American History Tellers - The Bastard Brigade - The Kennedy Curse | 3

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

In early 1944, the Allies developed a desperate plan to destroy several massive bunkers in Nazi-controlled France—bunkers that reportedly housed atomic missiles. The plan called for filling up airplanes with napalm, flying them over to France via remote control, and ramming them into the bunkers, blowing them sky-high. But the military still needed pilots to get the napalm-filled planes off the ground and pointed in the right direction.It was dangerous in the extreme. But one of the first volunteers for the mission was none other than Joe Kennedy, the daring older brother of future president John F. Kennedy. John had recently become a war hero, and a ragingly jealous Joe was willing to risk everything to destroy Hitler’s bunkers—and, more importantly, turn the spotlight back on himself.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's August 1944. You're an American Navy pilot, flying missions out of a base near the English Channel. You're in what's called the Mother Plane. Three vertical miles below you is the focus of the mission, the Baby Plane. The pilot and engineer are currently in the Baby, setting up a remote control system. Once it's ready, you'll take over and fly the baby plane remotely, and the pilot and engineer will parachute out,

which is a good thing, because the baby plane is packed with 21,000 pounds of napalm. You check with your co-pilot near the window. Still have a visual on the baby? He nods. Yep, you can snap a picture. Let's just hope this weather holds. No worries there, He nods. You laugh, which feels good. Even by the standards of top-secret missions, it's been a stressful few days. Let's get a look from the camera. Ha ha, pay up, everyone. What? Man, I had 612 in the office pool.

On how soon after takeoff would the lieutenant ask for the camera view? You chuckle too. They tease you for getting excited, but the technology is so incredible. The baby plane has a camera in its nose that sends out pictures in real time from miles away. They call it television. And you can't believe you're lucky enough to work on it. There it is. You have an 8-inch monitor next to you.

The picture is black and white, but the landscape is unmistakable. A stream, a grove of trees. You can watch this video feed all day. Hey boys, how about this weather? This is baby. We have spade flush. Repeat, spade flush. That gets your attention. It's easy to get lost in the gizmo sometimes, but there are real people flying in the baby below you. That voice was Joe Kennedy, the ambassador's son. He's a bit of a hothead, but you have to hand it to him. He's

brave. There's no way you'd ever get inside a plane packed with napalm. Baby, this is mother. Confirm spade flush. You turn to your crew. All right, everyone. Time to play ball. For all the fun of the television camera, the real electronic wizardry starts now with the remote control. As soon as Joe and the engineer bail out, you'll be steering the baby toward France. Hitler's been building a huge bunker there to house some kind of super weapon. Your mission is to ram the bunker with the plane full of napalm. So everything's got to be perfect. You glance at the feed from the television camera and notice the baby is a bit off course.

That's just that heading. Three degrees south. Confirmed. Three degrees. Suddenly, you feel a rumbling beneath you, like massive turbulence. But given the weather, that doesn't make sense. Your co-pilot looks over at you, worried. What the hell was that? I don't know. Check with ground control. You check your instrumentation, your bearings. Everything seems to be okay. But then you glance at the feed from the camera mounted on the baby plane three miles below. All the television shows is static. list wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crumb shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story. The failure of several commando raids to stop heavy water production in Norway left the Allies in a desperate position, with German scientists still making progress toward an atomic bomb. The American military decided they had to step up attacks on the German bomb project. This included one of the craziest ventures of the war, a mission to ram a remote-control plane full of explosives into a suspected atomic bunker in northern France. And one of the primary pilots on this mission was Joe Kennedy Jr., the volatile older brother of future president John F. Kennedy.

This is Episode 3, The Kennedy Curse. Imagine it's September 1943. You're a judge in Massachusetts, and your good buddy Joe Kennedy Sr. is celebrating his 50th birthday at the family compound in Hyannis Port. Happy birthday! It's a raucous affair with plenty of food and plenty of booze. All of Kennedy's children are here, including his two sons in the military.

