The simple flip of a coin between two young naval officers in Motor Torpedo boats in the South Pacific could have produced very different results for both. I won. Had I lost, I’m convinced neither of us would have survived the events that ensued, and American history would have been very different.

One of us—John F. Kennedy—proceeded to a near-fatal collision with a Japanese destroyer. He was an excellent swimmer (far better than I) and led all but two of his crew to eventual rescue. The story of the loss of his boat, PT-109, is well known; my boat, PT-IlO, was blown up later in New Guinea with a heavy loss of life. Having been in combat areas months longer than Kennedy, I had been posted stateside when my boat was lost. Kennedy would have been aboard.

In the spring of 1943 Comdr. A. R Calvert, head of PT operations in the Solomon Islands, was ordered to detach six boats and send them to New Guinea, some two thousand miles away. All six were set to depart when a Japanese bomber made a direct hit on one at a fueling dock. As luck would have it, both Kennedy’s boat and mine had just been repaired in dry dock and were available for that arduous journey.

I’m often asked what Kennedy was like in his mid-twenties. There was an unspoken snobbery among officers in the PT Navy. We divided ourselves informally into the Ivy League (grads of prestigious Eastern universities, like Harvard) and the “Weed League” (schools like my own—Georgia Tech). To me Kennedy was, on the surface, another Ivy Leaguer. But to them he was an “upstart Irishman.” His rejection by the Ivy Leaguers meant he had to find his friends elsewhere, and it seems to me that his ability to do so reflected itself in his political life and doubtless explained his broad appeal to the United States populace.

Calvert invited Kennedy and me into his tent to ask which of us wanted to go to New Guinea. We both had friends in the departing group, and there was supposed to be more action in New Guinea. When we both said we’d like to be chosen for the assignment, Calvert said we should step outside and flip a coin. I won the toss.

Our boats departed with the PT tender USS Niagara on May 22. On the morning of our second day at sea, a Mitsubishi 97 twin-engine bomber appeared overhead and dropped several bombs on the Niagara —not a direct hit, but the attack left the ship with her rudder jammed, steaming in a circle.

Less than an hour later, several Japanese bombers appeared overhead and dropped more bombs on the stricken vessel, which began to burn. The Niagara ’s modest antiaircraft gun was useless, and she was loaded with aviation gasoline; the skipper quickly