80 years ago this month, on a tiny Pacific island, a legend was born. In the darkness before dawn on August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed and sank a small, plywood boat commanded by a 26 year old Lieutenant Junior Grade named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In the hours and days that followed, young Jack Kennedy would prove to be a true American hero, swimming mile after mile through shark and crocodile infested waters, while towing an injured crew member by a strap clenched in his teeth. In the ensuing decades, PT-109 has become one of the most famous small craft in US Navy history, largely due to Kennedy’s actions. However, it also became a craven political ploy, when JFK and his father Joseph Kennedy used the story of PT-109 to launch a political career that would carry Jack Kennedy to the Oval Office.
Tag: Seafaring
Bostonians on the Pacific (episode 280)
This week, enjoy three classic stories about Bostonians and their adventures on the Pacific Ocean. First, we’ll hear about the voyages of the Columbia to the Pacific Northwest starting in 1787, then we’ll move on to the Congregational missionaries who descended on Hawaii in 1823, and finally, we’ll talk about the Boston whaler who brought the industrial revolution to Spanish California. While you’re listening to these three classic stories, see if you can figure out what I’m working on that would involve a Brookline native on a small boat in the Solomon Islands in August 1943!
Thomas Jefferson in Boston (episode 277)
Thomas Jefferson visited Boston in 1784, arriving in town on June 18th. That also happened to be the same day when Abigail Adams left her home in Quincy to start making her way to France to join John at his diplomatic posting, though her ship didn’t actually leave Boston until the next day. In this episode, we’ll explore how the friendship that was kindled during their single day together in Boston carried on through their shared months in France, their decades of correspondence, and even through the years when Jefferson and John Adams were feuding. We’ll also examine Thomas Jefferson as an early New England tourist, who explored not only Boston, but also New Haven, Portsmouth, and other key regional population centers, as well as taking a fun look at his epic Boston shopping spree just days before he too boarded a boat to Europe.
The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)
John Adams later described the prosecution of William Corbet as a case “of an extraordinary Character, in which I was engaged and which cost me no small Portion of Anxiety.” In 1769, four common sailors were brought into Boston to stand trial for murder. The victim was an officer in the royal navy, and the crime had taken place just off Cape Ann, almost within sight of home. As Boston suffered under military occupation, could a military victim receive justice in a radicalized Boston? And what really happened on that ship near Marblehead? Had the dead officer really just been searching for cargo that the captain hadn’t declared and paid customs on? Or were they up to something darker, like illegally kidnapping Massachusetts sailors and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy?
Continue reading The Persuasive Powers of John Adams (episode 272)
The Nazi Spy Ship (episode 259)
When it came steaming into Boston Harbor 81 years ago this week, the fishing trawler Buskø was escorted by a Coast Guard cutter, with armed guards watching over her crew. The next day’s headlines declared that the US had captured a Nazi spy ship manned by Gestapo agents who were setting up secret bases in Greenland, but the truth turned out to be more complicated. The Busko was sailing under the Norwegian flag and manned by a Norwegian crew, yet their peaceful voyage to deliver supplies to isolated Norwegian hunters in the arctic was used to cover up Nazi intelligence gathering, so what would the fate of the ship be? And while war was raging in Europe, the United States was technically at peace, so on what charges were the Norwegian crew held at the East Boston immigration station?
Old North and the Sea (episode 255)
Independent researcher TJ Todd recently gave a presentation about Old North Church and the sea. TJ’s talk focuses on two notable sea captains, both of whom longtime listeners will remember from past episodes. Captain Samuel Nicholson was the first, somewhat hapless, captain of the USS Constitution, and Captain Thomas Gruchy was the privateer who captured the carved cherubs that keep watch over the Old North sanctuary from the French. Exploring the lives of these two famous captains will reveal what life was like for the ordinary sailors and dockworkers who made up a significant portion of Boston’s population in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as drawing connections to other incidents from Boston’s maritime past, including many that we’ve discussed in past episodes.
Thanks to our friends at the Old North Foundation for allowing us to share this presentation with you.
Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution, with Eric Jay Dolin (episode 249)
Eric Jay Dolin joins us this week to discuss his new book Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. We’ll discuss the role of privateers in the American Revolution, with a special focus on the many privateersmen who sailed out of Boston and New England. Privateers were civilian ships that were outfitted for war by optimistic investors, with volunteer crews who were willing to risk their lives fighting for a share of the profits. From the mouth of Boston Harbor to the very shores of Britain, these private warships sailed in search of rich English merchant vessels, while risking the lives and freedom of their crews. While their role is mostly forgotten today, Eric will explain how privateer crews helped turn the tide of Revolution in favor of the Americans, and we’ll discuss how our modern habit of associating privateering with piracy leads to a distaste for the privateersmen who helped win our independence. Rebels at Sea will be available in bookstores everywhere on May 31, 2022.
Sailing Alone Around the World, part 2 (episode 248)
This episode continues our story of Joshua Slocum and his solo circumnavigation of the globe. We’ll follow Captain Slocum as he builds the little sloop Spray and hatches a plan to make money for his family by sailing alone around the world for the first time. We’ll follow his astounding path from Boston to the rock of Gibraltar, back to South America, and through the months long ordeal of the Straits of Magellan. We’ll learn how he sailed thousands of miles across the South pacific to Samoa without ever touching the wheel of the sloop, while his family worried that he had perished at sea. And we’ll follow him on his pilgrimage to the home of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, his adventure in South Africa, and finally across the Atlantic and home, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days.
Continue reading Sailing Alone Around the World, part 2 (episode 248)
Sailing Alone Around the World, part 1 (episode 247)
Captain Joshua Slocum’s adventure began in Boston, and it took him to nearly every corner of the world, nearly costing him his life on multiple occasions, and probably costing him his marriage. But in the end it earned him a place in history as the first person to circumnavigate the world completely alone, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days, without so much as a dog or a ship’s rat for company. The saga begins long before that legendary 1895 voyage, when the growing and very seafaring Slocum family lived at sea for 13 years, until they were visited by unspeakable tragedy. It follows them as they attempt to pick up the pieces, only to encounter further misfortunes that drove a wedge into the family and drove the Captain out to sea in his handmade sloop on what seemed like an impossible mission: sailing alone around the world.
Continue reading Sailing Alone Around the World, part 1 (episode 247)
Mutiny on the Rising Sun, with Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty (episode 234)
This week, Jake interviews Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty, author of the new book Mutiny on the Rising Sun: a tragic tale of smuggling, slavery, and chocolate, which uncovers the dark web of interconnections between Old North Church, chocolate, and chattel slavery. Dr. Hardesty will explain why a reputable sea captain would become a smuggler, trafficking in illegal chocolate and enslaved Africans; the risks an 18th century Bostonian would take to provide himself with a competence, or enough money to allow his family to live independently; and what it meant in that era to be of but not from Boston. At the heart of the story is a brutal murder and mutiny on the high seas, illustrating the fundamental brutality of life in the 18th century, but the role of the church (specifically Old North Church) in the social and economic lives of Bostonians is also central to understanding the life and death of Captain Newark Jackson.
Continue reading Mutiny on the Rising Sun, with Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty (episode 234)