When Irish eyes are smiling
What If Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. survived WWII?
An Alternate History
Written By
Austin Ross
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It was a sight only the saint’s could have bestowed upon such a historical moment. Standing at the Capitol’s east portico in front of a crowd of 1.3 Million, Kennedy received a pure white blanket of snow for the inauguration. Much as a War Hero of his caliber and youth should, the first born son of the ambassador, stood proudly without an overcoat in the stinging cold. The magnificent image would remain forever present in the memories of many Americans of the young, stalwart and brave man who become the nation’s 1st Irish-American Roman Catholic President.
The silver hair and wrinkled face of Chief Justice [Redacted] contrasted deeply with the almost too handsome Kennedy. He was just under six feet tall, clad in a black single breasted suit, broad shouldered; with his dark chestnut hair heightened by the morning sun’s soft rays. He held one hand placed on the Fitzgerald family bible, which was held by his darling wife even though it was immense in size. The Bible was an 1850 Edition of the Douay English translation containing a handwritten chronicle of the Fitzgerald family from 1857 and including a record of the birth of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. marked August 25th, 1915. His sapphire eyes, which he shared with his family, stared directly in to the Chief Justice eyes in a face of resolve and reverence for the moment.
“Are you’re prepared to take the Oath, [Redacted]…I Joseph Patrick Kennedy Junior…Do solemnly swear” The Chief Justice stated before, as he was surprisingly interrupted by Joe Junior with his right hand still placed on the Bible.
“I Joseph Patrick Kennedy Junior do solemnly swear.” Kennedy smiled, with his remarkable lopsided grin that was so devastating to women, when he realized that he had jumped the Oath.
“That I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully.” The Chief Justice said, as the jump seemed to catch him off track. Kennedy only smiled, and allowed for him to correct himself.
“That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.” The Chief Justice said correctly
“That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.” Joseph Kennedy replied.
“And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The Chief Justice said.
“And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. replied.
“So Help Me God.” The Chief Justice said, as he completed his portion of the Oath
“So Help Me God.” Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. solemnly shook his head in reverence of the Occasion.
“Thank You Mr. President”
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“Someday, I’m going to be President.”
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr at Harvard Crimson University
NBC Studios in DC, 07/25/2010
“You know when I think back to how much the world has changed since Joe was born and how much that change directly happened because of him…I just get somewhat overwhelmed. On this very day, my brother would have been 95 years old, outliving John Adams as the nations longest living President. Yet it was not God’s will, and although it’s been over [Redacted]-five years after his death, I still miss him very much.”
Meet the Press Interview of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. to Anchor James Carville
Decades after Joe’s administration, I think we as American’s tend to look back at that small chapter of our history with Rose tinted glasses and a strange sense of inevitability. In our minds, we view our nation’s first Catholic President as some sort of valiant Mystic Knight of Tír na nÓg, the famous imaginary Celtic land of youth. Before the Kennedy years, the white House had previously been seen as a place of silver hair and cold reason. But during the time that Joe and his family occupied the Presidential Mansion, Tír na nÓg became a household name. Joe growing up Irish Catholic as he did, had this profound sense of the importance of ritual, that the American people want pomp and circumstance when their president is in office. When you add to that his father’s experience in Hollywood, you have the sophisticated, modern-day techniques, combined with this old-world Catholic ritualism and it’s an incredible combination. Thus, the belief in Tír na nÓg as equitable to the Kennedy years, a mythical land place where sickness and death do not exist. It was a place of eternal youth and beauty. Here, music, strength, life, and all pleasurable pursuits came together in a single place. Yet we also tend to forget that Tír na nÓg was not predestined, and that were it not for a warm August day in 1944 over the English channel, It’s myth could have been destroyed.
From:
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Lt Joseph Kennedy was eager to get going, to end the mounting suspense of the long checkout. Normally, he slept well enough before flying a mission, but this morning, August 12, 1944, he tossed restlessly in his bunk, thinking of the ordeal ahead.
