India, Aug. 17 -- From 1944, long before he became President, John F. Kennedy battled to save himself and his men while adrift in the South Pacific. Extract from "Survival" by John Hersey, a Reporter at Large with newyorker.com

Our men in the South Pacific fight nature when they are pitted against her, with a greater fierceness than they could ever expend on a human enemy. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the ex-Ambassador's son and lately a PT skipper in the Solomons, came through town the other day and told me the story of his survival in the South Pacific. I asked Kennedy if I might write the story down. He asked me if I wouldn't talk first with some of his crew, so I went up to the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Centre at Melville, Rhode Isl...