The destroyer’s crew was at battle stations. There was little doubt the enemy was nearby, although there was no way to be sure since the ship had no radar and the sea was cloaked in total darkness by a heavy shroud of low-lying clouds. Rain squalls sporadically doused the hot decks, momentarily dissipating the August heat there among the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands.
On either side of Blackett Strait, mountains rose out of the sea, but they were visible only on the chart spread out on the navigator’s table. Of more importance were the reefs and shoals that were scattered across the chart, and still more important were the ones not shown on the out-of-date paper. Under normal circumstances, ships would travel though such waters at a maximum speed of 12 knots, but on this night the nature of the mission required the captain of this destroyer to charge ahead at 30.
As he contemplated the navigational risks, the captain—who, as a 32-year-old lieutenant commander, was the youngest destroyer captain in the navy—was aware of a cold sweat on his forehead as he peered into the foreboding darkness ahead. Adding to his distress was the recent memory of losing 10 of his 258-man crew to enemy shellfire in nearby waters, and several hours before having repulsed an attack by a small picket line of enemy patrol craft.
The captain had posted ten lookouts at intervals around the forecastle and superstructure of the destroyer as she charged ahead to rendezvous with other units in the area. At 0227, the captain’s concerns were realized when one of the lookouts cried out, “Ship ahead!” The captain saw almost immediately that there was a dark shape looming out of the darkness just off the port bow. It appeared to be an enemy patrol craft, and the captain later recalled that “to veer away would have meant exposing our flank to torpedo attack at point blank range.” He made a split-second decision and ordered the helm over to port. Within seconds, the patrol craft disappeared beneath the destroyer’s prow and there was a loud crashing sound as the two vessels collided.
Leaning over the bridge rail, the destroyer captain saw half of the patrol craft sliding down the side of his ship, and he presumed the other half was passing down the opposite side. One of the crew later recalled “a billowing cloud of flaming gasoline exploded with a loud swoosh against the side of our ship” and waves of flaming fuel creating “pools of crackling, blazing liquid” on the ship’s decks. Sailors battled the fires, quickly extinguishing them with no serious injuries.
Peering astern, Captain Kohei Hanami of the destroyer Amagiri watched as the survivors of the patrol craft clung to the forward half of their wrecked vessel in the destroyer’s wake. He could not know at the time that one of those survivors—the skipper of the ill-fated PT-109—would later become the 35th President of the United States.
Eager for some good news at this point in the war, Tokyo newspapers heralded the dramatic incident with joyous headlines proclaiming the event as “Enemy Torpedo Boat Run Through in the Dark of Night” and comparing Captain Hanami to a master samurai swordsman who had exhibited a “Super-human Display of Courage.”
In the United States, Joseph P. Kennedy made sure that the incident—particularly the heroic efforts of his son in the aftermath that resulted in the rescue of the survivors—received favorable press at the time, as well as later during John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign for president.
Nine years after the sinking of his PT-109, then-Congressman Kennedy had his staff track down Hanami, and, though the two men would never meet in person, they established a friendship by correspondence.
Hanami had also become a politician, becoming a councilman and later mayor in the village of Shiokawa in Fukushima Prefecture, about 100 miles north of Tokyo. In September 1952—when Kennedy was running for the Senate—Hanami wrote his former enemy recounting the experience and adding, “I take this opportunity to pay my profound respect to your daring and courageous action in this battle and also to congratulate you upon your miraculous escape under the circumstances.” He went on to say, “I am firmly convinced that a person who practice [sic] tolerance to the former enemy like you, if elected to the high office in your country, would no doubt contribute not [only] to the promotion of genuine friendship between Japan and the United States, but also the establishment of the universal peace.”
Kennedy responded to Hanami’s “very kind and generous letter,” concluding, “I think that it most important the relations between Japan and the United States remain firm and strong for our own mutual security.” When he was later elected president, Kennedy made good on those words, ensuring that Japanese-American relations remained strong during his time in office.
In late 1963, Shiokawa was in the middle of a three-day cultural celebration when Hanami received the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. When interviewed by a reporter from Stars and Stripes, referring to the man he had nearly killed 17 years before, Hanami said: “There is no other person besides Kennedy himself who . . . can tie the East and West in peace. So what is going to happen to this world?”
