Written by Jeff Ballard
We just received this wonderful note from globetrotting naval historian Jeff Ballard, with the latest VBC Magazine on Plum Pudding Island (aka, Kennedy Island and Kasolo Island) in the Solomon Islands, South Pacific!
“Greetings from the South Pacific. Will return to the US shortly. Talk soon, Jeff
“After midnight on 2 August 1943, PT-109, commanded by then Lieutenant (j.g.) Kennedy, was rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Two of the crew died instantly in the collision. Kennedy directed the remaining crew to swim to Kasolo Island, also known as Plum Pudding Island. The future president towed one sailor too badly injured to swim by a strap from the man’s life vest clenched tightly in his teeth. Only one hundred yards in diameter, Kasolo had no food or water to sustain the crew. Kennedy found coconut palms on nearby Olasana Island and moved the survivors after two days. Nightly, Kennedy swam into the Blackett Straight to signal passing PT boats with no success.
Unknown to Kennedy, Coastwatcher Reginal Evans noticed the fire resulting from PT 109’s collision with Amagiri and dispatched native scouts Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana to locate any survivors. Kennedy encountered the two boys on a third island who then carried the infamous carved coconut message to Rendova thirteen miles away. On 8 August, PT-157 reached the PT-109 survivors and returned to Rendova with no additional loss of life.
The strong current that carried the survivor south towards Ferguson Passage from the collision site is visible. From a distance, Kasolo looks like the stereotypical deserted place: tall trees, a white sand beach, and a fringing coral reef. After a very wet and bumpy ride, our outboard-powered whaleboat tied up at the pier on Kennedy Island almost exactly eighty-one years to the day after the sinking.
My companions and I were greeted by the island’s caretaker, a jovial Melanesian man named Joel. The price of admission was $100 SBD ($12.5 US). The caretaker’s residence and a large bamboo and stray Tiki bar are the only permanent structures on the island. With a total area of three acres, exploring the island does not take long. Driftwood tangles the weather coast of the island, where seabirds nest in the logs. Hermit crabs picked at what remains of a fish washed up on the sand. The lee side of the island is rocky and snarled with mangrove trees.
Joel was the perfect host and indulged all my requests for photos. However, the island’s most colorful inhabitant is “Nippy,” the parrot who landed on my bald head. He danced and pecked at his perch for two minutes until convinced the cranium was hollow, he flew on to his next victim.
There are a few rusted relics, but none are from Kennedy’s boat, all brought to Kosolo decades later. What remains of PT-109 are buried in the ever-shifting sandy bottom of the Blackett Straight in 1200 ft of water, awaiting reexamination after Robert Ballard first explored it in May 2002.
Jeff Ballard, Munda, New Georgia, Central Province, Solomon Islands, 14 August 2024.”
