This piece is from a
Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp R-1830 Fitted
to a Liberator. This piece was recovered from Deadmans
Covert in Suffolk England.
Point A is Blythburgh
where the aircraft blew up and point B
is where the piece was recovered. By Road it is a distance
of about 1.5 miles but as the crow fly's considerably
less.
Whilst I cannot say as a 100% certainty that
this was from Kennedys B24 Drone the fact that it is from a
B24 Engine piece and the location evidence is extremely
strong and as far as my research goes I can say with
confidence that no other B24s went down in this location.
Top Secret
telegram to General Carl Andrew Spaatz from General Jimmy
Doolittle, August 1944 reporting the failure of the mission:
ATTEMPTED FIRST APHRODITE
ATTACK TWELVE AUGUST WITH ROBOT TAKING OFF FROM FERSFIELD AT
ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE HOURS PD ROBOT EXPLODED IN THE AIR AT
APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND FEET EIGHT MILES SOUTHEAST OF
HALESWORTH AT ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO HOURS PD WILFORD J. WILLY
CMA SR GRADE LIEUTENANT AND JOSEPH P. KENNEDY SR GRADE
LIEUTENANT CMA BOTH USNR CMA WERE KILLED PD COMMANDER SMITH
CMA IN COMMAND OF THIS UNIT CMA IS MAKING FULL REPORT TO US
NAVAL OPERATIONS PD A MORE DETAILED REPORT WILL BE FORWARDED
TO YOU WHEN INTERROGATION IS COMPLETED
On 13th June
1944 the Nazis had begun firing the first of their
Vergeltungswaffen
(“retaliatory” “reprisal” ) weapons at England. The
V1 pilotless jet aircraft
was a relatively crude affair but Allied intelligence was
aware that more sophisticated rocket weapons were also under
development, designated the V2. A number of the launch sites
had been identified in occupied France and it was a priority
programme of the heavy bombers to put them out of action.
The Allies were not aware that there was a third
Vergeltungswaffen
weapon under secret development – the V3 pump gun.
It was
fortuitous therefore that Allied reconnaissance had
identified the site of the V3 gun in northern France, even
though they believed at the time that it was a V2 launch
site. It was placed on the priority target list in any
event.
The
Mimoyecques site had already been attacked by RAF Bomber
Command but such was the concern about the potential threat
posed by the V2 that it was decided that further attacks
were needed, in an attempt to completely obliterate it. It
was now decided to use one of the Allied secret weapons in
order to attack the site with a massive explosive force.
Under development were
early ‘drones’ – pilotless aircraft. At this stage all that
the Allies were developing were remotely controlled
conventional aircraft. The remote control only operated once
the aircraft was in the air – so pilots were needed to get
them airborne. They then had to parachute out of what was
effectively a flying bomb – ‘the Baby’ under the control of
other – ‘Mother’ – aircraft flying alongside.
Experienced
volunteer pilots were needed for what was a dangerous
experiment. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr was a US Navy pilot who had
been flying the B-24 Liberator in anti U-boat operations
from England.
Lt. McCarthy of the 8th Combat Camera Unit was an eye
witness in a US Mosquito aircraft monitoring the
experimental flight:
the Baby just exploded in mid-air as we neared it and I was
knocked halfway back to the cockpit. A few pieces of the
Baby came through the plexi glass nose and I got hit in the
head and caught a lot of fragments in my right arm. I
crawled back to the cockpit and lowered the wheels so that
Bob could make a quick emergency landing.
Although officially no explanation for the explosion was
ever recorded a documentary that I watched came to the
conclusion that a switch in the aircraft shorted possibly
static setting off the explosives.
Joe's squadron, flying in the bitter winter over the Bay
of Biscay, suffered heavy casualties, and by the time Joe
had completed his designated number of missions in May, he
had lost his former co-pilot and a number of close friends.
“Joe refused his proffered leave and persuaded his crew to
stay on for D-day. They flew frequently during June and
July, and at the end of July they were given another
opportunity to go home. He felt it unfair to ask his crew to
stay on longer, and they returned to the United States. He
remained. For he had heard of a new and special assignment
for which volunteers had been requested which would require
another month of the most dangerous type of flying.
“…It may be felt, perhaps, that Joe should not have pushed
his luck so far and should have accepted his leave and come
home. But two facts must be borne in mind. First, at the
time of his death, he had completed probably more combat
missions in heavy bombers than any other pilot of his rank
in the Navy and therefore was pre-eminently qualified, and
secondly, as he told a friend early in August, he considered
the odds at least fifty-fifty, and Joe never asked for any
better odds than that.