You're especially excited to see Joe Jr. Before Joe dropped out of Harvard Law School to join the Navy, you tutored him in several classes. Hey, Joe, how are you? Well, I've been better, Your Honor. Don't look so glum. It's a party. You know, I talked to the dean the other day. They're willing to reopen a spot for you next fall. Well, that's kind, but law school wasn't really my thing, sir. Well, where'd they have you stationed nowadays?

Norfolk, Virginia. Ah, where'd they have you stationed nowadays? Norfolk, Virginia. Ah, the real front lines. You see any Nazis there, Joe? You know, I didn't ask to go there. I'm only kidding, Joe. I've got a new mission coming up in France. We'll see how that goes, because I hear... Before Joe can finish, a roar goes up.

Into the room walks Joe's younger brother, John. Everyone calls him Jack. Seems silly. You changed that kid's nappies once for Pete's sake. But you're a little awed to see Jack. You read that magazine story about his exploits in the Pacific. By the end of it, you were choking up a little. There's talk of a purple heart for him. Jack's smiling and shaking everyone's hand. You turn to Joe. You've got one heck of a brother. But Joe's not there. He's disappeared completely. Before you can find him, the toast starts.

You freshen your vodka soda and watch as everyone goes around the room saluting Kennedy Sr. To the best ambassador Great Britain ever had. To the bravest man I've ever met. Someone who willingly had nine kids. When it's your turn, you stand up a little wobbly, and you realize you have no idea what to say. How do you sum up a decades-long friendship?

But in looking around the room, inspiration hits you. To the father of our hero, our own hero, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy. And that gets the loudest cheer of the night. After the toasts wrap up, you slip away for the bathroom. Unfortunately, you take a wrong turn. The house is huge, and you end up in a hallway with several doors. But you're not alone.

It seems to be coming from behind a door on the left. You tiptoe up and put your ear to it. Joe? Joe, is that you? Joe answers, his eyes red and bleary. Why'd you run off? You missed your brother. Joe snorts. You have any brothers, your honor? No, why? Joe? But the conversation is over. Joe Kennedy Jr. has just slammed a door right in your face. Joe and Jack were born less than two years apart, and they'd grown up competing over everything. Grades, sports, girls. And Joe had always bested Jack in these competitions.

He was the star of the family, the child that their father, the former ambassador, was grooming for the presidency someday. But World War II flipped the brothers' fortunes. After dropping out of Harvard Law School, Joe joined the Navy as a pilot, and for the first time in his life, he flopped at something. He lacked the feel for flying planes

and finished 77th of 88 in his aviation class. As a result, he got stuck in out-of-the-way places like Virginia and Puerto Rico, far from the glory of war. Jack, meanwhile, joined Naval Intelligence and advanced quickly. Pretty soon, he outranked Joe, despite being younger and having joined the Navy later. The thought of having to salute his kid brother made Joe furious. And even worse, Jack's heroism in the South Pacific

while captaining a PT boat made him a national hero. PTs were lightweight boats that zipped up to Japanese ships and hit them with missiles. But on the night of August 2nd, 1943, a Japanese destroyer named Heavenly Mist rammed Jack's PT boat and splintered it.

The collision was so bad that witnesses in another ship reported everyone on board dead, and the American Navy actually held a funeral service for the men the next day. But in truth, 11 sailors had survived, and Jack rallied them in the cold, dark water and convinced them to swim for a nearby island rather than surrender. One man, Patrick Mickman, was so badly burned he couldn't swim, dark water and convince them to swim for a nearby island rather than surrender. One man, Patrick Mickman, was so badly burned he couldn't swim, so Jack had to tow Mickman for several miles by gripping a strap from Mickman's life vest in his teeth. The men staggered onto a beach a few hours later, and after a short rest, Jack then swam onto other islands looking for help. After several days, and with the help of a group of natives from the islands, he managed to summon a rescue boat. All 11 men survived. Jack became one of the

brightest young stars of the war, the ambassador's son who'd volunteered for combat duty and proved himself brave. Newspapers and national magazines wrote gushing features, and he became everyone's hero. Everyone's except Joe's. Joe could not stand it that his kid brother was getting all this attention. His misery culminated at his father's 50th birthday party with the glowing toast to Jack and the roaring crowd. From then on, Joe was determined to outshine Jack and turn the spotlight back onto himself. He started volunteering for every dangerous assignment that came his way, including one of the most perilous missions of the war.

