In the early morning darkness of August 2, 1943, in the waters of Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri sliced an American PT boat in two, leaving its crew for dead in a flaming sea. Over the next three days, the boat's skipper, a boyish lieutenant from Boston named John Fitzgerald Kennedy, repeatedly risked his life in an effort to summon help until he finally secured his crew's rescue.
First published to wide critical acclaim in 1961, Robert Donovan's timeless classic tells the complete, harrowing story of PT 109 and her crew. This 40th anniversary edition includes a foreword from Daniel Schorr, a preface by the author recounting the circumstances of the book's creation, and an afterword by World War II naval historian Duane Hove portraying the broader context for PT boat operations in the South Pacific. Here for a new generation of readers is a compelling glimpse of the values of service and duty that characterized America during the war years, as fresh and timely now as when it was published forty years ago.
Release Date: June 19, 1963
Release Time: 140 minutes
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Cast:
Cliff Robertson as Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy, Skipper of PT Boat 109
James Gregory as Commander C. R. Ritchie, base boat maintenance officer of Tulagi Naval Base
Ty Hardin as Ensign Leonard J. Thom, XO of PT Boat 109
Robert Culp as Ensign George "Barney" Ross
Grant Williams as Lt. Alvin Cluster, Commander MTB Squadron 2
Michael Pate as Lt. Reginald Evans, RANVR
Lew Gallo as Yeoman Rogers
John Ward as John Maguire, Radioman 2nd class
Biff Elliot as Edgar E. Mauer, Seaman 1st class
David Whorf as Raymond Albert, Seaman 2nd class
Sam Reese as Andrew Kirksey, Torpedoman's Mate 2nd class
Robert Blake as Charles "Bucky" Harris, Gunner's Mate 2nd class
Buzz Martin as Maurice Kowal, Gunner's Mate 3rd class
Norman Fell as Edmund Drewitch. Motor Machinist Mate 2nd class
Clyde Howdy as Leon Drawdy, Motor Machinist Mate 2nd class
Joseph Gallison as Harold Marney, Motor Machinist Mate 2nd class
Errol John as Benjamin Kevu
Sam Gilman as Raymond Starkey
William Douglas as Gerard Zinser
James McCallion as Pat McMahon
Glenn Sipes as William Johnson
Dean Smith as Lt. Liebenow
Andrew Duggan, narrator (uncredited)
George Takei, helmsman of the Japanese destroyer (uncredited)
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Robert John Donovan was a Washington correspondent, author and presidential historian. Donovan attended Lafayette High School in Buffalo, New York, where he was Captain of the Hocke Herald Tribune after the war and served as a foreign correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief. During the latter period he was President of the White House Correspondents' Association. From the Tribune, he moved to the Los Angeles Times as Washington Bureau Chief and for a short time as Associate Editor in Los Angeles.
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