PT 109 crew member Interview with Maurice Kowal about John F Kennedy - 2006

good morning everyone frank andrews here with the mosquito fleet and i'm honored uh and very pleased to be in the presence of a crew member an original crew member of pt 109 mr morris cole and mr culver thank you for inviting me into your home today it was my pleasure not yours remember that all during this thing very good now i wanted to ask you the beginning of what it was when you got involved with the navy what year do you remember what year you actually got into the navy and what made you decide on the navy well i was drafted in the army and i didn't like the army so i went up to the navy recruiting office and i told them they said we're all filled up you'll have to wait so i says well i'm going to fort devon's in 30 days he said raise your right hand and i did he gave me the oath and i was in the navy but i waited about two months to report for active duty now where did you take your actual boot camp training newport rhode island and can you tell us a little bit about what the training consisted of over there it was a lot of marching and i was only over there two and a half weeks or three weeks before i was shifted over to melville to pt base now we know that melville is just up the coast on narragansett bay so you had gone you were shipped over to the motor torpedo boat squadron training center do you remember what year you arrived there it was in 42 so in 1942 you arrived there and what did you think of the base when you arrived do you remember well it's the first time i left home so it looked like exciting the boats out there and everything and it was way down the hill and when you get there you walk from the main road down and it's a good hike so i was new at it and i didn't know anything about navy life so now when you had gotten to the base had you seen a pt boat prior to this at all did you even know what a pt boat was never seen one never heard of one and did when you had got there did you see one right away yes because the huts where we slept in were right there no you could see them almost from every hud so they put me in the hot now well then we had some free time and the whole busload when we just walked and we got near a boat we were starting to get on and the navy man come on hey what are you guys doing what do you think this is a pleasure crap now get the hell out of here yeah that was my first encounter so can you tell us a little bit what was life like at the base we had heard uh especially in the winters in new england that it was pretty pretty bad there and there against the bay had been known to actually be a pretty ferocious part of the ocean at one time were you there in the summer or were you there fall or winter winter because i went to navy october and we i was they had november and december so it was very cold there so what can you tell us a little bit about your training when you were at melville well melville we were trained every position on the pt boat gunners mates quartermasters engineers it was just a fast course mode to familiarize you with what's going on and it was walking from once it had to quantity cold now what can you tell me about um being on a pt boat for the very first time i'm sure these a lot of the other pt boat guys have told me that there were loudspeakers that would blare out the fact that uh you guys would report to the docks um to to board a pt boat for training can you remember your first time on a pt bowl yes we did announced you know to report the boat whatever the number was and you'd go down you stand there and by the time they got ready and all that you were frozen solid and they put you on the boat and you went there wasn't much just a ride but it was very exciting to a kid that never left home before now did you a lot of guys have said that they have gotten seasick out there the first time that they were out in the bay did that affect you at all no i never was seasick all the time i was in the navy what did you like about the boats when you first when you first got on him was it the exhilaration of the ride the the speed the maneuverability that had a lot to do with it but for a guy like me living in an inland area being on the pt boat was just like being on the yacht and everything that was on there the torpedoes the machine guns fascinated me now back during that time when you were at melville was did you had had you met uh john kennedy at that time no we didn't meet any of the bt offices just the instructors now after you had left the motor torpedo boat squadron training center and you got your orders can you tell us where you proceeded at that point well first i ever proceeded to the church i got married and was with my wife just ten days i think and i then we went on train from providence to san francisco receiving station and while we were there we were waiting for a transportation to the pacific and all the time i was there and it wasn't long about two or three weeks i was working in a shipyard night sleep all day and working at shipyard nights then we went on a merchant ship and they dumped us in new caledonia so you had gone to new caledonia and what uh squadron were you attached with at that point no squadron we just were going over there when we got to new caledonia they marched us up some receiving station way up in there walking there midnight and then we come back we didn't eat they put us on an apc or some small ball and we went there and we went to the new hebrides and while we were gone we didn't eat no breakfast or anything the crew of the apc ate their breakfast and the mess could come out and they were throwing all the leftover food over the side and we asked them if we could have it you're not ship's company so they threw it all over the side and dumped us off at new hebrides when did you first get involved with the pt-109 and um involved with the skipper as you like to call him john f kennedy well from there we went to guadalcanal and we got a boat from guadalcanal over to talaghi from there they assigned me to you know i just said