cronkite, who was assigned in a similar fashion to cover locations in the European theater, and, eventually, the Nuremberg trials.
The book is actually something of a misnomer, as only part (maybe half) of the content relates specifically to John F. Kennedy and his famous patrol torpedo boat PT-109. The author sets the scene of the war in the Pacific in great detail, noting the highlights of some of the engagements between Japanese and US forces before Kennedy was even assigned to train as a PT boat skipper. The author Tregaskis spent August and September, 1942, reporting on the Marine's exploits on Guadalcanal, which was a major turning point in the war, but which resulted in tremendous American losses.
What's also unique is that, in the introduction, the author also states that he had conducted interviews and had corresponded or even met personally with numerous individuals directly involved in the events herein described, which is also a unique feature of this book compared to many of the other volumes in the series.
Assigned to cover the war in the Pacific, Tregaskis spent part of August and most of September, 1942 reporting on Marines on Guadalcanal, a pivotal campaign in the war against Japan. His writings have been described as being written by "a crack newspaperman, who knew how to do his job. . . . Until [his] departure in a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on September 26th, he ate, slept, and sweated with our front-line units. His story is the straight day-by-day account of what he himself saw or learned from eyewitnesses during those seven weeks." Tregaskis later covered Cold War-era conflicts in China, Korea, and Vietnam.
I just read not long ago another related book in the Landmark series, by Bruce Bliven, Jr., about the war in the Pacific, so I'll include here an abbreviated account of what I wrote there, as he also includes a short entry on JFK's experiences, which are elaborated on in much greater detail in this edition. Bliven writes, "The versatile PT boats were the best answer we had. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the skipper of PT boat 109, was on patrol... when a Japanese destroyer, looming up out of the night, rammed his ship and cut it in two. By a series of near miracles, Kennedy and ten survivors of his twelve-man crew managed to swim to a small nearby island, and after days of gallant effort to attract attention, they were rescued."
After their boat was struck at about 2:30 AM, Kennedy rescued several of his men, who had been badly burned. They then clung to the bow for 12 hours, until its sinking was imminent, before deciding to swim for land, to Plum Pudding Island, now renamed Kennedy Island, about 3 1/2 miles away, a feat which took about four hours. A new problem shortly arose, however: the island had no drinkable water. Kennedy, a champion swimmer in his college days, then swam an additional 2 miles the following day in an attempt to hail a passing PT boat. Two days later, the crew had to swim another near-four miles to yet another island to try to attract the attention of rescuers.
They were discovered on day three, but rescue took another two days. Kennedy even scratched a message onto a coconut while he was on Naru island, which was later recovered. He eventually had it made into a paperweight, which is now on display at his presidential library. The remains of PT-109 were actually discovered in 2002, at a depth of 1,200 feet, by Robert Ballard, the same man who first discovered the remains of the Titanic. These events made Kennedy, who was already well-known as Joe Kennedy's son, a war hero.
The PT-109 story was featured in the New York Times and other publications of the day. JFK's older brother, Joe Jr., whom their father had been grooming for political life, was killed in the war when his plane exploded in 1944.
And all this with a serious back injury compounded by prior chronic back pain due to an old football injury JFK had sustained in his college days. Kennedy's serious back injuries from the incident would require months of hospitalization at Chelsea Naval Hospital, and later, several more months of recovery at a military hospital in Arizona. He was forced to retire in March, 1945 on physical disability.
His condition improved somewhat, but he was plagued by severe pain for the rest of his life, requiring treatment with steroids, which caused other physical ailments, probably including his Addison's Syndrome, which was so severe that pathologists could not identify any adrenal tissue during his autopsy following the assassination in November, 1963.
In fact, some have argued that, in a sense, he didn't "survive" the Japanese attack, in that had he not been so severely wounded, he may not have been wearing a back brace the day he was shot by a sniper in Dallas. The back brace held him upright after the initial hit in the back, which was likely survivable, preventing him from slumping down out of the line of fire, which then allowed the gunman another shot, that one fatal.
This is one of the more highly recommended books, because it was written by an actual eyewitness to many of the events, and who wrote a much more comprehensive volume about this monumental period in American history. It's a bit dry at the outset, unless you're interested in the more technical aspects of boat-building (!), but it shortly thereafter provides a blow-by-blow, literally, account of the events of the Guadalcanal campaign.
This book was published in 1962, and probably written well before that. I'm uncertain whether it had been completed or had gone to the publisher before Kennedy's untimely death. Little could the author have imagined the eventual outcome, however, which constituted yet another momentous event in American history, on that crisp, clear November day in Dallas.
It's first worth noting a few things about the author, as his experiences mirrored JFK's in so many ways. They were almost the same age, although the author was born in New Jersey, in 1916. He, too, was Harvard educated, and worked as a journalist for the Boston Herald until the war, when he volunteered as what we would today call an "embedded journalist," a wartime correspondent for the International News Service.
