Jaws of life...

On August 2, 1943, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy's boat, the PT-109, was taking part in a nighttime patrol near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands when it was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy was thrown across the deck, injuring his already-troubled back. Nonetheless, the 26 year-old Naval commander (an ace on the Harvard Varsity Swim Team) gathered his men from the sinking ship and together they swam furiously in the dark for any land they could find.

Throughout this swim JFK shouldered a badly-burned crewman through miles of rough seas, clenching a strap from the man's life jacket in his Kennedy teeth. He found an uninhabited island where he could leave the wounded man and the rest his crew, then swam to a second island, Naru, to summon help. Here, Kennedy encountered two "natives" who spoke no English, so he carved a message into a coconut shell and gave it to the natives to deliver to the PT base at Rendova. He then swam back to the first island where he and his men lived off of coconuts for six days before they were rescued.

This deserted island shelter was called Plum Pudding Island, and later, Kennedy Island. As you can see, it is really a tiny spec, the stuff of New Yorker cartoons. One wonders what those six days were like.

JFK later had the coconut shell encased in wood and plastic and used it as a paperweight on his famous "Resolute" desk in the Oval Office.

The message on the shell reads:

"NAURO ISL… COMMANDER… NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT… HE CAN PILOT… 11 ALIVE… NEED SMALL BOAT… KENNEDY."

Did JFK use his super-teeth to carve this SOS?
Only history knows...