The Solomon Islander Who Saved John F. Kennedy

The Solomon Islander Who Saved John F. Kennedy

Via - Debbie Tolson
November 24, 2014

On Aug. 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed a U.S. torpedo
boat patrolling a strait in the Solomon Islands.

A fireball lit up the night sky, and the Navy recorded
Lt. John F. Kennedy and his 12-man crew as dead.

But Kennedy and 10 others had survived the crash, and they swam
for hours—with the young lieutenant towing a mate by gripping the
man’s life jacket strap in his teeth—before reaching dry land.

Yet those heroics would have gone for naught without Eroni Kumana
and Biuku Gasa, two Solomon Islanders who found the crew three
days later, subsisting on coconuts on a small island.

The pair took an SOS message from Kennedy, which he scratched
onto a green coconut, and paddled their dugout canoe nearly 40
miles through hostile Japanese territory to an allied base.

The crew, and the future president, were rescued on Aug. 8, 1943.

Born in the Solomon Islands, then a British protectorate, Kumana
“never knew precisely how old he was,” said The Boston Globe.

He was a teenager when he started working as a scout for the Allies
during World War II, tracking Japanese movements around the
South Pacific archipelago.

It was a dangerous job—locals who collaborated with the Allies
risked torture and death, and Japanese patrols “often used the
native canoes as target practice,” said The Times (U.K.).

Kennedy never forgot the risks taken by Kumana, and Gasa,
to save his crew.

He kept the engraved coconut on his White House desk
and even invited the two men to his inauguration.

“But they were reportedly prevented from attending by
colonial officials embarrassed by their homely appearance.”

“Kumana had hoped to see Kennedy again and was devastated
to learn of his assassination in 1963,” said The Washington Post.

“My sadness was great,” he said.

In 2002, Kumana was visited by the president’s nephew,
Max, and burst into tears when he was presented with a
bust of Kennedy that became his most treasured possession.

Max said Kumana’s son translated their conversation and
told him his name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy Kumana.



Eroni Kumana (1925–2014) passed away at the age of 96
on August 03, 2014 in his native village of Kongu.