Joe Kennedy,Jr WWII Pilot and War Hero

oe Kennedy,Jr., John Kennedy's older brother, a Navy pilot, was killed on August 12, 1944. The secret mission which cost his life was described by a fellow officer after declassification. Lt. Kennedy, an experienced Patrol Plane Commander, and a fellow-officer, an expert in radio control projects, were to take a "drone" B-24 Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives aloft and to stay with the explosive-laden drone until two "mother" planes had achieved complete radio control over the "drone." The B-24 Liberator Bomber is designed for a bomb load of 8000 pounds maximum, yet for the special mission the payload was 21,170 pounds. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************** The two pilots were to bail out over England leaving the "drone" under the control of the "mother" planes, on the mission ending with the drone's crash-dive into a V-2 rocket launching site in Normandy. The airplane was in flight with routine checking of the radio controls normal, when at 6:20 p.m. on August 12, 1944, two explosions exploded the "drone" killing its two pilots. The cause of the explosions was ascertained.

More on JFK

Kennedy lived in Brookline, Massachusettes for 10 years attending the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family took up residence in a stately manor that was a twenty-room Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue in the Hudson Hill area of Riverdale, Bronx, New York City. Kennedy attended private school at the Riverdale Country School, for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Only two years later, the Kennedy family relocated at 294 Pondfield Road in Bronxville, New York, a New York City suburb where Kennedy joined a Boy Scout Troop - 2. The Kennedy family summered in their Hyannis Port, Massachusetts home and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida. In September 1930, Kennedy at now 13, attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. Requiring an appendectomy in late April 1931, Kennedy withdrew afterwards from Canterbury School so he could recuperate at home. Later as an upperclassman at Harvard, Kennedy now a more serious student, he developed an interest in political philosophy. In his junior year, he made the Dean's List. In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis, "Appeasement in Munich", about British participation in the Munich Agreement. The thesis became John F. Kennedy's first bestseller entitled, "Why England Slept". Kennedy graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Science (BS) cum laude in international affairs in 1940. Kennedy enrolled in and audited classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in the fall of 1940. Then in early 1941, he assisted his father to write a memoir of his three years as an American ambassador and then Kennedy himself traveled through many countries of South America. Kennedy took command of a Huckins-type PT-109 on April 24, 1943, which was based at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. On the fateful night of August 1–2, the PT-109, on its 31st mission, with PT-162 and PT-169, were on nighttime patrols near New Georgia Island in the Solomon Islands when Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer nearby and tried to turn for an attack, when suddenly the PT-109 was rammed and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, almost instantly killing two PT-109 crew members. Kennedy while floating around the wreckage with his surviving ten crew members including at least two injured, took a vote on whether to "fight or surrender". Kennedy shouted, "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose." Rather than surrender, the eleven survivors swam for a small island some three miles away. In spite of a re-injury to his back in the ramming, Kennedy, clenched a life jacket strap between his teeth to tow a badly burned sailor the entire three miles. Kennedy towed the wounded man to the first island and rested and later towed the sailor to a second island, where the eleven of them awaited rescue until August 8. Ensign Leonard Thom, Kennedy's executive officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 (PT-109), and John F. Kennedy were both awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart Medal for injuries. After being reassigned to duty on September 1, 1943, Kennedy took command of a PT boat that had been converted into a gunboat, the PT-59. Kennedy was promoted to lieutenant in October. Then on November 2, the PT-59 crew including three former PT-109 crewmembers, along with another boat, successfully rescued 87 Marines who had been stranded on two rescue landing craft on the Warrior River at Choiseul Island, then occupied by the Japanese. On November 18, 1943, Kennedy was relieved of commanding PT-59 under doctors orders and returned stateside to the United States in early January 1944. Kennedy was released from active duty in late 1944, after receiving treatment for his back injury. Kennedy recooperated for three more months from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona, beginning in January 1945. Joe Kennedy,Jr., John Kennedy's older brother, a Navy pilot, was killed on August 12, 1944. The secret mission which cost his life was described by a fellow officer after declassification. Lt. Kennedy, an experienced Patrol Plane Commander, and a fellow-officer, an expert in radio control projects, were to take a "drone" Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives aloft and to stay with the explosive-laden drone until two "mother" planes had achieved complete radio control over the "drone." The two pilots were to bail out over England leaving the "drone" under the control of the "mother" planes, on the mission ending with the drone's crash-dive into a V-2 rocket launching site in Normandy. The airplane was in flight with routine checking of the radio controls normal, when at 6:20 p.m. on August 12, 1944, two explosions exploded the "drone" killing its two pilots. The cause of the explosions was ascertained. On March 1, 1945, Kennedy was retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. After a one-year courtship of 24-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier, Kennedy married her on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. He was 36.