| Subject: Re: From Joe August 10, 1944 |
Author:
M. Morrissette
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Date Posted: 11:49:08 02/16/05 Wed
In reply to:
Little Nemo
's message, "Re: From Joe August 10, 1944" on 04:27:10 02/16/05 Wed
I also thought the letter was moving,especially since it was written shortly before his death,so he never made it home.
Unfortunately,Joe was jealous I think of Jack's medal, there is the story of Joe and Jack being home on leave and the family was celebrating the fact that Jack has gotten the medal, and they had an over-night house guest I can't recall who, but he stayed in the same room with Joe, and Joe spent the whole night crying.
That is why Joe took that final mission in the PBY,he did not have to he could have come home. The other sad thing is, the target of his bombing mission had already been bombed weeks earlier,but they didn't know it.
It does say in the book though that "The Congressional Medal never came,although it was so close that the official squadron diary of VB-110 lists it as having been awarded. Instead Joe and Bud Willy got the Navy Cross. But that was more than the Navy-Marine Corps Medal that Jack had got for the crewman he had saved in the PT 109 disaster.
Jack had a book privately printed and it was called "As We Remember Joe" it was given to family and friends I have seen a copy on ebay and it was way out of my price range :)
But Jack gave a copy to Joe Sr. but he never could read it, he never got past page 3, and could not speak of his oldest son again.
I have often wondered whether Joe Sr blamed himself for teaching them to compete so hard even among themselves, and if he realized that that one factor contributed to Joe's death?
They do have a Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, and they named a destroyer the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, when Robert went in the Navy he served aboard that destroyer.
Jean Kennedy Smith Christened it in June 1945.
When JFK watched the America's Cup Race in Sept.1962,he watched it from the deck of that destroyer.
It is now a museum at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts I visited there and it is impressive, if see see it for it's history.
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