the name well anyway small island there and all they had on it was ammunition and 100 octane gasoline and i was working there oh not too long about two weeks and then the skipper kennedy come over and he said you calvo i said yes sir and he says you're part of my crew and that's the first time i met him he went over there to gas up and i went aboard the pt-109 now movies of course we know changed things quite a bit in the movie pt-109 the 109 was supposedly a rat infested wooden boat that took an awful lot to get her into shape was that actually true with the movie portrayed when you saw the 109 for the first time yes it was in the mess but i didn't see no rats and all that and we went in dry dock and started scraping the bottom painting guns and so forth and kennedy was right there with us all the time doing the same thing scrape and paint so he wasn't afraid to get involved with the work that you had you had done now of course you were a gunners mate at the time i believe a second class when you had gone aboard the 109 so your job would have been primarily getting the guns into shape yes and that's where i almost killed him how did this happen i was cleaning a twin 50 and he of course it's protected by gods and all that and i went to the gun and i didn't i was a second class gunners mate but i didn't know anything about guns i didn't even know i was second class and i put my arm there twin 50 and i pulled it and at that time it both guns went off and just ruffled his hair and if it wasn't for the gun stops we probably wouldn't have had our 35th president the gun stops saved his life well when this happened i'm sure that kennedy wasn't too pleased with you at the time he wasn't you said whether your second class gun is made you don't know where the safety is i didn't know where the safety switch was eight weeks at melville i didn't know where to safety so first experience my first experience with kennedy so basically you were taught by the first class gunners made some of the things that went on with the with the twin 50s yeah charles harris was army he was seniors guns made at the time that's that was bucky harris he used to call him bucky herron yes so now after you've got everything all done and the boat was underway had you met commander ritchie at that point no so you never met richie at all who was in charge of boats at that time when the boat said when you got everything all clean and the and everything was up to uh snuff uh then you took out the boat for trials the 109 went out for a trial yeah and it was commander custer cluster that you know was the base uh squadron commander that's the only officer i remember and you remember him very well you shouldn't find man so when you took the 109 out what types of maneuvers did kennedy make you guys go through a lot of general quarter things we went through general quarters speeding and just about all that getting familiar with it everything the guns we shooting at barrels and so forth now we're gonna move ahead a little bit after the 109 and you had gone out onto patrol can you kind of tell us what a typical patrol might have consisted of well we did very little patrolling at uh talagi that was our pt base in guadalcanal but then we went with transfer to russell islands i don't know how far it was but it was away from guadalcanal and we used to go on uh patrol there and the japs were at munda a big base there an army base and airport and so forth were out there always on patrol but there wasn't much action at brussels islands so a typical patrol you would start a patrol out do you recall what time you would actually leave uh the pt boat base and arrive on station well it was just getting dark when we were leaving the base and then when we got to our station we'd just be patrolling an area around rendover and choice and so forth now let's move ahead again to the night that you were injured on the 109. um can you tell us a little bit about what had happened on that patrol and how you were injured and there were also other 109 crew members that were injured that night well we were on patrol from rendover at that time just we left russell islands and went to uh rendover japs were at munda and we were on patrol and you know a pt boat has a big weight to it well at the time we were just cruising and there wasn't wasn't much and all of a sudden a wham the bomb was dropped and i got hit in the leg drowdy hurt his head and that's all i remember about there but i was terrified first time away from home and first time i got shot at so i was terrified from that there yell until i got home now after you had gotten injured and the crew members of the 109 were injured now did you continue patrolling uh or did you did you go right in no we continued our patrol until daybreak and then we went in then we went to sick bay and they transferred us to laggy to the hospital there and at that point when you were transferred off the 109 you never saw the 109 again at that point you never were assigned back to the 109. no when we when uh we got out of the hospital we were waiting to get joined back with them and then all of a sudden we heard that 109 was sunk no survivors at the time that was the worst news that we could have gotten i still i'd shiver right now just thinking of that so you got the information that the 109 was lost and of course they were missing for roughly a week right what do you think the the big single reason why they weren't allowed to go back to look for the 109 and those survivors i don't really know but it's such a large area and i don't know if they knew even knew where they were but there was no wreckage or anything so they didn't know where to look after you now you were on the base uh in the hospital recuperating do you recall where you were when you had heard that the crew had been found we're in tulagi at the time and we were walking along oh no they sent us back to mccamber work and then we got the news 109 crews saved they were all saved that they said all that's how we heard it and we know from history that it was actually harold marney