He was fascinated by a 'motor torpedo boat' or PT (patrol torpedo) boat the Navy had put on display in the summer of 1941 at the dock at Edgartown, Massachusetts.
One of his heroes was Winston Churchill and he wanted to be as heroic as Churchill.
Joe Kennedy wanted to help his son so he targeted the popular American fighting man of the day, Lieutenant Commander John Bulkeley, commander of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3 who had staged daring operations in the Philippines.
Bulkeley was assigned to boost the exploits of PT boats and a fleet of two 200 were to be dispatched shortly to the Pacific Theater.
After a meeting at the Plaza Hotel in Joe Kennedy's suite, Bulkeley agreed to his demands. Joe wanted to get his son into PT boats for the publicity and to get the veteran's vote after the war.
Bulkeley consented and in February 1943, John Kennedy was assigned to a squadron operating in the South Pacific.
He shipped out in March 1943 heading for the Solomon Islands.
In April 1943, Kennedy took command of PT 109, 'an 80-foot long, 56-ton, giant weaponized speedboat'.
He soon discovered that life in the combat zone of the South Pacific while scenically beautiful, was 'rich with cockroaches, rats lizards, sand crabs black flies, mosquitoes, malaria, dengue, dysentery, trench foot, tropical fever, and periods of unrelenting rainfall'.
Food came out of cans Spam, Vienna sausage, powdered eggs, baked beans.
Coffee and cigarettes were the only luxuries. Aspirin and vitamin A pills were consumed in large doses to aid night vision.
Lieutenant Kennedy begged and scrounged for his adored Oh Henry! candy bars, real eggs, powdered ice cream, and bread and cheese for his favorite cheese sandwiches.
He promised lobster dinners in Boston in exchange for a case of fresh New Zealand mutton.
'The only thing PT's were really effective at was raising War Bonds', PT boat skipper, Leonard Nikoloric told the author.
'The PT brass were the greatest con artists of all time'.
The mission of the PT boats was to move in dangerously close to a Japanese destroyer in the Solomons under the cover of darkness and then attack with missiles -- vintage torpedoes that rarely hit anything when fired.
A life of service: President Kennedy enlisted in the US Navy in September 1941 after a medical disqualification by the US Army
All in the family: The Kennedy clan pose for a photo at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts in September 1931. The future President sitting top left
The PT crew then were to race away under the cover of the smoke screen produced by a generator on the back of the boat and escape being hit by the enemy's large destroyer guns.
Sinking Japanese troop and supply ships as well as shredding airfields, ships and planes was the mission while fighting in the Solomons.
With no radio communication, the PT boats worked in a state of near-total confusion which is what went down on the night of August 2, 1943 when PT 109 was lying in ambush for the Tokyo Express.
Separated from the other boats in his formation, 'PT 109 seemed to be drifting in its own universe', with Lt. Kennedy in command.
With no radar guidance or radio communication, the massive hull of a Japanese warship was upon him.
The destroyer Amagiri, cut through the PT 109 diagonally, knocking Lt. Kennedy down and sending him into the steel bulkhead.
Andrew Jackson Kirksey, who had a premonition of death and Harold William Marney, were never to be seen again.
Seven of the thirteen men were propelled in the blazing ocean, 'a shark-infested ocean punctuated by pockets of flaming gasoline, lethal fumes, and muffled shouts and screams, with their boat nowhere to be seen'.
Some gulped salt water and gasoline and believed they would ultimately die very soon and 'no one was coming to save them'.
The first night they were trapped on the 'fiery surface of the Pacific Ocean surrounded by enemy-held islands'.
They had no food, no water no radio, no life raft, no medical supplies and most were scattered over a wide debris field.
John F. Kennedy pictured with his Father Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. in December 1938. New book says he exploited the PT 109 story helping to pave the path for JFK to enter the White House
By sun up, they could see each other.
They clung to the overturned, unburned bow of the boat and on Kennedy's orders, fully exposed to Japanese pilots or lookouts, made their way to Plum Pudding Island that appeared not to be inhabited by the Japanese.
Kennedy placed the strap of badly burned McMahon between his teeth and carrying him on his back, swam to the small island three and one half miles away.
Exhausted when they finally arrived at the desolate island, they crawled on their hands and knees to take cover in the trees and bushes.
There were no land animals to hunt and eat, no nutritional plant life, no fresh water.
The island was a death trap.
Kennedy decided he would swim out and try to hail a passing PT boat.
He undertook the arduous mission but with the currents, ended up right back where he started.
The crew of PT 109 was eventually rescued when sited by Coastwatchers, native people who aided the Allies by hiding in difficult terrain as well as traveling a network with relief canoes.
They 'fed the Allies a constant flow of intelligence on Japanese movements'.
It was the Coastwatchers who found those eleven lost American sailors all starving and dehydrated, on Naru and Olasana Islands.
