Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (
July 28,
1915 –
August 12,
1944) was the oldest of the nine children born to
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and his wife,
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Older brother of future President
John F. Kennedy, he was expected to bear the family's
political hopes.
Joseph, Jr. graduated from the prestigious
Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut in 1933 (his brother
John F. Kennedy also attended) and entered
Harvard University in 1934 and graduated in 1938 (political historian
Theodore H. White was a classmate). There he played
football,
rugby, and
Crew, and served on the student council. He spent a year studying under the tutelage of
Harold Laski at the
London School of Economics, before enrolling in
Harvard Law School.
He left Harvard Law before his final year to enlist in the
United States Navy as an aviator. He earned his wings in May 1942 and was sent to
England in September 1943. He piloted the
PB4Y Liberator on
anti-submarine and other missions on two tours of duty throughout the winter of 1943-44.
Special mission
In July
1944, he volunteered for a special mission under the auspices of
Operation Aphrodite, piloting a modified version of the PBY4-1 (a Naval
B-24 Liberator) intended to counter the German
Vergeltungswaffe ("vengeance weapon") attacks on England - specifically, the newly developed
V-3 cannon, which unbeknownst to the Allies had been rendered inoperable in a prior raid. The plane was to be loaded with 21,170 pounds (9600 kg) of
Torpex, flown across the
English Channel, where the pilot and co-pilot would parachute out, and then crash into the hardened bunker containing the V-3 which was located near
Mimoyecques,
France.
The final leg of the flight was to be guided remotely by an escort fighter through radio-control. The cause of the accidental detonation of the payload is unknown, but the Torpex detonated before the plane reached the bail out point, and both Kennedy and his crewmate Lt. Wilford J. Willy were killed instantly. Kennedy's body was never recovered, and he was posthumously awarded the
Navy Cross; the
Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) and the
Air Medal. Lt. Willy was also posthumously awarded the
Navy Cross; both men's names are listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Cambridge, American Cemetery,
Cambridge,
England.
In 1946, the Navy named a
destroyer for him, the
USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850), aboard which his younger brother
Robert F. Kennedy briefly served. Among the highlights of its service are the blockade of
Cuba during the
Cuban Missile Crisis and the afloat recovery teams for
Gemini 6 and
Gemini 7. It is now a floating museum in
Battleship Cove,
Fall River, Massachusetts.
Kennedy never married but romantically was linked to at least two women:
Edith Bouvier Beale, the beautiful cousin of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and
Katharine Mortimer, a New York socialite who declined to become more seriously involved with Joe Jr. because, she claimed, his family was too loud to consider marrying into.
*
Kennedy Curse
