A Former Crewman's Memories of JFK | Under the Radar

The crew of PT 109 (COURTESY FILES OF JOHN FLORES)

By John W. Flores

The young, skinny Navy officer walked along the dock at a South Pacific base and met his new crewmen for the first time, as they stood on the sun-drenched deck of a nondescript, navy green torpedo boat.

Some of the men on board were crusty old sailors and war veterans, others just young and cocky “swabbies” new to the U.S. Navy’s war against the vaunted and feared Japanese Imperial Navy. Some of the guys aboard heard the scuttlebutt—the rampant rumors—that this new captain of the 80-foot torpedo boat, Lt.(junior grade) John Kennedy, was the son of ultra-wealthy Joe Kennedy of Boston.

When Lt. Kennedy walked on deck, the men dropped their mops and paint brushes and saluted the new skipper, said Gerard Zinser in his last interview a few years ago, prior to his death. That story was printed in the Boston Globe and Navy Times.

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