The mission was a direct response to the German rocketry program. Starting in June 1944, the German military began pounding London with the notorious V-1 rockets. V-1s resembled flying sharks with huge fins. They stretched 27 feet long and screamed along at nearly 400 miles per hour. Most of their two-and-a-half-ton weight was explosives. The first V-1 slammed into Kent, near London, just before dawn on June 13, 1944. Hundreds more followed, and 2,700 people died within the first two weeks. The barrage got so bad that one night, a drunken Winston Churchill ordered a poison gas attack against German civilians in retaliation. Churchill's cabinet refused, and the attack never happened,

and the British government suppressed the incident. Instead, officials began encouraging Londoners to move to the countryside, and more than 1.5 million people eventually evacuated. In compounding this fear, spies in the Third Reich reported that even bigger missiles were in the works, including V-2s and V-3s. Intelligence reports eventually traced them to a network of vast bunkers the Nazis were building in northern France near the English Channel. In June 1944, the Nazis controlled northern France. The D-Day operation had given the Allies a toehold there, but fierce German resistance had kept the landing forces pinned down to a small area along the coast. Meanwhile, the concrete bunkers, some the size of several

football fields and located just 150 miles northeast of the D-Day forces, sat right across the channel from England. There, they could potentially unload at will upon London. The V-3 bunker near the village of Memoyex seemed especially worrisome. Several reports hinted that the V-3s might be atomic missiles with small nuclear warheads in the tips. When officials briefed the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, about the sites, he shook his head and muttered, you scare the hell out of me. Eisenhower

soon gave the bombing of the bunkers the single highest priority of all military action in Europe, except for the D-Day invasion itself. But despite their determination to stop the threat, the Allies were faced with few options. And if the reports, the Allies were faced with few options. And if the reports of the missiles were true, they had very little time. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book,

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Join Wondery Plus and The Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime Nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast Series Essential.

Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time, only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself. Imagine it's the summer of 1944. You're an intelligence officer, and your job is to analyze photographs from reconnaissance planes. Normally, you let technicians handle this sort of grunt work, but this afternoon, you're so anxious to get some film developed that you head into the darkroom yourself. Your colleague James is there as well, working on his own stuff.

After a minute, you notice him looking at you. You look back. What? You sure you want to put that in the stop bath before you develop it? You look at your hands and realize you're about to plunge the picture in the wrong basin. Jesus, thank you. That would have ruined it. I've never seen you so worked up. Want a cigarette? Actually, yes. Thanks. What's so special about those pictures? They're from Memoyics. You gotta remind me. The atomic bunker.

There was a big bombing raid yesterday. We snapped these this morning. Thought we hit that bunker last week. And the week before that. And the week before that. This is the twelfth time or something. And nothing hasn't slowed them down one bit. Until yesterday.

You let the photograph soak for a minute to develop. What makes you think this raid was different? Just a feeling. Even in the dull light of the darkroom, James can see you grinning. What? What's the big secret? You make a show of walking to the darkroom door

and checking that it's locked. Very dramatic. What is it? You've heard of those new earthquake bombs? The 12,000 pounders? They debut next month, I think. You're a month off. They let us use those babies yesterday.

How'd they do? We'll find out in a few seconds. The pictures come into focus. You stub out your cigarette and pat them dry with a rag. Grab a magnifying glass and your stomach knots as you take a look. You don't want to tell James, but the Allies lost a dozen planes yesterday in the raid and over a hundred men, all on your orders. At first, it's hard to see anything in the photo. You've bombed the site so many times that there are craters everywhere,

and a few more don't stand out. Then you notice something off to the side on a nearby railroad track. Oh, God. What? What? Let me see. Normally, no one gets to see your pictures except you, but you're so stunned that you let James take the magnifying glass out of your hand. That's a train. But God, it's a big one.

