In the summer of 1944, as Allied forces advanced on the Western Front, the Navy lieutenant completed his 50th mission—double the number of missions completed during his overseas tour. But instead of returning to the United States, Joseph volunteered for a top-secret operation called Aphrodite, named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
In a letter to his parents, Joseph wrote: “I am going to do something else for the next 3 weeks. It is secret, so I am not allowed to say anything, but there is no danger, do not worry.” Somewhat cautious in his response to his eldest son, Lieutenant Joseph’s father, former US ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., advised him: “I can imagine how you feel there… But do not take any chances.”
Three days after his father wrote back, the empty plane carrying his son and co-pilot exploded over England, killing both. It was a disastrous failure for Operation Aphrodite, which had been tasked with turning aging bombers into radio-guided missiles, essentially early drones. On a more personal level, Joseph’s death at the age of 29 dealt a blow to his father’s grandiose dreams of the future. Groomed for the presidency from birth, Joseph Jr. had been a delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention, with plans to run for Congress after the war. When he heard of his brother’s death, John F. Kennedy (the second son of the Kennedys) took it upon himself to do so.
According to information before his death, John was considered too lazy, fond of fun, and weak-willed “for a political career”, but John won seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, before winning a narrow victory in the 1960 presidential election, becoming the first Irish Catholic Commander-in-Chief and the youngest person ever elected to the highest office in the United States. John said: “I entered politics when my oldest brother died. If anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would take my place… And if Bobby died, Teddy would take his place.
Leadership qualities of the Kennedy eldest son
Born on July 25, 1915, Joe Jr. was the eldest son of Joe Sr., a wealthy businessman and prominent Massachusetts politician, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the daughter of the mayor of Boston. The eldest of nine children, “Joe Jr. had a certain strength of character that made him a natural leader from an early age,” Rose wrote in her memoir. His younger siblings looked up to him, and Joe Jr. set a good example for his younger siblings by being good at studying and playing sports. However, according to Rose, “Joe Jr. caused a lot of trouble, especially when he was with his younger brother.” In 1923, the two brothers opened a club with a high entrance fee: to be accepted into the organization, new members had to agree to be crucified!
Joe Jr. and John both attended the prestigious Choate boarding school in Connecticut, where the older brother played soccer and edited the yearbook. Before enrolling at Harvard, Joe Jr. spent two years studying with the brilliant Jewish political scientist Harold Laski at the London School of Economics. Joe Jr.’s time in Europe coincided with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power; while visiting Germany, Joe Jr. learned about the Nazis’ forced sterilization program, a policy Hitler praised as “eliminating many of the most loathsome types of people from the face of the earth.” According to historian Kate Clifford Larson, Joe Jr. “had a fairly conservative view of people with disabilities,” which is surprising given his close relationship with his less intelligent sister, Rosemary Kennedy.
Despite his respect for Laski, Joe Jr. also embraced anti-Semitic sentiments, claiming that Hitler had targeted “the dejected, distracted, disappointed Germans, a common enemy of Germany.” In a letter to his father, Joe Jr. wrote: “It is a wonderful mentality, and it is terrible to have to deal with Jews. However, the anti-Jewish sentiment is well-founded.” Joe Jr. graduated from Harvard in 1938 and lived with his family in London, where his father was serving as the U.S. ambassador. In February 1939, the 23-year-old traveled to Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. “My mother would die if she knew I was in Madrid,” Joe Sr. told the Associated Press. In 1940, Joe Jr. made headlines as a DNC delegate who voted for Postmaster General James Farley over incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Under pressure to transfer his allegiance to the president, specifically the son of a Roosevelt-appointed ambassador, Joe Jr. stuck to his guns, believing that no commander-in-chief should serve three terms. The upstart politician’s behavior at the convention won him the admiration of prominent attendees. Although he returned to Harvard to study law, Joe Jr. ultimately decided to enlist in the Navy as a pilot in June 1941 rather than finish college.
In response to his father’s objections to America’s involvement in World War II (a possible scenario in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor), Joe Jr. wrote to his father, “With your stance on war… people will ask what I’m doing back in school when everyone else is out there defending our country.” John soon followed in his older brother’s footsteps, using family connections to gain entry into the Navy Reserve, despite a back problem that would have prevented him from joining the military. By December 1941, when America had entered the war, the Kennedy brothers were both in Navy training.
