Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. - Wikipedia

Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that July 25 is the anniversary of the birth of United States Navy lieutenant Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. who was killed in action during World War II while serving as a land-based patrol bomber pilot, and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
He may well have been the most honorable of the Kennedy sons.
Rest in peace Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr.

Image: 1944 Project Aphrodite; Notice of Death of Joseph Kennedy, Jr.

Background from jfklibrary.org/JFK/The-Kennedy-Family/Joseph-P-Kennedy-Jr.aspx
"Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the oldest child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, was born on July 25, 1915. He attended the Choate School in Connecticut and the London School of Economics prior to entering Harvard, from which he graduated cum laude in 1938. He went on to Harvard Law School but left before his final year to volunteer as a navy flier. Awarded his wings in May 1942, he flew Caribbean patrols and in September 1943 was sent to England with the first naval squadron to fly B-24's with the British Naval Command. His military service, which ended with his death on August 12, 1944, was described as follows by his brother, John F. Kennedy:
"His squadron, flying in the bitter winter over the Bay of Biscay, suffered heavy casualties, and by the time Joe had completed his designated number of missions in May, he had lost his former co-pilot and a number of close friends.
"Joe refused his proffered leave and persuaded his crew to remain on for D-Day. They flew frequently during June and July, and at the end of July they were given another opportunity to go home. He felt it unfair to ask his crew to stay on longer, and they returned to the United States. He remained. For he had heard of a new and special assignment for which volunteers had been requested which would require another month of the most dangerous type of flying.
"...It may be felt, perhaps, that Joe should not have pushed his luck so far and should have accepted his leave and come home. But two facts must be borne in mind. First, at the time of his death, he had completed probably more combat missions in heavy bombers than any other pilot of his rank in the Navy and therefore was preeminently qualified, and secondly, as he told a friend early in August, he considered the odds at least fifty-fifty, and Joe never asked for any better odds than that."
The secret mission on which he lost his life was described by a fellow officer after it was declassified:
"Joe, regarded as an experienced Patrol Plane Commander, and a fellow-officer, an expert in radio control projects, was to take a 'drone' Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives into the air and to stay with it until two 'mother' planes had achieved complete radio control over the drone. They were then to bail out over England; the "drone," under the control of the mother planes, was to proceed on the mission which was to culminate in a crash-dive on the target, a V-2 rocket launching site in Normandy. The airplane... was in flight with routine checking of the radio controls proceeding satisfactorily, when at 6:20 p.m. on August 12, 1944, two explosions blasted the drone resulting in the death of its two pilots. No final conclusions as to the cause of the explosions has ever been reached.
"Joe was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross... and also the Air Medal... In 1946 a destroyer, the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., destroyer No. 850, was launched at the Fore River shipyards as the Navy's final tribute to a gallant officer and his heroic devotion to duty..."
The Destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. DD850 is now a museum in Battleship Cove, Fall River, Massachusetts.
In 1946, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation was established by Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy to honor their eldest son. The Foundation aims to improve the way society deals with its citizens who have intellectual disabilities (mental retardation) and to help identify and disseminate ways to prevent the causes of intellectual disabilities."


"Operation Aphrodite was the World War II code name of a secret USAAF program that began in 1944. The United States Eighth Air Force used 'Aphrodite' both as an experimental method of destroying V-weapon facilities and as a way to dispose of B-17 and PB4Y bombers that had outlived their operational usefulness, although only two PB4Ys were modified for the Navy's sister operation, Project Anvil.
The plan called for B-17 aircraft which had been taken out of operational service (various nicknames existed such as 'robot', 'baby', 'drone' or 'weary Willy') to be loaded to capacity with explosives, and flown by radio control into bomb-resistant fortifications such as German U-boat pens and V-1 missile sites. It was hoped that this would match the British success with Tallboy and Grand Slam supersonic ground penetration bombs, but the project is now remembered as dangerous, expensive and unsuccessful.
After previous US Army Air Forces Operation Aphrodite missions were conceptualized on July 23, 1944, Kennedy and LT Wilford John Willy (born May 13, 1909 in New Jersey) were designated as the first Navy flight crew - LT Willy had pulled rank over ENS "FNU" Simpson (who was the regular co-pilot with Kennedy) in order to be on this mission in a modified version of the B-24 Liberator (code named "Anvil") in the US Navy's first Aphrodite mission. After the two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a navigation plane had taken off, the BQ-8 "robot" aircraft completed take-off from RAF Fersfield, England loaded with 21,170 pounds (9,600 kg) of Torpex to use as a guided missile on the V-3 cannon site in Mimoyecques, France.[3] Following approximately 300 feet behind the drone was Colonel Elliott Roosevelt in a de Havilland Mosquito to film the mission. Kennedy and Willy remained on board while the BQ-8 completed its first remote-control turn. Approximately two minutes later and ten minutes before the planned crew bail out, the Torpex detonated and destroyed the Liberator. The aircraft came down near to the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YSj9VBIvfk

FYI Maj Robert Thornton CPT Scott SharonSFC Greg Bruorton SFC Michael Young 1stSgt Eugene Harless MSgt Ken "Airsoldier" Collins-Hardy 1SG Carl McAndrews SPC Douglas Bolton Debbie Pomeroy Cloud Kathlean KeeslerSGT Tim Fridley (Join to see) SSG David Andrews Sgt John H. SGT Mark Halmrast CW5 Jack Cardwell Cynthia Croft Sgt Vance Bonds SSgt Brian Brakke

Joe Kennedy, the clan patriarch, had great plans for this son which had to be transferred to John when Joseph, Jr was killed in action

The heir apparent whose death shifted everything to JFK.