You groan. It is a train. Their regular supply train, which comes every Tuesday. No doubt delivering more steel, more concrete, more deadly rocket parts. Yesterday's raid didn't delay Hitler at all. Well, cheer up. How?

That was our 12th major raid. We threw the biggest bombs in our arsenal at it. Nothing's working. Eventually, the Allies realized they couldn't just keep bombing the concrete bunkers over and over. They had to get creative. So rather than drop more bombs from airplanes, they decided to turn the planes themselves into bombs and ram them into the bunkers. They did this by taking old planes destined for the scrap heap and outfitting them for one last flight.

First, they stripped out everything they could from inside—ammo bins, bomb racks, benches, tables, guns. Then they filled the planes back up with explosives like napalm. Unlike the Japanese, the Allies never considered kamikaze tactics, where the pilot sacrificed his life smashing a plane into a target. Instead, the American military focused on remote control. Airline pilots had been experimenting with remote control since the days of the Wright brothers, but not until World War II did electronics catch up with their ambitions. The military eventually came up with what they called a mother-baby system. The baby plane contained the explosives and flew low to the ground.

The mother plane flew several miles above and steered the baby using radio signals. By 1944, the Army had developed a system that could turn the baby left or right in midair and could also send it into a dive when the time came to ram the payload home. The Navy had even more advanced remote control systems. They could do everything the Army could, plus vary the baby's speed and even detonate the explosives remotely if necessary. The Navy also mounted a television camera onto the baby's nose cone to help the mother plane see where it was. No one had ever seen such sophisticated drones before, but there was a hitch. While they could fly the planes to France with remote control,

they didn't yet have the technology to get the planes off the ground. That step still required a pilot, and Joe Kennedy volunteered to be one of them. In addition, remote control technology was so new it took a professional engineer to set up, and because of technical limitations, the engineer could do that only in mid-air during the flight. So like the pilot, the engineer had to be inside the baby plane at takeoff too. Once the engineer finished the setup, the pilot would radio a code word like flyball or spade flush to the mother plane, letting them know it was time to assume control. Then the pilot and engineer had to parachute out, crawling through the bowels of

the plane and ducking through a tiny emergency escape hatch on the bottom, right near a propeller. Parachuting out this way was precarious and often deadly, especially at low altitudes. The baby planes flew below 2,000 feet, and casualties were alarmingly high on the early rounds of the mission. But the Army and Navy were willing to take the risk. Both branches were developing drones with explosives, and there was a big rivalry between the two groups. Each branch wanted the glory of wiping out Hitler's bunkers, and the rival pilots and engineers spent almost as much time worrying about each other as they did the Nazis. Making matters worse, both teams were stationed at an isolated air base in southern England just across the English Channel from the bunkers, so the Army and Navy boys saw each other all the time.

Instead of working together and trading tips, the Army and Navy pilots would bark insults at each other whenever they crossed paths. A Navy guard even pulled a gun on some Army fellows once for snooping around a Navy plane. And as the day of the attacks approached, tensions ran even higher. And even though the Navy had more sophisticated planes and techniques, their crews, including Joe Kennedy, fell behind on their training. One reason was that the Navy mother and baby planes were originally built and tested near Philadelphia. During test flights there with dummy explosives, the remote detonation circuits kept popping on accidentally. If those had been real flights with real explosives, the pilots would have been killed in the explosions. After troubleshooting everything, the engineers identified the likely

culprit, big band music. Philadelphia, where they were testing, was a major city with lots of radio stations, and as best they could tell, stray radio signals from popular music and news stations were accidentally triggering the detonators. So the engineers added a thick metal pin to the circuit as a safety measure. This was a crude fix in that it simply blocked various components from moving prematurely and setting the explosives off, but it seemed to work. The pilots just had to yank the pin out before parachuting down. Still, troubleshooting the detonation circuits ended up causing delays. And then, when flying the planes over the United States to Europe, the Navy crews got stuck in Iceland for three weeks due to foul weather and