He was up early, carefully running a final check of the PB4Y Liberator, the big four-engine bomber that was stripped of all unnecessary paraphernalia and loaded for death with Torpex.
At noon he took a sack of eggs from his foot locker and invited Willy and Simpson to join him at the mess hall for a special treat - a Kennedy omelette.
He'd brought the eggs from London the day before, on his last visit with his sister Kathleen, who had met parental disapproval of her engagement to marry the Marquess of Hartington because of religious differences.
"So you're a Catholic and he's a Protestant," Joe had laughed. "It shouldn't make any difference. Some day you're going to see a Catholic named Kennedy in the White House!"
He could not have known how prophetic his words were, though Kathleen would not live to see them come true. Kathleen, working as a Red Cross nurse, did marry the Marquess, who died in action leading an infantry patrol ahead of a tank column. And she was to die in 1948, in the crash of a private plane in the mountains of Southern France.
At 1700 hours Kennedy and Willy climbed into their flight gear, chuted up and rode a jeep to the hardstand. Ensign Simpson, inside the cockpit double-checking the intricate electronic gear, got up as Kennedy crawled in. The two men shook hands.
"So long and good luck, Joe," Simpson said. "I sure wish I were going with you!"
Kennedy shoved him playfully. "Maybe next trip, Jim."
He sat down in the right hand seat and adjusted his parachute straps. "Jim," he called as Simpson turned to go, "if I don't come back, you fellows can have the rest of my eggs."
Quickly and efficiently Kennedy and Willy went through the ritual of the cockpit checkout, calling out each item on the preflight list preparatory to starting engines. Joe switched the selector valve to the left tank. It was going to be a one-way trip - to Helgoland, and the Nazi submarine pens this time. Only Kennedy and Willy planned to parachute out before they crossed the coastline.
Joe moved his right index finger, in a circle and grinned at the ground crew outside. Number one engine belched to life. When all four propellers were turning, he waved to the plane captain to pull the chocks.
"We'll be right down!" he yelled above the roar of the engines. Then he released the brakes and the giant Liberator lumbered slowly forward, gingerly carrying its load of 10 tons of death.
Neither he nor Willy spoke now. They were too busy. Both men were perspiring, feeling every jolt as the flying bomb rolled down the taxi strip and turned into the runway. Willy shoved all four throttle levers forward smoothly.
The Liberator picked up speed.
"One hundred!" Joe yelled, watching the air speed indicator. "110...120..."
Trees at the end of the runway loomed ahead. He eased back on the yoke with Willy, as if together they were lifting the ship from the runway as gently as possible. He felt the rushing air grip the controls and saw the ground drop away. He hit the brakes to stop the spinning of the landing gear wheels.
"Gear coming up! he called.
So far everything was running smoothly. They were off the ground, above the trees, climbing in a slow turn into the west, toward the setting sun.
Kennedy looked down on the landscape, the neat pattern of hedgerows and farms of the English countryside. The same pattern he'd seen on the television monitor the day the first Aphrodite B-17 spun in. It must have brought fear into sharp focus. Not the paralyzing fear of the coward, but the fear that puts a competitive edge on a hero, primes him for the big play.
Kennedy picked up the mike and called the mother ship.
"Baby to mother," he said. "Climbing through 2000 on a heading of two-seven-zero. How do you read?"
Twenty miles away, in the nose of a PV-1 Ventura, the mother controller heard Kennedy's voice, saw the televised image of the landscape below the Liberator.
"Mother to baby, you're loud and clear. Picture return a bit snowy, but we're getting a workable image."
"Ah, Roger, mother," Kennedy said laconically. "We're turning to one-eight-zero..."
Inside the plane, the two men functioned like the well-drilled team they were. Their hands manipulated the necessary controls, their mouths recorded vital information to the mother ship. But even as they sped toward the enemy, their thoughts at this crucial time had to be of home, family, future...
