An elderly villager in the Solomon Islands, one of the poorest and most remote corners of the Pacific, has been honoured by the United States Navy for a crucial, but little remembered, contribution to world history – the day, 64 years ago, when he saved the life of the future American president John F. Kennedy.

Donald Winter, the US Navy Secretary, presented gifts including an American flag to Eroni Kumana, a native scout for the Allied forces, who went to the aid of Kennedy and his comrades during the Guadalcanal campaign in August 1943. Mr Kumana, who is now in his mid-eighties and nearly deaf, paddled 35 miles through Japanese-controlled waters to summon help, carrying a message carved into a coconut by the future president.

“I think it’s a remarkable circumstance,” said Mr Winter. “He changed our history . . . and I’m very thankful to him for doing it.” Kennedy was a navy lieutenant in 1943 and the captain of a small wooden torpedo boat, the PT 109,commanded to harass Japanese supply convoys as they passed through the Blackett Strait, off Kolombangara Island. But on a moonless night, travelling with one engine for the sake of stealth, the boat was run down and sliced in two by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, killing two of the crew and pitching the rest into a sea of burning fuel.

The survivors spent several days swimming from one uninhabited island to another, trying to attract the attention of Allied vessels and struggling to avoid the attention of the Japanese. Mr Kumana, then about 21, was a scout, one of the “coast-watchers” recruited by the Allies as they slowly won back control of the Solomon Islands. He and his friend, Biuku Gasa, were carrying a message when they were distracted by a wrecked Japanese ship which they searched for food and clothes. It was then, on Nauru Island, that they encountered the 26-year-old Kennedy and a fellow officer.

At first they took them for Japanese - and if Mr Gasa had found ammunition for his scavenged Japanese machinegun, history might have turned out very differently. But the Americans were able to make themselves understood and persuade the two islanders to go for help. “Those men were so happy and relieved to have been found by us,” Mr Gasa said later. “They were very weak. They were crying.”

On a green coconut, Kennedy carved the message “nauro isl native knows posit he can pilot 11 alive need small boat”, and Mr Kumana and Mr Gasa carried it to the Rendova Harbour naval base, where hopes of finding the crew of the PT109 had been all but abandoned. Six days after the loss of his boat Kennedy and his crew were rescued by US Marines.

He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for “extremely heroic conduct”. “Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore,” the citation read. “His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives.”

In 1961 Mr Kumana and Mr Gasa were invited to President Kennedy’s inauguration. But in Honiara, the Solomons’ capital, officials decided that they were too uncouth for the honour and sent some of their own number instead. Two years later Kennedy was assassinated. “I mourned for a whole week upon hearing of my friend’s death,” Mr Kumana said.

In April his house was destroyed by an earthquake. The tsunami caused by the tremor killed 50 people. Last week the crew of the USS Pelleliu, the visiting battleship on which Mr Kumana received his honours, had a whip round and gave him $1,500 (£740) - enough to put a roof on his new home.

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