lack of de-icing equipment. These setbacks prevented Kennedy and the rest of the Navy crews from completing their training on schedule. So when the time came to finally go after Hitler's bunkers in early August, 1944, the army got the first crack despite having inferior planes. This made Joe Kennedy furious. He still hadn't done anything heroic

to top his younger brother, Jack. And now those army hotshots were going to sweep in and steal his glory by wiping out the bunkers first. But he needn't have worried. heroic to top his younger brother Jack, and now those Army hotshots were going to sweep in and steal his glory by wiping out the bunkers first. But he needn't have worried, because the Army flights were a complete disaster. The Army sent six baby planes up, all packed with explosives. Three nearly blew up right after takeoff. One strayed off course and almost rammed into some anti-aircraft barrage balloons. One accidentally swung too close to a friendly artillery unit who didn't

recognize it and fired. And one flew right into an outgoing bombing raid and nearly collided mid-air with another friendly plane. Things only got worse from there. The army motherships lost track of one baby mid-flight and another one veered off course toward London. Two babies eventually plunged into the sea, while another exploded prematurely over English soil, killing 80 cows. Three planes did make it across the channel, but only to have the remote control switches fail. So instead of diving and ramming into the bunker, they sailed past it, exploding behind it. Missing the bunkers was bad enough, but the crews also suffered some horrifying casualties. One pilot died after his parachute

failed to open. Other aviators suffered smashed teeth, sprained ankles, and painful lacerations. One had his arm torn off at the shoulder. On August 6, 1944, an Army general heard about the deaths and injuries and immediately grounded the mission. He summoned the officers in charge and screamed at them, this whole project is put together with bailing wire, chicken guts, and ignorance. He was furious and appalled. Joe Kennedy, meanwhile, was delighted. The Army's failure would only enhance his magnificence in comparison.

And when the Navy crews got the go-ahead to fly a few days later, he jockeyed to be the first pilot in the rotation. For their part, the surviving Army pilots were glad to be done with the fiasco. After being grounded, they marched right into the bar on base and proceeded to get so drunk they could barely stand. During their bender, one of them saw Joe Kennedy strut into the bar. The Army pilot walked up to him and slurred, If my old man was an ambassador, I'd get my ass transferred out of this outfit.

Joe just laughed. He was a Kennedy, young and invincible. He was about to destroy Hitler's secret atomic bunker, making history in the process, making himself a hero. the green top that's permanently living in your fridge. Did you know that the Air Jordans were initially banned by the NBA? We'll explore all that and more in The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy. This is Nick. This is Jack. And we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast. We've identified the most viral products of all time. And they're wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with. Stay for the business

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You can binge Incoming exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+, in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Imagine it's mid-August 1944. You're a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Force, working on the drone missions in England. To your humiliation, your crew has just been grounded. Too many deaths and injuries on your watch. But you hope the Navy can still take out those bunkers,

and do so without anyone getting killed. So you're wandering over to take a look at the Navy planes. You circle around one to read the name written on the far side in white letters. Zoot Suit Black. She is a beauty, big and sleek, but you don't have much time to admire the plane before you hear her voice. Hey, get away from there! You turn to see a Navy ensign running at you, waving his arms. You're irritated, but you decide to play it cool. Is this Joe Kennedy's

plane? That's classified. Aren't you supposed to salute a superior officer? What? Attention! He snaps into a salute. Good. Now is that Joe Kennedy's plane? Yes. That's sir to you. Yes, sir. Good. Now, son, I prefer being friends. At ease. Unlike most army meatheads, I don't mind you Navy folk. You don't? I mean, you don't, sir? We're all fighting the same bad guys, and Joe Kennedy happens to be a friend of mine. Really, sir? Yes, really. We go back a whole month. I was getting murdered by the price of whiskey around here. 20 bucks for a fifth. Back in Georgia, you can buy a car for that. So I'm complaining about this one night, and Joe pipes up and says he can get me booze at cost through his father's connections in London. I figure he's just talking through his hat,

and I say so. He just smirks and says, we'll see. And the very next day, he knocks on my door, and he's got a whole case of whiskey for 17 bucks, plus two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon. After that, me and Joe were best friends. Yes, sir, that does sound like Joe, sir. So I've taken a fatherly interest in his plane. Yes, sir, I'm the lead electrician. Well, I'd love to see your handiwork. Can you give me a tour? The anecdote has taken the edge off the conversation, and he's eager to show you all the bells and whistles. Ah, I hate to admit it, but you all beat the pants off us. Who knew Navy fish could fly? Thank you, sir. Well, let's see the inside. But at that, the ensign stiffens. I don't think that's a good idea, sir.