Willy...The Texan's lean, tanned face screwed up as he squinted into the late sun. Let me live, he must have prayed to his Maker. Let me live to go home to Edna. She was his wife, and he'd talked often of their plans for after the war, when he hoped to go into ranching in a big way.
Kennedy...The Bostonian worried abut Kathleen, hoped she'd be happy with her British husband. Then their was his kid brother Jack. He'd thrown his life on war's dice table just one year before in the Solomons, when his PT boat was rammed by a Jap destroyer.
And now, he, too, was facing death.
A glance over his shoulder into the bomb bay was enough to jolt both men out of any reveries and back to the grim business at hand. For in the bomb bay, both men could readily see, lay stacked can upon can of deadly Torpex. It was hot cargo, all right - first payment for the havoc and screaming-meemies inflicted by the V-1's and V-2's.
Collect on delivery, Mr Schickelgruber.
Kennedy had little doubt that the Liberator would succeed in its mission. He was not mentally geared to accept failure. His job, and Willy's was to set the drone on its course, carefully trimmed to cruise, and turn the controls over to the mother ship, miles behind them. And then bail out.
Still higher in the afternoon sky circled another aircraft, the Project Batty Glide Bomb control plane. At 15,000 feet, Lt Katz adjusted his radio controls and then brought in the dramatic television image from the distant drone.
"Good picture!" he yelled to his pilot. "This one looks like a winner!"
In the Ventura mother ship, the controller came on. "Mother to baby, what is your position?"
"Coming up on the coastline," Kennedy radioed back. "Still getting a good picture?"
Both Katz and the Navy controller watched the white line of the Dover cliffs moving into view, the same breathtaking sight they knew Kennedy and Willy were watching from their cockpit.
On the ground, at the Fersfield hangar, others were watching the same bizarre sight, relayed from the drone. Pomykata nervously clasped and unclasped his fingers, almost as if praying they'd make it this time. Other technicians watched silently, chain-smoking to quiet their nerves.
"Okay, mother," Kennedy's voice came on now. "We're switching to remote radio control. Take over, mother..."
Kennedy, his mouth cottony, reached out and flipped the toggle switch that locked the autopilot control onto the AN/ARW-2 and AN/ARW-3 remote radio control links. He and Willy let go of the controls, and in a second the Liberator's wings slowly rocked left and right.
"Okay, baby...we've got you," the controller's voice called from the Ventura. "Arm your fuses!"
"Roger, arming fuses," Kennedy called back. He slipped off his headset, unbuckled the seat belt and moved around behind the co-pilot seat, where the fuse panel was located.
For a brief moment, he paused to make a final check of the instrument panel, then to glance down at the Channel coast. There was a choice: to parachute into the water or try, as per plan, to bail out over the beach.
"Joe," Willy said. "Need any help?"
"No sweat. You ready to go?"
In the Ventura, in the Batty bomber, in the hangar at Fersfield, men were saying silent prayers now as they watched the drama in the sky unfolding. It was time now, time for the pilots to set the triggers and leap for their lives.
Kennedy moved into the navigator's compartment and reached his hand toward the switches that would arm the detonators. For a fleeting second he hesitated, thinking of all that Torpex in back, 10 tons of death that would go up in one mighty blast at the slightest impact, once the G-load fuses were triggered. He swallowed, moved his gloved hand to the switch.
In his seat, Willy was watching, waiting for the signal to open the escape hatch so they could bail out together.
On the ground, Pomykata nervously checked his watch. Unconsciously he tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. He said a silent prayer for the two men facing death in the high sky, carrying out one of the war's most frightening missions.
In was 1720. On the ground, in the two control planes, men frowned, held their breaths. The Liberator was over the coast. This was the moment. Another second dragged. Impatiently, the Navy controller's voice broke the silence.
"Mother to baby! Mother to baby! Bail out! Bail out!"
In the Liberator, Lt Kennedy's finger closed on the switch.
From:
The Kennedy Courage by Don Dwiggins