In 1942 a young John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) entered the United States Navy eager to see action in World War II.
Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), playwright, diplomat, wife of Time-Life, Inc., publisher Henry Robinson Luce (1898-1967), and a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Connecticut, knew the Kennedy family well. She sent the young naval officer a good luck coin that had originally belonged to her mother. Kennedy thanked Luce for her thoughtfulness and promised to clip the coin to his military identification tags.
In summer 1943 Lieutenant Kennedy commanded a PT boat operating against the Japanese near the island of New Georgia in the Pacific. One night Kennedy's PT boat was rammed and cut in two by a Japanese destroyer, but the injured Kennedy and most of his crew survived. A few months later, Kennedy wrote again to Luce, enclosing a gadget, originally intended to be a letter opener, which he had made for her "from a Jap 51 cal. bullet and the steel from a fitting on my boat, part of which drifted onto an island."
He told her, "With it goes my sincere thanks for your good-luck piece, which did service above and beyond its routine duties during a rather busy period."
The PT boat that Lieutenant Kennedy was on, has just recently been located, however the search team decided to leave it on the bottom of the ocean as a burial grounds for the seamen that died aboard it.
If you know of anyone that served in WW II and they have any photo's or stories they would be willing to share, please have them e-mail us or write to us at:
American Legacies
P.O. Box 533
Rockport IN 47635
U S Legacies Magazine 2002
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