Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.In 1939, Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland to mark the beginning of World War II. Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy took only a month to recover and returned to duty, commanding the PT-59, first removing the torpedo tubes and depth charges and refitting her in one month into a heavily armed gunboat mounting two automatic 40mm guns and ten .50 caliber Browning machine guns. The plan was to attach one gunboat to each PT boat section to add gun range and power against barges and shore batteries which the 59 encountered on several occasions in mid-October through mid-November.
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