While his father had high hopes for his eldest son Joe Jr., the success of his second son John surprised him: he had just been promoted to lieutenant and commanded his own ship in late 1942. While his younger brother was leading a patrol of Japanese ships in the Solomon Islands, Joe Jr. was demoted to a base in Virginia, where he conducted less risky patrols looking for German submarines. On the night of August 1, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed John’s PT-109, throwing the crew into the water and tearing open the starboard side of the ship. At the age of 26, John showed extraordinary courage by saving 11 sailors who had gone ashore on neighboring islands to find food and supplies. John was later hailed as a hero.
While John’s reputation was growing, Joe Jr. felt overshadowed and sought to prove himself. “There was never a dangerous mission that Joe hesitated to undertake,” former pilot Louis Papas later recalled of his former colleague. “He was greatly admired and respected by all for his courage, his enthusiasm, and his willingness to undertake the most dangerous missions.” Sent to England in September 1943, Joe Jr. spent several months flying patrols over the Atlantic, the English Channel, and the Bay of Biscay, flying PB4Y Liberator bombers on anti-submarine missions. By May 1944, Joe Jr. had flown 25 missions to qualify for return to the United States. Although he was allowed to return home, Joe Jr. remained in the fight. In a letter to his parents in June 1944, Jor Jr. wrote: “I have 39 missions now and will have 50 when I leave. No one on base has achieved them, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
Aphrodite Bombing Campaign
In the summer of 1944, Joe Jr. first volunteered for Operation Cork, an air patrol associated with the Allied invasion of France, and later for Operation Aphrodite and Operation Anvil. The top-secret project was to destroy Nazi reinforced concrete bunkers in occupied France, from which the Germans would launch devastating V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles. Gyroscopically controlled unmanned jets would be loaded with explosives and remotely deployed by the British to “terrorize” German soldiers. Commander James Doolittle of the British Eighth Air Force proposed converting older bombers into unmanned missiles.
“The technology for the control and autopilot was not yet mature enough, so it was risky, but the benefits were seen to justify the cost,” Roger Connor, curator of the National Air and Space Museum, wrote in a 2014 blog post. Although the bombers were remotely controlled, they still required a crew of two to help them take off and keep them on course. When he heard about Operation Aphrodite, Joe Jr. volunteered. After handing over control of the aircraft, Joe Jr. and his co-pilot, Wilford J. Willy, were supposed to parachute to safety over England while the bombers continued their flight toward the bunkers housing the V-1 rockets. The motley crew of Allied aircraft needed for the mission (including a Mosquito carrying US President Elliott Roosevelt’s second son, who was tasked with filming the flight) would take off from a Royal Air Force base shortly after 6 p.m. on August 12, 1944.
Eighteen minutes into the mission, Joe Jr. radioed a message: “Spade Flush,” the code word the bomber would transmit to the mothership. At 6:20 p.m., as Joe Jr. and Willy waited for the signal to eject, two explosions rocked the plane, killing the pilots and nearly destroying the other planes in the formation. The bodies of the two pilots were never recovered. “The crash was the biggest explosion I ever saw until the atomic bomb picture,” said a pilot aboard the mothership at the time. No one on the ground was injured, but debris from the plane fell across the English countryside. One resident described “a black cloud of smoke that looked like a giant octopus, its tentacles pointing down to the burning debris on the ground.” The cause of the tragedy has not been determined, but mechanical failure is a leading theory. Operation Aphrodite continued throughout January 1945 but with little success.
The government awarded Joe Jr. and Willy the Navy Cross, the second highest military decoration. Meanwhile, John won the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest award for heroic acts. The Kennedy family mourned Joe Jr.’s death. Since little was known about his final moments (the mission was kept secret until after the war), the family honored their eldest son with a privately published book, “When We Remember Joe.” Despite his grief over his eldest son’s death, the father continued to pursue his ambitions for the family. “We’ll go on,” he told his wife. “We have to take care of the survivors. There’s a lot to be done.”
It was reported that the father had intended for his second son to replace his eldest brother as the Kennedy family representative on the national stage. President JFK later wrote: “My father wanted his eldest son to go into politics. He wanted it that way. You know my father.” It seems that Joe Jr. had a premonition of the events that were about to happen to him. In a letter before joining the Navy, Joe Jr. wrote: “It seems that Jack (John or JFK) has the perfect ability to do everything, if anything should happen to me.”
