Lieutenant Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. US Navy

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy_Jr.

Kennedy left before his final year at Harvard Law School to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 24, 1941. He entered flight training to be a naval aviator, received his wings, and was commissioned an ensign on May 5, 1942. Kennedy was assigned to Patrol Squadron 203 and then Bombing Squadron 110. In September 1943, he was sent to Britain and became a member of Bomber Squadron 110, Special Air Unit ONE, in 1944. Kennedy piloted land-based Consolidated B-24 Liberator patrol bombers on anti-submarine details during two tours of duty in the winter of 1943–1944. 

Kennedy was promoted to lieutenant on July 1, 1944. He had completed 25 combat missions and was eligible to return home, but instead volunteered for an Operation Aphrodite mission.

Operations Aphrodite and Anvil

Further information: Operation Aphrodite

Operation Aphrodite was the use of Army Air Corps Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Navy Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator bombers that were converted into flying bombs and deliberately crashed into their targets under radio control from an accompanying bomber.They were to be used for precision attacks on well-protected targets. These "drone" aircraft could not take off safely on their own and so a crew of two would take off and fly to 2,000 feet (610 m) altitude before they activated the remote control system, armed the detonators, and parachuted from the aircraft.

After trials, the first mission took place on August 4, 1944, against targets including the Fortress of Mimoyecques, an underground military complex under construction in northern France. There was little success.

The U.S. Navy also participated in Operation Aphrodite, with its portion referred to as Operation Anvil. Kennedy had been promoted to lieutenant on July 1. After the U.S. Army Air Corps operation missions were drawn up on July 23, Navy Lieutenants Wilford John Willy and Kennedy were designated as the Navy's first Anvil flight crew.  Willy, who was the executive officer of Special Air Unit 1, had also volunteered for the mission and pulled rank over Ensign James Simpson, who was Kennedy's regular co-pilot.

On August 12, Kennedy and his co-pilot Willy flew a BQ-8 "robot" aircraft (a converted B-24 Liberator) for the Navy's first Aphrodite mission. Initially, two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a Boeing B-17 navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield, Norfolk, England at 1800 on Saturday, August 12, 1944. Then the BQ-8 aircraft, loaded with 21,170 lb (9,600 kg) of Torpex explosive, took off to be used against the suspected V-3 development site at Mimoyecques.

Following them in a USAAF photoreconnaissance (PR) F-8 Mosquito to film the mission, were pilot Lieutenant Robert A. Tunnel and combat cameraman Lieutenant David J. McCarthy, who filmed the event from the perspex nose of the aircraft.

As planned, Kennedy and Willy remained aboard as the BQ-8 completed its first remote-controlled turn at 2,000 ft (610 m) near the North Sea coast. Kennedy and Willy removed the safety pin, arming the explosive package, and Kennedy radioed the agreed code Spade Flush, his last known words. Two minutes later, and well before the planned crew bailout near RAF Manston in Kent, the explosives detonated prematurely, destroying the Liberator and instantly killing Kennedy and Willy. Wreckage landed near the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk, England, causing widespread damage and small fires, but there were no injuries on the ground. According to one report, 59 buildings were damaged in a nearby coastal town.

Attempted first Aphrodite attack Twelve August with robot taking off from Fersfield at One Eight Zero Five Hours.

Robot exploded in the air at approximately two thousand feet eight miles southeast of Halesworth at One Eight Two Zero hours. Wilford J. Willy Sr Grade Lieutenant and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr Grade Lieutenant, both USNR, were killed. Commander Smith, in command of this unit, is making full report TO US Naval Operations. A more detailed report will be forwarded to you when interrogation is completed 

— Top Secret telegram to General Carl Andrew Spaatz from General Jimmy Doolittle, August 1944

According to USAAF records, the trailing Mosquito "was flying 300 feet above and about 300 yards to the rear of the robot. Engineer photographer on this ship was injured, and the ship was damaged slightly by the explosion." The Mosquito, which made an immediate emergency landing at RAF Halesworth, belonged to the 325th Reconnaissance Wing, a unit under the command of the son of President Franklin Roosevelt, then Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who years later claimed to have been aboard that trailing aircraft, and his version of the event has gained wide currency.  However, Air Force records cannot substantiate it. Instead, an after-action account by the 8th Combat Camera Unit (CCU) noted:

...the Baby just exploded in mid-air as we neared it and I was knocked halfway back to the cockpit. A few pieces of the Baby came through the plexiglass nose and I got hit in the head and caught a lot of fragments in my right arm. I crawled back to the cockpit and lowered the wheels so that Bob could make a quick emergency landing,...

— Lieutenant McCarthy reporting from his hospital bed.

The eighth CCU film of the event has not been found.

The 20th Fighter Group out of RAF Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire had provided an escort of four North American P-51 Mustangfighters (two each from the 55th and 79th Fighter Squadrons). VIII FC, Field Order 509 stated "20 GP (P-51's, 4 A/C) will proceed to Fersfield and land coordinating with operations where to provide close escort support to one B-34 special Operation."

Lieutenant John E. Klink noted in his mission summary report: "Took off to excort BXXX, 1 B24, 1 B17, 2 B34s, and 3 photo Recons (2 Mosq. -1 P38). When specially loaded B24 was at approx. 2000 ft. NE of Ipswich it exploded and crashed near small lake. No one got out of the plane. Rest of ships OK in spite of terrific concussion from explosion. All returned to base.

Accident investigation

Drone operations were paused for a month while equipment was re-evaluated and modified, and there would be no further Navy missions. The Navy's informal board of review, discussing a number of theories, discounted the possibility of the crew making a mistake. It suspected jamming or a stray signal could have armed and detonated the explosives. An electronics officer, Earl Olsen, who believed the wiring harness had a design defect, had warned Kennedy of that possibility the day before the mission but was ignored.

Later reports that Kennedy's final mission was kept top secret until many years later are negated by a detailed public account of the operation and Kennedy's death released in 1945.

Recognition and commemoration

Kennedy and Willy were both posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart Medal. The names of both men are listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, a cemetery and chapel near the village of Madingley, Cambridgeshire, that commemorates Americans who died in World War II.

A commemorative headstone cenotaph for Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was later erected at Arlington National Cemetery. A further memorial to him stands inside the fortress of Mimoyecques, France.

Source: https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/joseph-p-kennedy-jr

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 and to help identify and disseminate ways to prevent the causes of intellectual disabilities.