The author therefore writes directly from what he himself witnessed and experienced; he was, in fact, one of only two journalists on location at Guadalcanal. Were it not for his tragic, untimely death from drowning at age 56 near his home in Hawaii, he may have become as renowned as yet another war correspondent, the one who famously reported JFK's death that fateful day in Dallas (and later, the moon landing), Walter Cronkite, who was assigned in a similar fashion to cover locations in the European theater, and, eventually, the Nuremberg trials.
The book is actually something of a misnomer, as only part (maybe half) of the content relates specifically to John F. Kennedy and his famous patrol torpedo boat PT-109. The author sets the scene of the war in the Pacific in great detail, noting the highlights of some of the engagements between Japanese and US forces before Kennedy was even assigned to train as a PT boat skipper. The author Tregaskis spent August and September, 1942, reporting on the Marine's exploits on Guadalcanal, which was a major turning point in the war, but which resulted in tremendous American losses.
What's also unique is that, in the introduction, the author also states that he had conducted interviews and had corresponded or even met personally with numerous individuals directly involved in the events herein described, which is also a unique feature of this book compared to many of the other volumes in the series.
Assigned to cover the war in the Pacific, Tregaskis spent part of August and most of September, 1942 reporting on Marines on Guadalcanal, a pivotal campaign in the war against Japan. His writings have been described as being written by "a crack newspaperman, who knew how to do his job. . . . Until [his] departure in a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on September 26th, he ate, slept, and sweated with our front-line units. His story is the straight day-by-day account of what he himself saw or learned from eyewitnesses during those seven weeks." Tregaskis later covered Cold War-era conflicts in China, Korea, and Vietnam.
I just read not long ago another related book in the Landmark series, by Bruce Bliven, Jr., about the war in the Pacific, so I'll include here an abbreviated account of what I wrote there, as he also includes a short entry on JFK's experiences, which are elaborated on in much greater detail in this edition. Bliven writes, "The versatile PT boats were the best answer we had. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the skipper of PT boat 109, was on patrol... when a Japanese destroyer, looming up out of the night, rammed his ship and cut it in two. By a series of near miracles, Kennedy and ten survivors of his twelve-man crew managed to swim to a small nearby island, and after days of gallant effort to attract attention, they were rescued."
After their boat was struck at about 2:30 AM, Kennedy rescued several of his men, who had been badly burned. They then clung to the bow for 12 hours, until its sinking was imminent, before deciding to swim for land, to Plum Pudding Island, now renamed Kennedy Island, about 3 1/2 miles away, a feat which took about four hours. A new problem shortly arose, however: the island had no drinkable water. Kennedy, a champion swimmer in his college days, then swam an additional 2 miles the following day in an attempt to hail a passing PT boat. Two days later, the crew had to swim another near-four miles to yet another island to try to attract the attention of rescuers.
They were discovered on day three, but rescue took another two days. Kennedy even scratched a message onto a coconut while he was on Naru island, which was later recovered. He eventually had it made into a paperweight, which is now on display at his presidential library. The remains of PT-109 were actually discovered in 2002, at a depth of 1,200 feet, by Robert Ballard, the same man who first discovered the remains of the Titanic. These events made Kennedy, who was already well-known as Joe Kennedy's son, a war hero.
The PT-109 story was featured in the New York Times and other publications of the day. JFK's older brother, Joe Jr., whom their father had been grooming for political life, was killed in the war when his plane exploded in 1944.
And all this with a serious back injury compounded by prior chronic back pain due to an old football injury JFK had sustained in his college days. Kennedy's serious back injuries from the incident would require months of hospitalization at Chelsea Naval Hospital, and later, several more months of recovery at a military hospital in Arizona. He was forced to retire in March, 1945 on physical disability.
His condition improved somewhat, but he was plagued by severe pain for the rest of his life, requiring treatment with steroids, which caused other physical ailments, probably including his Addison's Syndrome, which was so severe that pathologists could not identify any adrenal tissue during his autopsy following the assassination in November, 1963.
In fact, some have argued that, in a sense, he didn't "survive" the Japanese attack, in that had he not been so severely wounded, he may not have been wearing a back brace the day he was shot by a sniper in Dallas. The back brace held him upright after the initial hit in the back, which was likely survivable, preventing him from slumping down out of the line of fire, which then allowed the gunman another shot, that one fatal.
This is one of the more highly recommended books, because it was written by an actual eyewitness to many of the events, and who wrote a much more comprehensive volume about this monumental period in American history. It's a bit dry at the outset, unless you're interested in the more technical aspects of boat-building (!), but it shortly thereafter provides a blow-by-blow, literally, account of the events of the Guadalcanal campaign.
This book was published in 1962, and probably written well before that. I'm uncertain whether it had been completed or had gone to the publisher before Kennedy's untimely death. Little could the author have imagined the eventual outcome, however, which constituted yet another momentous event in American history, on that crisp, clear November day in Dallas.
