Joseph Kennedy, Jr. was the eldest of nine siblings, son of U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. (1938-1940) Joseph Kennedy, Sr. and older brother of the future U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Joe would be the son to eventually take up the family business. However, in 1942 he dropped out of law school to join the U.S. Navy, hoping to become a pilot. In 1943 and 1944 he flew numerous missions in a PB4Y-1 Liberator (the Navys designation for the B-24 Liberator). During World War II, the United States Navy modified several Consolidated B-24 Liberator airframes to serve as long-range patrol aircraft, the PB4Y-1 Liberator and the PB4Y-2 Privateer. Eligible for stateside duty at that point, he instead volunteered for a secret and incredibly dangerous mission operating military drone aircraft in Operation Aphrodite. The goal of Operation Aphrodite was to take B-17 and B-24 bombers and strip out all unnecessary equipment and then load them with several tons of Torpex explosives. The cockpit was fitted with a radio control system and a pair of cameras, one showing the gauges, one the ground below and ahead. Painted yellow or white, the planes would fly at 2,000 feet and be controlled by operators in other planes at 20,000 feet. It was hoped that these massive flying bombs could crack the German submarine pens and rocket launch sites that traditional strategic bombing runs were having trouble hitting. The Azon control system adapted for Operation Aphrodite was rudimentary and not sufficient for take-offs, so a pilot and a navigator were needed to get the planes off the ground. Theyd get the flying bomb up to 2,000 feet, then bail out and parachute into the English Channel, where a boat would pick them up. On August 12, 1944, Kennedy and Lieutenant Wilford John Willy took off in a converted B-24 Liberator (the drone versions were designated BQ-8) from Royal Air Force Station Fersfield, near Norwich. Their target was a massive underground military complex called the Fortress of Mimoyecques that had the potential to launch devastating attacks directly at London. Several minutes short of the planned bail out, an electrical fault in the Liberator caused the Torpex to detonate. In a thunderous instant, the plane and both men flying it simply ceased to exist. It would be nice to be able to say Joseph Kennedy Jr. gave his life helping to develop an amazing superweapon that dealt a crushing blow to the Nazis and accelerated the end of the war in the European theater. Unfortunately, Operation Aphrodite was a complete disaster. Of more than a dozen missions, only one plane caused damage to the intended target and only because it happened to crash somewhat close to the target purely by accident. More American airmen were killed by Operation Aphrodite than Nazis and more damage was done to the British countryside than to Germany. Kennedy has no grave. He has memorial stones at Cambridgeshire, England, at Mimoyecques, and at Arlington National Cemetery. In addition, a U.S. Navy destroyer (decommissioned in 1973), the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was named for him.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 22:46:55 +0000
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