With Skill and Luck
Page 5
Kennedy's Crew Saved
(Editor's Note: The following is a dispatch exactly as it was carried on United Press wires in the fall of 1943, when censors finally approved it, weeks after it had been written "somewhere in New Georgia," deep in the South Pacific. It was written by UP war correspondent Frank Hewlett, who earlier in World War II had himself escaped from Corregidor aboard a PT boat. Hewlett is now Washington correspondent for the Salt Lake City Tribune; the Spokane Spokesman-Review and the Honolulu Bulletin.)
United Press War Correspondent Somewhere in New Georgia, Aug. 8 (1943)—UPI)—The luck of the Irish and some first class skill brought lanky Lt. (J.G.) John F. Kennedy, son of former Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, and 10 of his torpedo boat mates from a brush with the Japanese and death today.
By Frank Hewlett
A week after they had been lost and practically given up, another PT boat went through hostile waters to rescue them in response to an SOS scrawled on a cocoanut and carried through enemy lines by a native.
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Three men, including Machinist Mate (2nd Class) Patrick H. McMahon, 39, of Los Angeles, who has a son in the Navy, credited the 27-year-old Kennedy with saving their lives.
Their extraordinary adventure began the night of Aug. 1, in Blankett Strait, just west of Kolombangara Island north of New Georgia. A Japanese destroyer bore down on the lead boat commanded by Kennedy and manned by a crew of 12 and cut it in two.
"I'm certain that destroyer was making 40 knots," said Kennedy. "I summoned the crew to general quarters and then tried to get into position for a shot with the torpedoes. But we were too close."
The crewmen were flung into the water. Some were painfully injured. The gasoline went up in flames. One section of the boat didn't burn.
"We clung to the unburned bow of the boat for nearly 12 hours," Kennedy said. "And we left it only when it was just a foot above water."
They had drifted near a Japanese held island that had a big garrison, but a sudden shift in the current saved them and they finally reached a tiny, unoccupied island. But they were still surrounded by Japanese.
McMahon, who was badly burned, said Kennedy, a backstroke swimmer on the Harvard team before he graduated in 1940, towed him three miles.
Kennedy particularly lauded the work of Gunnersmate Second Class Charles Harris, Boston, Mass., who he said was invaluable throughout the ordeal, and McMahon, who remained cheerful and never complained though badly burned on the face, hands and legs.
Big, blond Ensign Leonard Thom. Sandusky, Ohio, and a former Ohio State football player, recalled how Kennedy swam three times out to Ferguson Passage in hopes of intercepting a PT boat on patrol. He said the distance was several miles.
Ensign George "Barney" Ross said Kennedy not only helped the injured by towing them through the
water to their first island, but also moved them again to another island after the cocoanut supply, their only source of food and water, became exhausted. It was on this latter island that they found friendly natives.
There Kennedy scratched an appeal for aid on a cocoanut husk. A native carried it through the enemy lines to this base.
Last night in a PT-boat under the command of Lt. Henry J. (Hank) Brantingham of Fayetteville, Ark., we went through rough water into Japanese-controlled waters to pick them up, Brantingham was a member of the famed squadron in the Philippines at the outbreak of the war which prompted the best seller book "They Were Expendable." There his boat evacuated Philippines President Emanuel Quezon. He is now back in the fray with his own squadron.
Kennedy rowed out in a native canoe to meet us and guided our boat through a narrow reef to within a few hundred feet of the island. Rubber boats made two trips ashore and brought back the 10 other survivors, including the trio who needed hospitalization.
The injured are in a hospital and Kennedy is now resting his weary, lanky body in his long vacant bunk which his mates never expected him to occupy again.
Toms-Toms Go Classical In New Arrangements
"The legitimate offspring of the tom-tom well might be a high art form related to Bach."
He said in an interview that "the rhythms and drumbeats of Africa have long been accepted as the natural and undisputed father of jazz. But perhaps that is not their truest relationship.
Pritchard has just spent seven months in West Africa, mainly Liberia and Senegal, working with indigenous music and establishing music programs in those countries. His latest venture is a concert tour of Europe.
Pritchard is not merely theorizing. He has already composed music blending the tom-tom with the old
He says that the jungle music can be successfully blended into many of the classics to give them an exciting new scope.
LISBON—(UPI)—American Negro concert pianist Robert Pritchard believes that the African tom-tom has much more to offer musically other than basic jazz beats.
masters and tested it on African audiences.
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He said, "by wedding the tomtom to a high art form it is possible to retain all the exuberance and joyousness of jazz and yet produce music that can hold its own in a concert repertoire that includes such masterworks as Bach's Toccata, Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses and Rachmaninoff's Prelude."
Man Uses Children As Shield for Bullets
BUFFALO, N. Y. — (UPI) — A 28-year-old man held more than a dozen police officers at bay early yesterday when he barricaded himself in his home with a shotgun and used his two small children as shields.
The man finally gave up at the urging of his father, who was also in the house. The family was barricaded for more than an hour.
The approximately 120 members of the Full Gospel Assembly burrowed into their shelters July 4 and have remained there since, devouring huge stores of food they took underground with them.
They have indicated they had enough food and other stores to see them through at least 40 days underground.
Total sales exceeded $160 million. About 80 per cent of towels sold were terry cloth, with the balance in assorted linens, blends and synthetics.
NEW YORK—(UPI)—More than $32 million worth of towels and washclothes were sold through variety stores during 1959, the Variety Store Merchandiser, a trade publication, reports.
It's a Dry Subject
They are waiting either for a nuclear attack on the United States or word from the "Lord to tell us to come out."
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1 1/2 blocks down 14th Street Hill
BENSON, Ariz.—(UPI)—Members of a small religious sect started their third week cooped up in bomb shelters yesterday.
VI 3-9760
August Date Set For Civil Service
Examination announcements and application forms may be secured from the State Personnel Division, 801 Harrison Street, Topeka, or from Kansas State Employment Service offices.
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4 p.m. - 12 p.m. — Sunday - Thursday
4 p.m. - 1 a.m. — Friday and Saturday
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The State Personnel Division also announces that applications are being accepted for Chemist I, Geologist II, Entomologist II, Public Health Dentist I, Veterinarian II, Radio Communications Engineer I, Agricultural Laboratory Technician I, Business Manager, Medical Technician I and II, and X-ray Technician.
Kansas civil service examinations for Recreational Therapist I and II, Clerk III and IV, and Beauty Shop Inspector will be given in August in several cities throughout the state.
Tuesday, July 19, 1960
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