The explosive new book claims JFK's father Joseph P. Kennedy exploited the PT 109 incident to make his son a hero
Kennedy was credited with holding his crew together during their post-crash ordeal as well as getting out there every night and swimming to find help.
'It was an operation for which Kennedy received no medals or special recognition
but his actions meant salvation for ten U.S. Marines'.
By November 1943, Kennedy was diagnosed with malaria, colitis, had 'chronic disc disease of the lower back', and was severely underweight.
His war was over in March 1946 after seven months in the combat zone.
Now his father went to work with his sights on the White House for his second to oldest son.
Joe Jr. had been number one son for the office of President until Joe was killed in action during a patrol-bombing mission out of London.
John said if Joe Jr. had lived, he'd have been a writer.
John Kennedy grew up in the shadow of his older brother, the leader of the pack of eight children.
The Kennedy children were raised in homes devoid of familial warmth while being chauffeur-driven around in Rolls-Royces.
'My mother never hugged me, not once', JFK recalled.
A family friend said the Kennedy children didn't have their own rooms with pictures on the walls, memorabilia on the shelves.
When they came home from boarding schools, they took whatever room was available.
Joe Jr. was a relentless bully to John. Bobby remembered lying in bed at night and hearing 'the sound of Joe banging John's head against the wall'.
Joe encouraged his sons to all get laid as often as possible. JFK said, 'I can't get to sleep unless I've had a lay'.
While briefly attending Stanford University, Kennedy said he was trying to get used to the co-eds and expected to 'take one out of the herd and brand her shortly, but am taking it very slow as I do not want to be known as the beast of the east.
Before the war as well as after 'his dreams of adventure and conquest found an outlet in sex, a sport he appeared to pursue with obsessive devotion'.
'He possessed routine male promiscuity sharply magnified by near-unlimited wealth and mobility and striking personal seductiveness'
and 'women were drawn to him in battalions'.
Joe Kennedy was a 'ruthless businessman and investor who capitalized on his wealth to become perhaps America's premier social climber, an Irish catholic outsider who stormed the bastions of WASP aristocracy', wrote Jacob Heilbrunn.
PT 109 stowed on board the liberty ship SS Joseph Stanton for transport to the Pacific in August 1942
Enemy attack: Andrew Jackson Kirksey, who had a premonition of death, was never to be seen again
He was 'propelled by a hunger for family prestige, wealth, financial manipulation, deal making, and social and political power'.
He always knew what he wanted -- 'money and status for his family'.
Actress Gloria Swanson, his mistress before he abandoned her, said he 'operated just like Joe Stalin'. 'He'd write a letter to the files and then order the exact reverse on the phone'.
He was a master manipulator of money and people and excelled in games without rules.
One mantra he ingrained in his children: 'It's not who you are that counts. It's who they think you are'.
So when John came home, Joe went to work selling the mythology of PT 109.
When the 'Survival' story came out, one survivor said, 'Hersey made you sound like some kind of hero because you saved your own life'.
'JFK cracked privately to a friend about the story's universal appeal, 'My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I've got a Jew and a n****r in the story and with me being a catholic, that's great'.
Ted Sorensen said, Kennedy 'was neither a professional warrior nor a professional veteran'.'
Asked how he became a war hero, Kennedy told a young man, 'It was easy. They sunk my boat'.
Military service was highly honored, heroism even more.
In pursuit of his 18-year quest to have a son in the White House that began in '42 by getting John into PT boat service, Joseph P. doggedly went after buying his son that big chair in the oval office.
Bobby became campaign manager and according to Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., 'RFK was already a full-blown tyrant. You did what he told you to do and you did it with a smile'.
Joseph P. pulled strings, wrote the checks and gave advice.
He was essentially buying his son a seat in Congress.
Vice President Nixon had served honorably in the South Pacific, but his service was known for his poker-playing skill and management of a hamburger stand rather than combat heroics.
The backdrop of PT 109 was so powerfully reinforced in Kennedy's campaign materials that Kennedy had little need to refer to it himself, in keeping with his 'bashful hero' image.
When Robert Donovan wrote a book about PT 109, JFK told him, 'That operation was more f***ed up than Cuba' (and the Bay of Pigs).
It became the basis of the 1963 Hollywood movie starring Cliff Robertson.
Joe Kennedy personally negotiated that book option contract with Warner Brothers and stayed involved in the movie's development until a stroke incapacitated him in 1961.
Jackie wanted Warren Beatty to play her husband, but Beatty thought the project was doomed.
He was right. The script was 'agonizingly bad'.
Auditioning director candidates by screening films in the White House, President Kennedy said, 'Tell Jack Warner to go f**k himself'.
'Jack's life had more to do with myth, magic, legend, saga and story than with political theory or political science', Jackie Kennedy is quoted.
The film came out in June 1963, just five months before President Kennedy was assassinated.