was jfk in the 29th division

He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. The 29th Divisions remarkable record in World War II forged the high standards maintained by all post-war 29ers. The problem was Jack had a bad back and it was doubtful the Navy would take him. 3 John F. Kennedy (far right) with his men, during World War II. And they said, Would you go with us over to WFAA studios? And we said, Sure. So we started walking in that direction.He just walked up to a man in a car and said: These people saw the president get shot. She had on a little white practical nurses uniformand she had these big, black horn-rimmed glasses. BODY MOVED FROM PARKLAND TO AIR FORCE ONE 2:20 P.M. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue, he said. Ignoring enemy fire from shore, Kennedy and his crew pulled alongside and dragged the Marines aboard. I was wearing my snap-brim hat like I always woreI took her in and I told the first uniformed cop, Im the one that brought Oswalds mother over here, where can we put her so these reporters wont be talking to her? He found a place for us, and so I put her in there and went in there with her. Kennedy, looking at a picture on the front page of The New York Times of a dog lunging to bite a teenager on the stomach, said that the photo made him sick. In the two years after he became president, John F. Kennedy faced no more daunting domestic issue than the tension between African Americans demanding equal treatment under the Constitution and segregationists refusing to end the Souths system of apartheid. The motorcade just went by. And that was the first that I knew, and by then, I was getting a message from the newsroom that there had been shots fired. I did have my revolver in my hand at that particular time.Once I got to the balcony I could see several officers coming in from the stage or back entrance. Today, the youngmen and women populating the Maryland and Virginia National Guard units tracing their lineage back to the 29th Division in both world wars have fully lived up to those standards on the distant battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror. But he was genuinely impressed and moved by Kings speech. Theyve shot Jack!. Kennedy had come back into the room, and most of the people were beginning to leave because they felt like this was such a grief-stricken and private affair that they should not be there.I was still there as the rites were performed, and a prayer was said. The nearest boat, commanded by veteran skipper William Liebenow, joined him, but Kennedys PT-109 and the last boat, with Lieutenant John Lowrey at the helm, somehow got left behind. Recognizing human fallibility in the perception of any given event, these eyewitness accounts provide a mostly unvarnished real-time narrative from citizens, officials participating in the events and newsmen covering it. I get inside on one side of him, and Agent Hill on the other. Finally came the climactic night of August 1 and 2, 1943. He was injured in the arrest in the Texas Theatre, but he certainly wasnt being beaten on by the Dallas police force. During Jacks medical leave, the navy won the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea. During World War II, the 29th Infantry Division suffered 3,720 killed in action, 15,403 wounded in action, 462 missing in action, 526 prisoners of war, and 8,665 non-combat casualties, for a total of 28,776 casualties during 242 days of combat. Now, Mr. Wade, the district attorney, was present at this time and his assistant was present, and as I recall, I asked Mr. Wade, Do you think this will be all right? And he said, I dont see anything wrong with it.. Kennedy consulted his father the next day. Dr. Jenkins: However, for a period of minutesafter we knew he was dead, we continued attempted resuscitative maneuvers.I think as we pronounced the president dead, those in attendance who were there just sort of melted away. Graves are assigned to escort Oswald to the county jail. He carried the rest of the grateful Marines to safety. After a few minutes, the flames from the boat began to subside. The cops are beating him up because he killed the president. So, they were demanding of Will Fritz and the other detectives and Chief Curry that they produce Oswald. Agent in Charge Kellerman opened the door of the presidents car and stepped out on the street. Agent Hill: We didnt really hit the crowds until we hit Main Streetwhere they were surging into the street. Without breaking radio silence, he charged off to engage, presuming the others would follow. ], History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. What happened? It seemed that they had heard a shot but they didnt know exactly what had happened as the car sped away, and I kept on just yelling: They killed him! In his remarks to the massive audience, which was nearly exhausted by the long afternoon of oratory, King had spoken for five minutes from his prepared text when he extemporaneously began to preach in the familiar cadence that had helped make him so effective a voice in the movement. For a moment I thought it was, you know, like you say, Oh, he got me! when you hear a shotyouve heard these expressions and then I sawI dont believe the president is going to make jokes like this, but before I had a chance to organize my mind, I heard a second shot and then I saw his head opened up and the blood and everything came out. Mrs. And everybody agreed: Oh yeah, no questions. But Cluster laughed it off, particularly when his friend earned the nickname Crash Kennedy. The march marked a memorable moment in a century-long crusade for black equality. Warren Reynolds: Our office is up high where