JFK & PT 109 SURVIVORS RESCUED
Solomon Islands (JFK+50) On August 7, 1943, the survivors of PT109, including 11 of the 13 man crew and their commander, Lt. John F. Kennedy, were rescued by PT boats of the United States Navy.
The survivors were met first by Reginald Evans*, an Australian coast watcher who had been alerted by JFK's message carved on a coconut and brought to him by local natives.
Evans radioed this message to Lumberi at 9:20 a.m.
"Eleven
survivors PT boat on Gross Is X Have sent food and letter advising
senior come here without delay X Warn aviation of canoes crossing
Ferguson"
Robert J. Donavan writes that Evans dispatched 7 scouts by canoe to retrieve the "senior" member of the 109 crew from Olasana. JFK was hidden in the canoe and covered with dead palm fronds as the natives paddled out into Blackett Strait. When they reached shore, JFK stuck his head out of the palm fronds and said to Evans "Hello, I'm Kennedy."
JFK suggested to Evans that he be permitted to pilot PT boats back to Olasana to pick up his crew. When
PT 157 arrived to pick Lt. Kennedy up, he was upset with the delay in
the rescue operation and vented his unhappiness to Lt. W. F. Liebenow
who had greeted him with these words...
"Calm down, Jack, we have some warm food for you."
JFK replied sarcastically...
"No thanks, I've just had a coconut."
It was after midnight when JFK rejoined his crew on Olasana and "shuttled" them aboard PT 157.
*JFK
couldn't remember Evans' name but had a letter from him which appeared
to be signed by A. Rinhaus and that is the name JFK would know him by
for the next 17 years. In
the first article about the 109 incident, John Hersey identified him as
Lt. Wincote. Robert Donovan says that it was not until after JFK
became president that Evans was finally correctly identified.
SOURCE
"PT 109: John F. Kennedy in WWII," by Robert J. Donovan, McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York, 1961 and 2001.
