Collision with History: The Search for John F Kennedy's PT 109

Sea Power, Apr 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

COLLISION WITH HISTORY: The Search for John F. Kennedy's PT 109, by Robert D. Ballard with Michael Hamilton Morgan, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, Nov. 2002. 192 pp. $30. ISBN: 0-7922-6876-8.Best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic, National Geographic Society Explorerin-Residence Robert Ballard also located the German battleship Bismarck, the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, and the aircraft carrier Yorktown, which sank during the WWII Battle of Midway.

On 2 August 1943 the U.S. patrol torpedo boat, PT 109, commanded by a future U.S. president, 26year-old Lt. (O.g.) John F. Kennedy, sank in the Solomon Sea after a night collision with a Japanese destroyer. Nearly 60 years later Ballard and crew located the wreckage of PT 109, 1,300 feet beneath the surface. Ballard, with Michael Morgan, describes the destruction of PT 109, the heroic efforts to save the surviving crewmembers, their rescue six days later, and the quest to locate the remains of the boat. Interwoven with the story of the search is a comprehensive history of PT boats in the Solomon Island Campaign. It had been Ballard's long time dream to search for, and find, PT 109, a journey well documented and dramatically enhanced by the modern and historical photographs included in the book. With 80 photographs, maps, and index.