I can have a pretty good view of what was going on. I never saw an officer hit him with a fist, shotgun butt, or anything else at the time he was in my presence. They liked even more the ice cream and treats that the lieutenant bought them at the PX. And I got up there, he turned off the camera, and were talking about, well, where could he standbecause by that time, theres quite a few people gathering. ENCOUNTERS WITH JACK RUBY AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS About the same time, the navy finally recognized the weaknesses of its PT fleet. These accounts are sometimes highly descriptive of a horrific act inflicted on men in the presence of their loved ones and shocked spectators. . The tiniest shard of hot metal might ignite the 3,000-gallon gas tanks. Of course, I had an empty camera. Before it is officially announced, Johnson is informed he is now president and must immediately return to Air Force One. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. Ironically the Japanese destroyer didnt even realize that they had struck an enemy vessel and kept motoring forward soon out of earshot. His crew should have been on high alert, they said. Our conversation was interrupted to allow the attorney general to come back on the line. I said: Carousel Club? He ran right by me. AIR FORCE ONE ARRIVES AT ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE 5 P.M. (6 P.M. EST) And Ill furnish your doctor when he does the autopsy for the trial. And I got Ward back on there and I said, Tell him to take him on back.. People were scrambling to get telephones. Our next move is to get Mrs. Kennedy off from the seat, which was a little difficult, but she was removed. After landing on D-Day, the division captured St. The 29th Division sailed for England in September 1942 aboard the famous Cunard liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Ike Pappas: As soon as I got there, I picked up the theme of what people were talking about. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today! What I really want to know, he wrote, is where the hell were you when the destroyer hove into sight, and exactly what were your moves?. I didnt know he was living away from his family. She looked at these people very carefully, and she picked him out and made the positive identification. I had Oswald right up against me, and I tried to pull him behind me, but all I succeeded in doing was turning his body, so that instead of hitting him dead center, it hit him just about four inches to the left of the navel. Fellow PT skipper Ensign George Ross with his boat out of commission joined Kennedy aboard the 109. Herseys narrative devoted remarkably few words to the PT-109 collision itselfat least in part because the writer was fascinated by what Kennedy and his men did to survive. I did ask him some questions and he told me that he shot him, told me that he was all torn up about the presidential killing, that he felt terribly sorry for Mrs. Kennedy. About a half-hour later, I asked someone to find out if Mrs. Kennedy would stand with us during the administration of the oath. Police Dispatcher: Attention all squads. Malcolm Kilduff: Now, in removing the casket on the forklift at Andrews Air Force Base, one of the handles got broken. A few minutes after midnight, with all four boats lying in wait, Brantinghams radar man picked up blips hugging the coast of Kolombangara. Ill never forget because there had been a lot of tension in Dallas politically. Most debilitating, doctors wrote, was his birth defectan unstable and often painful back. An incredible 48 hours in Dallasthe presidents murder in broad daylight and the astonishing killing of his alleged assassin on live televisionhas spawned countless conspiracy theories. For his service in World War II, John F. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the highest non-combatdecoration awarded for heroism) and the Purple Heart. The prospect of race wars across the South convinced him that he had to take bolder action. Therefore, this is the right message. Elected in 1960, he brought an energy and grace to the Oval Office. One of the most influential periods could easily have been his tenure as a naval combat officer in the South Pacific fighting the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor. They killed him! and the people that I met on the way didnt even know what happened, and they kept yelling: What happened? Squad Leader. The journey took five exhausting hours, as they fought a strong current. Photo Gallery D-Day vet hugged by Donald Trump Pickett was said to be the last surviving member of his company in the U.S. Army's famed 29th Infantry Division, which stormed the beaches in. He was obviously down low. The 29th was reconstituted in the National Guard in 1921, assigned to the III Corps, and allotted to the states of Maryland and Virginia, and the District of Columbia. He was now touring the country promoting war bonds and touting the PT fleet as the Allies key to victory in the Pacific. Bob Jackson: As we approached Main and Houston to make the turn, I had just unloaded my cameraone of my two cameras. The senior Kennedy persuaded Kirk to let a private Boston doctor certify Jacks good health. Lieutenant Day: We were working on the fingerprints and so forth of the area where the shooting occurred. American forces had captured Tulagi and nearby Guadalcanal, but the Japanese remained entrenched on islands to the north. Among others, Special Agent William Greer and motorcycle policeman Willie Price help take President Kennedy into the emergency room. And just as I turned and looked at him, I could see a piece of his skull and I remember it was flesh colored. OSWALD INTERROGATION BEGINS 2:20 P.M. Deputy Mooney: I went straight across to the southeast corner of the building, and I saw all these high boxes. Malcolm Kilduff: When Judge Hughes came aboard, the president asked that Mrs. Kennedy be invited to come up during the swearing-in. He also kept and had preserved the coconut shell with his inscrption "NAURO ISLCOMMANDERNATIVE KNOWS POS'ITHE CAN PILOT11 ALIVENEED SMALL BOATKENNEDY" Years later when he was asked how he had become a hero, John F. Kennedy replied casually by saying it was involuntary, they sank my boat. On February 3, 1941, President Roosevelt called up the 29th Divisions component National Guard units from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for one year of active service. