Patrick Henry McMahon; Sailor Saved by J.F.K.

Patrick Henry McMahon, 84, the wounded sailor whom John F. Kennedy towed three miles to safety after a Japanese warship crushed their patrol-torpedo boat during World War II. McMahon was a Machinist Mate 1st Class on PT-109, and served under Kennedy, then a 26-year-old lieutenant junior grade and skipper of the craft. On Aug. 2, 1943, when the crew was patrolling Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, a Japanese destroyer burst out of the darkness and smashed through their boat, slicing it in two and instantly killing two of the 13 crewmen. McMahon suffered burns on his face, chest, arms and legs and couldn’t swim because of the pain. Kennedy put him across his back and kept him there by clenching McMahon’s life-jacket strap in his teeth. In Encinitas, Calif., on Sunday of complications of pneumonia.