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What if Joe Kennedy Jr. had not died on WWII mission?

Discussion in 'What If - Other' started by JagdtigerI, Aug 9, 2009.

  1. JagdtigerI

    JagdtigerI Ace

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    "John Kennedy became our nation's 35th president in part because his older brother Joe was killed at a young age, leaving their father, Joe Sr., no choice but to groom his second oldest son for the presidency. It was Joe Jr., not John, whom the Kennedy patriarch had always believed would be America's first Irish Catholic president, but World War II came along and changed the destiny of both Kennedy sons.

    John Kennedy joined the Navy and became the skipper of a PT boat in the South Pacific. In August of 1943 he performed a heroic rescue operation when his boat was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. The "PT-109" episode would become legendary, and the publicity surrounding it would later contribute to John's victory in the 1960 presidential election.
    For his part, Joe became a pilot, eventually flying B-24 bombers with the British Naval Command in England. He was such a courageous and skilled flier that even after completing his designated number of missions, losing both a co-pilot and several comrades in the process, Joe volunteered to fly bombing runs during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. That mission completed, he was again offered the opportunity to return home, but volunteered instead for a highly dangerous mission.

    That mission was to keep a "drone" Liberator bomber, loaded with high explosives, in the air until two "mother planes" could take remote control of the drone, allowing Joe and his co-pilot to bail out over England. The drone, which was essentially a flying bomb, would then be remotely guided to the Normandy coast where it was to crash into a V-2 rocket-launching site, destroying it completely.Sadly, this week in 1944, the drone blew up in mid-air, killing Joe and his co-pilot instantly. He was 29 years old.

    Joe was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, and in 1946 a destroyer, the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was commissioned in his honor.John, now the oldest son, ran for president, and as we all know he won thanks in part to his father's money and organizational support."

    What if Joe Kennedy Jr. had not died on WWII mission? | joe, kennedy, john - Columns - Appeal-Democrat
     
  2. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    I don't think Joe Jr. would have had as "easy" a road to the whitehouse as JFK did, and it wasn't a "sure thing" either.

    If Joe Kennedy Jr. hadn’t died in WW2, the death of his sister "Kik" (Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish), in a plane crash in France at age 28 might have pulled fewer sympathy votes for her brother Joe or Jack. Joe Jr. it is said, only volunteered for that "Operation Aphrodite" mission because of the Navy Cross his younger brother John had won after the PT-109 mishap.

    Joe wrote a letter to his brother bragging that he was taking a mission which would win him a higher award than Jack had received, Jack didn't want to be in politics, he wanted to be a jounalist and writer.

    Coupled with Joe’s death, "Kik’s" own death and the death of her husband, William John Robert Cavendish (the Marquess of Hartington), in World War II and J.F.K.’s "heroics" in the South Pacific, J.F.K., was an easier sale than his brother Joe Jr. would have been if he had lived.
     
  3. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    A What If appearing in the Stump? Hmmmmmm

    I'll let it ride, as it has not been discussed, but this is not really a thread on current politics. I will move it to where it belongs.

    Please post What Ifs in the correct section.
     
  4. JagdtigerI

    JagdtigerI Ace

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    Sorry, I didn't really intend for it to be a what if (if that makes sense) I just thought it was an interesting article and since it was political I put it in the stump.
     
  5. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    I wasn't trying to fuss at you.:)

    You could have put this on in one of the WWII forums. It concerns history of the period.

    The Stump is for discussion of current politics.
     

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