The Daily History Chronicle

On August 12, 1944, Navy Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest brother of a future president, volunteered for a secret mission to fly a bomber packed with ten tons of explosive by remote control into a hardened German bunker. Eighteen minutes after takeoff, the aircraft exploded before he ever got the chance to jump. This episode traces the volunteer's courage, the experimental program's repeated failures, and the family and national trajectory his death quietly rerouted.