John F. Kennedy, with cane in the Pacific, 1943, would later downplay his PT-109 role: "It was involuntary," he quipped. "They sank my boat." Ted Robinson John F. Kennedy—elected 50 years ago ...

On August 2, 1943, while patrolling the Solomon Islands, Lieutenant Kennedy’s patrol torpedo boat PT-109 was struck by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. The much larger vessel sliced Kennedy's ...