✦Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.

Early Life and Education

Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. was born on July 25, 1915, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the eldest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. From birth, he bore the weight of extraordinary family ambition — his father viewed him as the Kennedy destined for the White House. Joe Jr. attended the London School of Economics briefly while his father served as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, then earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1938. Physically imposing, charismatic, and fiercely competitive, he seemed to embody everything his father envisioned in a future president.

Military Service and Operation Aphrodite

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Joe Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Navy and trained as a naval aviator. He flew antisubmarine patrols over the Atlantic and accumulated enough combat missions to rotate home, but he chose to volunteer for one additional mission — a decision that would cost him his life.

Operation Aphrodite was a top-secret program designed to destroy hardened German targets using radio-controlled B-24 bombers packed with explosives. The plan called for a pilot to arm the aircraft in flight, then parachute to safety before a ground crew guided the drone to its target. On August 12, 1944, Kennedy and his co-pilot, Lieutenant Wilford Willy, were aboard their aircraft over the English countryside when the plane detonated prematurely. Both men were killed instantly. The cause of the explosion was never definitively determined. Kennedy was 29 years old.

Legacy and the Mantle Passed

Joe Jr.'s death devastated the Kennedy family and fundamentally altered American political history. His father had invested enormous emotional and financial capital in Joe Jr. as the family's political standard-bearer. After his death, that mantle fell to the next eldest son, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who had himself barely survived the sinking of PT-109 the previous year.

Joe Jr. was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross and the Air Medal. A U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (DD-850), was named in his honor. His brother Robert later said that Joe was the best of them all — a judgment echoed by family friends who knew both brothers. Had he lived, the arc of twentieth-century American politics might have looked entirely different.

How did Joseph Kennedy Jr. die?

Joseph Kennedy Jr. died on August 12, 1944, when his explosives-laden B-24 bomber detonated prematurely over Suffolk, England, during a volunteer mission called Operation Aphrodite. The cause of the early detonation was never conclusively established.

Was Joe Kennedy Jr. supposed to be president instead of JFK?

Yes. Joseph Kennedy Sr. had long groomed Joe Jr. as the family's future presidential candidate. After Joe Jr.'s death in 1944, the political ambitions of the Kennedy family shifted to John F. Kennedy, who went on to win the presidency in 1960.