Just a quick look. Ensign grabs your arm. Sir, no. Cool it, ensign. You shrug him off and pull yourself inside. It's dark, but you brought a flashlight. At least you're glad for a second. When you actually see the electronics, your jaw drops.

You're standing next to the detonation circuits, and they look like a small child soldered them together. There are stray wires everywhere, and it smells like something was recently burning. Ensign! He pokes his head into the hatch. This looks like something you'd make with an erector set and Lincoln logs. Did you build this? No way, sir. Then why don't you fix it? We've been ordered not to touch it, sir. Jesus, does Joe know about this? The ensign doesn't answer, but his silence tells you everything you need to know. Joe Kennedy is in trouble.

That lieutenant colonel wasn't the only one horrified by the shoddy electronics in Joe Kennedy's plane. A trio of Navy electricians were also aghast, because after studying the circuits, they found several problems. The circuits were not only poorly built, they were also poorly designed, and parts of them might get so hot that they could blow up the explosives prematurely. So they brought their concerns to Head Navy Engineer Bud Wiley. But Wiley was in no shape to listen. In fact, he was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. He was a great engineer, but was wilting under the stress of running a combat mission. On a training flight a week earlier,

he'd gotten the mother plane lost and very nearly shot down. After the flight landed, several aviators refused to fly with him ever again. But Wiley was still in charge of Kennedy's mission. He'd in fact been tapped as lead engineer, the one who would go up with Joe on the flight and set up the electronics. So Wiley was already stressed. And when one of the Navy electricians came to him and said that his circuits might accidentally blow up the plane, Wiley snapped. He accused the electrician of calling him stupid, and when the electrician argued back, Wiley forbade him from changing any piece of circuitry on the plane or he'd court-martial him. After Wiley's tongue lashing, one of the electricians approached Joe himself

and tried to explain the problem. As the pilot, Joe could call off the mission if he felt it unsafe. But the electrician was a bit awestruck with Joe and didn't feel comfortable telling an ambassador's son what to do, so he didn't make the threat clear enough. Joe didn't really grasp the technical details anyway, and he refused to let anything interfere with his shot at glory. He wanted to take out Hitler's atomic bunkers, and he decided that the mission was going forward.

A few days before his flight, Joe wrote a letter to his brother Jack. In it, he assured Jack that he wasn't, quote, intending to risk my fine neck in any crazy venture. It was, though, a total lie. This mission was one of the Nazi defenses along the coast and was making headway into France. Their progress made the destruction of the concrete bunkers even more urgent. If there really were atomic missiles in northwest France, then Hitler could start pummeling England and force the Allied armies to retreat or withdraw from the continent altogether. To sustain the momentum of the invasion, the concrete bunkers

had to be wiped out. Joe Kennedy's mission finally flew on August 12th, a lovely summer day with a glorious blue vault of sky overhead. Everyone knew the mission call by then, but Kennedy and Wiley endured one last briefing that afternoon. It took place in a room with a gigantic 3D model of the bunker mounted on a ping-pong table. The attack would take place at sunset to blind the German anti-aircraft crews in France to the incoming drone. Two motherships, a primary and a backup, took off at 5.55 and 5.56 p.m. They were followed by a weather plane, two reconnaissance planes with photographers, a plane to mark where the pilot and engineer landed after parachuting out, and five fighter jets in case the Nazis scrambled interceptors. Joe's plane, Zoot Suit Black,