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Kennedy, a champion swimmer from his time at Harvard made his way to his forlorn crew pulling them all to the relative safety of the floating wreck of the 109. In 1940, the U.S. Armys Officer Candidate School had rejected him as 4-F, citing ulcers, asthma, and venereal disease. Congressman Jim Wright and Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr describe the morning in Fort Worth. I entered an automobile immediately behind the ambulance. Its three huge Packard motors needed a complete overhaul. I remained on duty until approximately 6:30 in the morning; went home, changed clothes, and came back. So when they left, well, I did too. His time aboard the 101 was only for training with the Navys Motor Torpedo Squadron Four located in Melville, Rhode Island and later for testing in the tropics in Panama, but it gave the young officer the thrill of commanding a roaring wooden hulled boat across the sea but this time with a compliment of torpedoes and heavy machine guns. They set out from the 109 around 1:30 p.m. Kennedy towed McMahon, gripping the strap of the injured mans life jacket in his teeth. When you do that, that stops the pistol from firing. Its not CBS saying hes dead.. Connally] was conscious. Hes got a microphoneand he slapped it right up in my face and began to try and talk to me. Weeks earlier, Joe Kennedy had taken Bulkeley to lunch and made it clear that command of a PT boat would help his son launch a political career after the war. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today! At Northwestern, Bulkeleys tales of adventure inspired Kennedy and nearly all his 1,023 classmates to volunteer for PT duty. The men begged him not to take the risk, but he hoped to find a PT boat on a night patrol. Nothing caught the spirit of the moment better, or did more to advance it, than Martin Luther King Jr.s concluding speech in the shadow of Lincolns memorial. By chance, Kennedy met up for drinks one night at a New York nightclub with writer John Hersey, an acquaintance who had married one of Jacks former girlfriends. Kennedy attempt to steer his boat into a firing position but before he could react, the massive destroyer slammed broadside into the much smaller wooden boat cutting the. Their wooden hulls could not withstand even a single bullet or bomb fragment. Connally and President Kennedy had been shot. And it just seemed an eternity. Building manager Roy Truly, who was standing in front of the building at the time of the shooting, recounts what took place. They liked his refusal to pull rank. The 29ers cleaned up, received hundreds of new replacements, and enjoyed plentiful passes to Dutch towns in the rear area. Thats all I heardbut the timing of the thirdthe cadence was just off a fraction of a second enough to let me know, Uh-oh, no, this isnt a salute., Tom Dillard: and it was loud, and I said, Theyre throwing torpedoes at him! I guess, in my mind, those things we threw as kids that hit the sidewalk and exploded. After leaving the Navy, Kennedy worked as a journalist for several years. Kennedy pointed toward a small bit of land about four miles awayPlum Pudding Islandthat was almost certainly uninhabited. I contacted the administrator of the hospital and asked him to take me where I could telephone the nearest mortuary, which I did, requested that their best available casket be brought to the emergency entrance in my name immediately. The 49th . I told them if they would not try to overrun the prisoner and not try to interrogate him we would bring him to the showup room. The first shot was fired, and boy, it just reverberated around the Dealey Plaza something terrible. Assigned in March to a cushy post in Miami, he joked, Once you get your feet upon the desk in the morning, the heavy work of the day is done.. High-velocity shells exploded around his boat as well as Liebenows. Ten minutes after landing, President Johnson addresses the nation. But Kennedys response was more than visceral. Sounded like an elephant rifle to me. His father had long ago anointed him as the familys best hope to reach the White House. She had been living in Fort Worth when he had defected to the Soviet Union, and so reporters from the Star-Telegram had actually gone out and interviewed her, and perhaps the paper was her only contact. I dont remember how the subject came up, but he was puzzled as to how to approach the Dallas News, how to be friends with them. At that particular time there were several officers talking to various witnesses who had seen the shooting.We were there only five or 10 minutes when we had heard lots of reports that the suspect had been seen in the public library there at Marcellus and Jefferson. The Kennedy Curse in WWII I told him to get the crime lab officers in route, that I had the location spotted. I got a good look at him and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was