and andrew kirksey were actually lost from that crew now did you actually see the crew when they were brought back into the base oh yeah i think we seen him but going back to correct c he had a dream that he was going to die and all that and kennedy wanted to take him off you know and he says you know you don't have to go on this patrol but he's yellow and he went on the patrol he was lost did kirksey have this premonition talking about that now while you were still a crew member of the 109 yes yeah that night that night so you saw the crew of the 109 everybody had had come back and at that point what were you doing what we have you had already been assigned to another position well i was on the combo island across from tulaga we were working there they had uh uh all the gasoline over the ammunition and i was working over there that's when kennedy come over and pick me up so now you were doing different things um after you were taken off the 109. when did you get involved with pt boats again at that point well kennedy got assigned to the 59 boat and that was a wrecked there was nothing really on it and then we put eight machine guns fifty twin fifties now four on each side and 240 millimeters foul and stern and we got it in shape there and we went on patrol for barges mostly now if i if i recall that was an old 77-foot elko pt bowl wasn't it yes and you had you so you refitted everything um did the work on the boat uh and then you had come back to the 59 at that point were you a first-class gunners mate on the 59 i think so but the crew was offered they could go to us new zealand if they wanted to but then they give them a then you stay a little longer you can go home you know to the states and all that so i didn't have a vote of droughty we just part of the crew but anyway they all voted to stay on the 59 so they can get home and talking about that now the some of the original crew members of the 109 including yourself and who were the other original crew members that were on the 59 i believe it was droughty was there drewich was there i believe it was malware wasn't it yeah well he was on a pt boat uh ship tender going over to new guinea that got sunk and he couldn't smell swim so anyway he was on there now i can't remember what i was going to say so again you know here you guys the original crew of the 109. now did kennedy know that you guys were assigned to the 59 again we go back to the movie where he walks up the gangplank and sees you original members of the crew on the 59 is that how that happened did he know you guys were assigned to him prior i don't know but i believe he did i mean it's such a small outfit seeing we had a new officer too instant tom he's the second officer the head officer instant web didn't last long kennedy didn't care for him too much we had instant tom on this exec so now you you're involved with the 59 again as a as a gunners mate can you tell us what your general quarters position was on the 59 i had a stavid twin 50. and that was an awesome amount of firepower can you tell us a little bit about when you had gone to rescue some of those trap marines on that night um well we went back to our base and i can't remember what it was and we were going to go to refuel and get the emergency call to go pick up these marines they were in trouble so we took off there and we went up there and there was japs on the shore and the marines were in the water shooting at them we got them all aboard and we started back to sapi i think it was but anyway we ran out of gas and we got towed the rest of the way in two two marines died aboard there one one on a fan tale and one in kennedy squatters so when you picked up these marines they were sure they were trapped now was this on churchill island yeah yes choice oh that's exactly right and when you went in to get these marines uh were they on the shore when you had to pick them up how close to the shore did the 59 have to come i don't know but they were walking out to us and you know they almost got aboard without swimming or anything that's how close and the japs were on the shore shooting at them and we were strafing the short trying to keep them back when the marines had gotten on the uh on on the boat it said that one of the marines actually had died in kennedy's bunk yeah one the one in the cruise in his quarters yeah yeah now kennedy always took that personally he had more feeling for the young people like us now can you tell us the the incident when you had run out of gas do you recall how far away from the shore you were now you're under fire from the japanese shore positions how far away were you from there when when you would run out of fuel well i believe we were loading them all on and we were leaving so we wasn't unendangered so but we were drifting and of course they had to get a boat from to pull us in do you recall what boat it was that told you that night no idea when you had gotten the marines back to base um can you tell us what happened at that point when they took the marines off did you continue patrolling well no that was the next small you know we were on patrol next morning then we went and picked them up then we were getting ready to go out that night and now you continue down with patrolling with the 59 had you run into any other uh action outside of the marine problem on churchill island no we did well we used to strafe we used to see that base once in a while on choice all and we just stray from i don't think we ever had anything but we every time we always hit their comfort stations on our way back to the base blew them up every morning we just shoot them up with our twin 50s you had a chance to serve with kennedy on the 109 and again on the 59. in summary what can you tell us what it was like for you personally uh to be under the command of kennedy well i didn't know anything you know about him and even if i knew he was you know a wealthy family but it didn't impress us any but he because he treated us like he treated himself when you see a merchant ship come into go out of canal he used to go alongside