JFK: Learned to Fly Seaplanes in Miami

New documents show: US President John F. Kennedy learned to fly a floatplane on the base of Embry-Riddle in Miami during World War II.  The training took place in 1944 over ten days.

The findings, confirmed by the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University archivist Kevin Montgomery, were confirmed by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, author of the forthcoming book, American Moonshot: JFK and the Great Space Race.  "I would call it a fact that JFK has trained to fly with Embry-Riddle in Miami," said Brinkley, Ph.D., professor of history at Rice University.  The story of Kennedy's flying lessons in Miami began one night in August 1943.

Naval Lieutenant Kennedy commanded the PT-109, a motor torpedo boat patrolling the Solomon Islands, waiting to attack a Japanese naval convoy, an invisible enemy destroyer spreading the much smaller patrol boat, sinking it, and dispersing the crew into the water and wreckage.

Kennedy's catastrophe, shattering salvation, and heroism quickly appeared in newspapers across America, and eventually, this story would help him get into politics and eventually into the presidency.  When Kennedy returned to the States, he served in March 1944 as an instructor for the Navy submarine training center in downtown Miami, while he waited for the operation of the injuries due to the PT-109 accident.
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At the time, Embry-Riddle trained thousands of American and British military airmen on half a dozen South Florida airfields for the war effort.  But the school's founder, John Paul Riddle, still had his original Miami flight school and charter service center - a small seaplane base at Biscayne Bay - which he had opened in 1939.

Nobody knows how this war hero from a famous family at the reception of the flight school asked for flying lessons or what motivated him to learn seaplanes.  He was an avid sailor from a young age, and by this time his older brother flew the PB4Y "Liberators of England" on anti-submarine missions.

The facts of Kennedy's flight training in Miami had been lost over time until Embry-Riddle's Dean Emeritus Bob Rockett had an anecdote nearly 15 years ago that Kennedy had taken flight lessons at Embry-Riddle's naval base when he was in the Navy during World War II was.

In 2004, Rockett, then Dean of the University's Heritage Project, spoke to Helen Hassey ('42, MC, Non-degree), a pioneer aviator who had been a flying instructor on the Embry-Riddle hydroplane base in the 1940s.

"She told me about the day Kennedy came to the Miami base for flight instruction," Rockett said.  "We did not have any information in our archives.  In an attempt to verify Helen's story, I contacted the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and the Boston, Massachusetts Museum.  They told me that they did not have any records that JFK had ever taken flight lessons. "

No further information was available on Kennedy Seaplane history until 2016, when Rockett and Montgomery learned about authenticated pages from a Kennedy-signed logbook on a Shapell Manuscript Foundation website, an Israeli-based organization that researches and collects original manuscripts and historical documents, including American presidents.  "The flights recorded in the protocol took place in May 1944 over 10 days in Miami, in Piper Cub seaplanes, the same type of aircraft used on the seaplane base," said Montgomery.  "I matched the aircraft tail numbers of Kennedy's logbook entries with photos of our seaplane fleet in the archives."
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"Corinne's logbook revealed that two of the log numbers recorded in her log corresponded to those in Kennedy's flight letter, and in one case she flew the same plane on the same day as JFK," Montgomery said.

With all the evidence, Montgomery contacted the presidential historian 

Douglas Brinkley. After examining the documents, Brinkley was convinced
that the Kennedy logbook was authentic and that it had proven that J.F.
Kennedy had actually trained with Embry-Riddle.

"JFK was in his log book at Palm Beach with his father in the same weeks," said Brinkley, co-author of JFK: A Vision for America, released on Kennedy's centenary in 2017.  I had a love for aviation and coastal areas, so everything makes sense.  I would call it a fact that JFK has been training to fly with Embry-Riddle in Miami. "

Thanks to a small handful of people at Embry-Riddle and a flight record from Alumna and hydroplane pilot Corinne Smith from 1944, a decade-long legend has been confirmed.

In just ten days in May 1944, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy would switch from his first flying hour to a solo flight.  The logbook ends there.  Records indicate that Kennedy went to a Naval Hospital in Massachusetts just a few days later for back surgery.

According to Brinkley, he abruptly stopped taking flight lessons as soon as D-Day took place on June 6.  Kennedy then retired from the service, applied for the Congressman and eventually became the 35th President of the United States.

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