Collision With History: The Search for John F. Kennedy's PT 109
On a foggy August night in 1943, the future President's PT boat  was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon  Islands. Two of the 13-man crew died in the action, which cut  their boat in two. Kennedy acquitted himself well in the  aftermath, assisting two injured crewmen, leading the survivors  to nearby islands and eventually getting word to rescuers. In  the tradition of his explorations of the Titanic and Bismarck  wrecks, Ballard (with help from writer/consultant Morgan)  attempts to set the strategic and tactical stage for Kennedy's  war, but the result is rather disappointing. The text then jumps  forward to the May 2002 expedition to locate the wreck. There is  some material describing the geography of the Solomons and their  modern inhabitants. Chapter 5, which is given over to the actual  search and discovery, might have made a detailed magazine  article but is scarcely sufficient to form the core of a book.  Heavily illustrated with photos and National Geographic  reconstructions, and with family remembrances and an  introduction by Sen. Edward Kennedy, this coffee-table book  feels rushed into print to accompany the promised television  documentary. A marginal purchase unless the documentary  generates demand.Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms  Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KSCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.