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Some of you may heard of this operation ~ one lucky B-17 embarked on a tour all by itself before crashing leaving a crater 100' wide, it was often called Operation Perilous the book is a good read.
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...xDRyVN3HRnkxrw
I'd hear bits of this story. Now I know more about what happened to the elder Kennedy brother. Nice speculation of fat face at the last seconds of the vid. Shows he has no idea..."Speculation"...he goes on...
I was not aware of that project. Very interesting stuff.
Pic of the book I have its pretty thick H/C a very good read I must say
In response to to Jims comment on Joe Kennedy's demise it came from another source today as I was watching Hitlers Super Gun the one designed to bomb London anyway they got onto 2 sources one was Barnes Wallis's Grand Slam (which did the job on the tunnel thus destroying the weapons build) the other was by the pilot-less B-17 drone (Aphrodite).
Joe's future was mapped out for him he had 50 missions under his belt and could have come home, he was asked to do this one more mission as they wanted the best pilots so he agreed and wrote to his father saying it was a piece of cake mission and he would soon be home.
Just prior to Joe's B-17 embarking on the mission an un-qualified self taught electrician discovered what he considered a fatal flaw in the arming system for the bomb and try as he may he could get no one to listen to this fact he even went to Joe and told him about this fatal flaw but every one of them including Joe would not listen in-fact they threatened him with a court-martial.
The up shot of the flaw was re-created in the doco using the original schematics to construct the arming system so they got some torpex and a solenoid tied the solenoid to the torpex and armed the system.
And it was here the flaw was discovered that the solenoids instead of getting just a millisecond of current to them so they actuated arming the bomb the flaw saw a constant current being subjected to the solenoid which of course become red hot and set the torpex off.
So that was how Joe died they armed the bomb for the flight to the target and before they could bail out of the B-17 drone to safety the overheated solenoid/s caused the 12 tonne payload to detonate (their weights stated on the show) leaving not a trace of Joe. So that was it a simple flaw in the design of a circuit killed a possible presidential candidate................................
Therefore it came to pass that the rest of the Kennedy legacy torch was to be carried by Joes younger brother JFK.
I'd heard that Joe was killed flying a plane full of explosives, that was all. It didn't quite make sense. The rest falls into place.
The Navy didn't tell the Kennedy family exactly what happened. But, when JFK was elected President he asked for the file and read it. That is how the Kennedy family found out what happened to Joe.
I guess he would have the authority to do that wouldn't he?
The Navy would not tell the Sullivan Family the fate of its 5 sons. A shipmate in hospital wrote the Sullivan Mother and told her what had happened. She called her Congressman and the Navy then told the Sullivans the terrible news that all 5 sons were gone.