him. Kennedy couldnt risk attempting to canoe with the natives for fear of being seen by a Japanese patrol boat or plane. We then get in and help Mrs. Connally out. The wrong kind of demonstration at the wrong time will give those fellows [on the Hill] a chance to say that they have to prove their courage by voting against us. By September, Kennedy had recovered from his injuries and was panting for action. Ensign John F. "Jack" Kennedy was finally was at the helm of his own boat with the salt air spray in his face and the ocean chop bouncing him and his crew across the waves aboard the roaring PT 101. On August 25, Gerhardts men commenced their attack on Brest. In the afternoon, a frantic plea reached the PT base from an 87-man Marine patrol fighting 10 times that many Japanese on Choiseul. Mrs. Kennedy was outside the door. Kennedy prevailed. Tom Dillard: The third shot, I said, My God, theyve killed him! Bob Jackson said, Theres a guy with a rifle up in that window. I said, Where? I had both cameras around my neck, loaded, focused, cockedBob says, In that window up on that building right there, its that top window. I shot a picture with the wide-angle camera. The collision was part of a wild night of blunders by 109 and other boats that one historian later described as the most screwed up PT boat action of World War II. Yet American newspapers and magazines reported the PT-109 mishap as a triumph. The 29th Division crossed the historic Rhine River on March 31, 1945, and joined in the Allied Expeditionary Forces blitzkrieg across central Germany. Hes D.O.A. Well, that was good enough for me, and I then said words to the effect, Ive just been told by a highly reliable source that the presidents dead. And, unbeknownst to me, the broadcast was being carried by CBS because this was the only pick-up in town, and they picked it up and put it on the air. And Roy Kellerman received word from headquarters to bring it back to Washington for an autopsy at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval.And thats when Roy Kellerman and some other agents and myself formed sort of a flying wedgeand we flew out that door and put the casket in the ambulance and took off and went to Love Field. In his retelling of the PT-109 disaster, the crew members would be like characters in a novel. Exactly 56 years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to give a speech to the Democratic Party aimed at unifying the nation during a time of conflict and division. Jim Wright: As we turned, heading westwe looked and saw pandemonium in the cars and Jacqueline Kennedy on her knees in the back seat, looking out behind, and we couldnt imagine what was happening. Lo, freeing the U.S. First Army to launch a devastating breakthroughof the German lines in Operation Cobra. Bill Newman: He straightened up and brought both arms up.But, as the car got closer to us, I felt that something was wrong. I didnt know whether they were all there or not. Hersey had big ambitions for the PT-109 article; he wanted to use devices from fiction in a true-life story. Jack consulted with his doctor at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, and asked for a six-month leave for surgery. When they realized their mistake, Kennedy signaled the engine room for full power and spun the ships wheel to turn the 109 toward the Amagiri and fire. Kennedy did not think that such an appeal would have any impact on Halleck, but he liked the idea of sending a secret delegation made up of religious clerics and businessmen to see Eisenhower. I yelled to the agents, Go get us two stretchers on wheels. I turned right around to the back door and opened it. He had two 40-millimeter anti-aircraft guns installed along with an additional array heavy machine guns. Twice, other PT boats had signaled that the Tokyo Express was headed north to where the 109 was patrolling. In October 1943 he took command ofPT-59. Ike Pappas: Ive got all these people in front of metheyre three deep. Life turned down Herseys literary experimentprobably because of its length and novelistic touchesbut the New Yorker published the story in June. I estimate that Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin arrived about a half-hour after we entered the plane, just after 2 oclock. Only onJuly 18, 1944, six weeks after D-Day, did the division secure St. Jacqueline Kennedy in the presidents car and Vice President Lyndon Johnson two cars behind react. He said, Well, we better do it anyway. I picked the phone up then and called Mr. Aiken, at the warehouse, and got the boys name and general description and telephone number and address at Irving. I felt this explosion of the weapon. As the chaos and short lived ensuring flames doused by the destroyers wake subsided, Kennedy and 4 of his sailors clung to some wreckage of the 109. It was a calling based on his skills and passions from a life of growing up on Cape Cod among the sleek and fast luxurious wooden hulled motorboats effortlessly skimming across the waves on weekends. And then I just remember falling on him and saying, Oh, no, no, no! I mean: Oh, my God! One of his officers argued that this was suicide; the Japanese would fire on them from both banks. And Im just walking right on by him, getting away from him.My eyes are on the car. I had only taken a few steps in when I saw Officer McDonald come up in the row in front of the suspect. But his fury and grief at the loss of two men sent him on a dangerous quest to get even. Another gentleman came into this little doctors roomhe represented himself to be from the Health Department or commission. And I didnt know it at the time, but I was squeezing in right in front