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The small boat sped quickly along in the dark. It was a hot night in August. The thirteen men onboard were quiet and tense. Their mission was a scary one: They were looking for Japanese warships in the Pacific Ocean.
Suddenly, there was an explosion.
The small boat was ripped in half by a Japanese destroyer returning to its base. Two of the crew were killed instantly. The other eleven men clung to pieces of the boat until morning. Then the wreckage began to sink. The captain decided they all must swim to the safety of a nearby island. The men didn’t think they could make it.
“Will we ever get out of this?” asked one.
“It can be done,” replied the captain. “We’ll do it.”
One of the men was burned so badly that he could not swim. He told the captain to save himself and the other men. But the captain would not leave the wounded man. He swam for five long hours with the burned man on his back. When they reached the island, the captain discovered two natives and a canoe.
He also discovered a coconut shell on which he carved these words:
HE CAN PILOT 11 ALIVE
NEED SMALL BOAT KENNEDY
He gave the shell with the message to the islanders who went by canoe to another island nearly forty miles away. Six days after the patrol boat was destroyed, the brave and quick-thinking captain and his crew were rescued.
The captain’s name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