and tie up and go aboard and bump he was crazy for ice cream and you'd get ice cream and make it and all that and he always got mad at us because when he made it the cook would have it and we'd kind of sneak in and eat most of it ourselves and he was supposed to save one tray for him but he was a regular guy and now did you keep track of kennedy's progress after the war had you visited with him at all after the war at any point i he was in hyannis and at that after the war i got a job on a state and they went to cape and one time and they had a rolls royce that kennedy's father owned but the guy i was working for bought it and i went i brought him to her he had owned the hotel on the cape and i i dropped him off and i went to hyannis where kennedy's home was and i went there and see i asked the secret service and to see him no you can't go in and all that and one said i'll go in and see what the story is he went in to the house and he come out with kennedy and they're talking and then kennedy said come on in and though so i said okay but then harriman drove up and they were having a meeting and he said come on come on you can sit and listen but i i knew my place so i said so long and i didn't go in with him now after the war had ended uh how long did you stay in the navy after not long gee i can't tell you six months probably and then you were shipped stateside and of course you were married at the time too and what what type of work did you do after the service i went to college the university of massachusetts stockbridge school and i took up floriculture and my wife's father owned the greenhouse and i went to work for him and i took over when he passed away now one of the big questions that a lot of people ask it and especially in the the world of modelers and pt boat buffs and people as myself that enjoy and have a real true passion for the boats what was the actual color of the 109 when you got on board do you remember oh it was a battleship greg there this is this is something that so many people are have asked there's so much controversy that it wasn't gray it was green it was because there's a lot of portraits that portray pt 109 as being green but when you got on board it was actually gray i'm pretty sure it's gray i wouldn't say positive but i'm pretty sure it wasn't green i want to get back a little bit too because you had spoken about the night that you were injured and i believe it was a japanese float plane that had dropped a daisy cutter on the stern of the 109. um you had earlier said something about that i would like you to share about how your hair stood up on end well when you come over a big piece of shrapnel just miss kennedy in the cockpit and i forgot your car oh yeah when i got hit the bomb went off and i got hit i thought i got hit in the head i had on the helmet and my head hurt know what it was my hair stood up so i was so scared so that that that explains that situation and then of course you were injured and then the book done by mr dunham and pt-109 talks about how you took a couple of steps and your your foot was sloshing inside your boot yeah and i uh i was put down uh crew squad as the mower wrapped it up but my shoes were soaked with blood of course you know the climate there in the bloodstain i guess and just poured out and from that day on i was scared now after the the war was over you kept in touch a little bit with with kennedy and i'm sure you watched his progress from from a congressman to uh to a president do you recall where you were and how you felt when kennedy was elected president well at that time he got me a position in the minuteman national park in concord and i was near the knot bridge at the time and one of the crew work grew come over and says that kennedy was shot and all that and i went up there and i i didn't know what to do i went home listening to the news and then i forget who it was i called someone in the white house i had a telephone number and i asked how he was he says well he's passed away and i was a wreck and he was going to call me back and get me to washington but he never did get too busy i want to back up because i think he misunderstood me just a little bit i wanted to know where you were when he was elected president i don't well i was home listening to all the news about him and i met him a few times campaigning one time in worcester i was shopping with my father and who comes down someone pushed me and turned around it was kennedy give me a big shove and of course my father was you know a foreigner and he seen kennedy and boy that was a highlight of his whole career and life now outside of president kennedy had you kept in contact with the coup of the 109 and the 59 after the war well harris was from uh waltham and johnson was there and mala we were both together at after the y and then he got married and then he come up with his wife and his wife stayed with my wife at her home so we were pretty close with mala but also harrison johnson they were just an hour or so away now we talk about earlier you and i how gerard zinzer had been dubbed as the last survivor of pt 109 and of course in this conversation with you and i i want to go publicly as stating that mr zinzer's title should actually have been last survivor of the crash of pt-109 now is it safe to say that you are the last survivor of the original crew of pt-109 do we know of anyone else that is around we do not i am definitely the last original crew member of pt109 i want to thank you so much for again for inviting me into your home here today and for spending time with me and i hope that i have asked some questions that were intelligent for you to answer and is there anything else that you might like to add no i can i'm just lucky that i knew a man like him again thank you that interview was with last surviving member of the original crew of pt 109 morris kovale thank you again thank you for coming you

Channel: Richard J. Washichek

Views: 185,989

Keywords: pt boat, JFK, pt-109, pt 109

Id: SEhZYpOgANs

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022