of Jack Ruby. The 29th entered Germany on October 1, 1944, holding an extended front north of the historic city of Aachen. I saw the man come over to the car very slow. I was startled by the sharp report or explosion, but I had no time to speculate as to its origin because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explosion, hitting me on the shoulder, and shouted to all of us in the back seat to get down. A Friday night Reception at the 29th Division Museum with adult beverages and heavy snacks and the Saturday formal dinner banquet with the 29th Division Commander MG Rhodes as speaker. His humanity in pursuing civil rights in the United States elevated him to a visionary level of both Presidents Lincoln and Washington. The 29th Infantry Division is one of America's most illustrious military units. He was the youngest man and first Catholic to hold that office. OSWALD IS SHOT 11:21 A.M. AMBULANCE CARRYING JFKS COFFIN ARRIVES AT WHITE HOUSE 4:35 A.M. Captain Fritz: I asked him what he thought of the president, about the family he said he didnt have any particular comment to make about the president. The gist of [what I said] was thatshots had been fired, and that the motorcade had gone by, it did not stop. But I know there were two bangs very close together, and I thought they were firecrackers because his arms were going into the air, and it was way off to my left and above. He had no palpable pulse. Nellie Connally: We had just finished the motorcade through the downtown Dallas area. He saw an end to racial strife in the South as essential to Americas international standing in its competition with Moscow for influence in Third World countries. Kennedy spent much of August in sickbay. Then I really got into just an endless narrativeI had to stay on the air. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! As the marchers dispersed, many walked hand in hand singing the movements anthem: We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome, some day. What are you doing to him? I said, God, I hope he doesnt come out nowbecause I cant see anything. I saw a little opening right next to the fender of a car.I went over there and I squeezed in, moved in with my big New York City elbows. The most famous collision in U.S. Navy history occurred at about 2:30 a.m. on August 2, 1943, a hot, moonless night in the Pacific. How does he look? I think one broadcastersaid that Lee Harvey Oswald is in custody of the police departmenthe looked all right when he went in there, they wouldnt guarantee how he would look after he had been in custody of the Dallas police for a couple of hours, which intimated to me that they thought we were mistreating the prisoner. On July 15, three months after Kennedy arrived in the Pacific, PT-109 was ordered to the central Solomons and the island of Rendova, close to heavy fighting on New Georgia. The PT-109 disaster made JFK a hero. This article was originally published in the December 2003 issue of American History magazine. Yet Kennedy doubted that he could persuade Congress to act and believed that a planned march on the Capitol in August might do more harm than good. Im just kind of likewhat a stupid thing to throw firecrackers, and as they came downthe last shot that we heard was right in front of us and it was like the same soundfar off and to the leftbut I saw his head open up.So, of course, by this time I knew it wasnt firecrackers. I produce mine. Such missions took a toll on Jacks weakened body. The men worked until mid-May to ready it for sea. We collected the three spent cartridges, cases. I can remember seeing the car turn right onto Houston Street off of Main, going the one short block and turning left on Elm. Alexander Z. Gordon. He jumps out, shoots him right in front of me.I heard footsteps, and then boom! Now he only wanted to get back to the little island he had left that night.His mind seemed to float away from his body. Brantingham fired his torpedoes but missed. This story was originally published in MHQ Magazine. We were put on the air shortly thereafter. The goal was to smash through the German lines in the Rhineland, cross the Roer River at Jlich, and drive on to theRhine by Christmas 1944. I helpedtake the stretcher that he was on into the emergency room. His first novel, A Bell for Adano, was published the same week he met Kennedy at the nightclub; it would win a Pulitzer in 1945. They write: "The PT boat was creeping along to keep the wake and noise to a minimum in order to avoid detection. No one else in the car saw the rifle, and I dont think I could have reacted fast enough to get a picture even if I had film in the camera. Dr. Jenkins: As the resuscitative maneuvers were begun, such as chest cardiac massage, there was with each compression of the sternum a gush of blood from the skull wound, which indicated there was massive vascular damage in the skull and the brain, as well as brain tissue damage, and we recognized by this time that the patient was beyond the point of resuscitation, that he was in fact dead, and this was substantiated by getting a silent electrical pattern on the electrocardiogram. This set him up for his big chance he had so longed for where he could contribute and command as an officer. I didnt know this man had shot a policeman. Sixty-eight years ago, JFK was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and Purple Heart for his actions while in command of PT-109 during World War II. So I was looking to the left. KENNEDYS SON IS HERO IN PACIFIC AS DESTROYER SPLITS HIS PT BOAT, declared a New York Times headline. He said, What do you think? And I got to thinking. 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