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» Forum Name: PT Boats - General
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» Topic: That JFK in-the-cockpit photo...
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I was thinking about that now-iconic photo of JFK in PT-109's cockpit. Who actually took that photo?

I guess it's because now with the Italeri kit and the PT-109 crew figures kit they produce, there now exists an opportunity for some enterprising modeler to recreate that moment as a vignette within a diorama.

Say, for example, a diorama of the 109 at anchor,and her crew on a day off from patrol. Various members of the crew sacked out on deck, playing cards on the foredeck under a jerry-rigged sunshade, some reaching for their V-mail or doing various housekeeping chores.

And in the cockpit, her young skipper, taking a pause to grin into the lens of a camera, shirtless, a Marine Corps cover perched rakishly upon his unruly mop. With sunglasses on, a snapshot taken for the folks back home, blissfully unaware that in years to come, that candid moment would become far more emblematic, of a look into the lens of a destiny yet unseen.

Wouldn't that be a moment to recapture in scale? Thoughts, anyone?



Randy

Posted By: Deep Vee Forever | Posted on: Aug 21, 2015 - 9:01pm
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered



Randy,

Don't know who took the JFK-in-the-109's-cockpit photos (or with who's camera - JFK's?), but there seem to have been three of them, all taken at the same time.

One is the iconic, widely-published one of him facing aft, grinning, right arm outstretched and hand gripping the rear cockpit armor. In the second one, he's sitting, looking quite serious, facing starboard. In the third, he's standing with his back to the camera, hands on the throttles and wheel of the boat.

The unknown photographer's position seems to have been the forward starboard corner of the day room canopy.

There's another photo, of PT 61 alongside to port, taken from the foredeck of the 109, and the highly retouched photo of JFK and the crew on the 109 foredeck in front of the charthouse -- taken at the same time? Same camera? Who knows?

Funny you should mention a diorama of the cockpit pose. Frank Andruss and I briefly speculated about how interesting it would be to stick the Hasbro "action figure" of the WWII JFK in a 1/6th-scale diorama of the 109's charthouse/cockpit/starboard twin-.50s turret, possibly for display at the JFK Library & Museum, when the figure came out years ago.



Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Aug 22, 2015 - 8:35am
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am