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TLS, one page, 7 x 10.25, White House letterhead, April 24, 1961. Letter to Mrs. Jennie Marney, the mother of fallen PT-109 sailor Harold Marney, in full: "I recently requested from the American Battle Monuments Commission a picture of the Manila American Cemetery, whose memorial wall bears the inscription of your son and my former shipmate. I thought that you might be interested in having the picture, which I am enclosing. If ever you are in the Nation’s capital, I would like very much to have the White House and other public places here shown to you." Includes the original 21.25 x 18 wood-framed photograph of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial which President Kennedy sent to Mrs. Marney, with an affixed legend noting Harold Marney's name on the monument. In fine condition.
Harold Marney, nineteen, from Massachusetts, joined the crew of the PT 109 in July 1943 as a machinist mate. As one of four 'motormacs,' he had the rough job of working down in the hot engine room, tending to the PT 109’s loud, temperamental engines. In William Doyle’s book PT 109 An American Epic of War, Survival and the Destiny of John F. Kennedy, he writes: at the time of the collision of the PT 109 and the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, 'Marney had been stationed in the starboard (right-hand side) gun turret, directly in the path of the Amagiri’s bow, and he had shouted out the first warning of the enemy ship charged toward the PT 109…squarely in the impact area…it not killed instantly, (his) body likely descended under water with the wood and metal wreckage of the boat’s aft section. No trace was ever found.' For three hours after the collision Kennedy and the other survivors cried out the names of Marney and Kirksey, the other missing crew member, to no answer.
Established in 1948, the Manila American Cemetery, the largest WW II of 24 cemeteries built and administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission, both in area and number of graves, 16,636 military dead of the United States of America from World War II rest here, alongside 570 Philippine Nationals who were serving with U.S. Forces in the southwest Pacific, along with nearly 36,300 names on the Walls of the Missing. Harold Marney’s name is one of the names listed as missing.
The PT-109 story helped propel Kennedy into Congress in 1946. Over the course of his years in the House and Senate, his office remained in touch with Mrs. Marney offering support and advice when possible. An excellent Kennedy presidential letter and relic showing his continued compassion for the mother of his fallen shipmate.
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