began rumbling down the runway at 6.07. One electrician who watched him lift off called it the most beautiful takeoff he'd ever seen. Zoot Suit Black spent the next 15 minutes banking in a lazy triangle while Joe and Wiley set up the remote control system. When they'd finished, Joe spoke the code phrase, Spade Flush, for the mother plane to take over. This step had failed several times during the Army flights, but this time the handoff couldn't have gone more smoothly. The Navy seemed to really know its stuff. Meanwhile, high above, an aviator in the mother plane

noticed the baby was slightly off course, so he nudged a joystick left to correct its heading. Just a moment later, he felt the rumbling beneath him. Confused, he glanced at the television monitor showing the feed from Zoot Suit Black's camera, but he only saw static. Far below him, a green-yellow fireball filled the sky, what was then the largest bomb explosion in history. The resulting shockwave blew the roofs off houses below and shattered windows up to nine miles away. Over the following week, local villagers found bits of the plane up to a mile away from the epicenter. No one, though, found a trace of Joe or Wiley, just a bit of parachute silk in a tree. Given who Joe Kennedy's father was, the explosion resulted in an intense investigation. The Navy prepared two separate reports and hired outside experts to write another.

The experts never determined what caused the explosion, but they did eliminate some theories, including sabotage, gasoline leaks, static electricity from nearby clouds, and stray bullets from the ground. Instead, they focused mostly on the detonation circuits and accidental heating. The Kennedys learned none of this. They were staying at their compound in Hyannis Port at the time, where Joe had broken down in tears of frustration just a year earlier at the birthday party. Bing Crosby's I'll Be Seeing You was playing on the phonograph when Joe's mother, Rose, saw a dark sedan pull up.

Two Navy chaplains stepped out. She ran upstairs to get Joe Kennedy Sr., who was napping. He came down, heard the news, and ran right back upstairs sobbing. Everyone else broke down too. The only one who kept his head was Jack. He grabbed his 12-year-old brother, Teddy, by the hand and said, Joe wouldn't want us sitting here crying. He would want us to go sailing.

Teddy would always remember that as an act of extraordinary kindness. But for security reasons, the Navy told the Kennedys nothing about Joe's mission or why it had failed, only that he had died a hero. A month after Joe's death, the American army overran Hitler's bunkers in France and made a sickening discovery. There were no atomic weapons. There wasn't even a single working missile. The place was a facade. But the huge earthquake bombs had done far more damage than the Allies realized, battering equipment and filling underground shafts with rubble. The original, conventional bombing raids had worked and forced the Nazis to mostly abandon the site.

But the Allies didn't know any of this because Hitler had pulled a clever trick. Even after abandoning the site, he had kept sending empty trains there to fool reconnaissance officials and divert the Allies' attention. Every bomb that fell there, Hitler reasoned, meant fewer bombs falling on Berlin. He had outfoxed the Allies, leading to the fateful decision to try ramming the bunkers with explosive-filled planes and killing Joe Kennedy. But if the mission that killed Joe Kennedy was a military failure, his death still had big consequences for his family and the country. It marked the beginning of the so-called Kennedy Curse and forced Joe Kennedy Sr. to shift his political ambitions to his younger son, Jack.

Without Joe's death, JFK might never have become president. And as for the Nazi atomic bomb project, the American military soon learned that the real threat lay far from the fields of northern France. The Allies had begun hearing rumors about a so-called atom cellar in southern Germany, an underground atomic layer run by the most feared scientist in the world, the brilliant physicist Werner Heisenberg. And to stop him, the Allies would have to penetrate deep into Nazi territory. From Wondery, this is Episode 3 of The Bastard Brigade from American History Tellers. On the next episode, after a series of failures to track down and stop Germany's nuclear program,

the Allies grow desperate. Eager to neutralize German physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the Nazis' sharpest minds and most feared scientist in the world, the Allies turn to an unlikely assassin, a Major League Baseball catcher named Moe Berg. book, The Bastard Brigade, edited by Doreen Marina, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis, created by Hernán López for Wondery. If you like American history tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey

at wondery.com slash survey.