Definition of drone can vary with the person. I include cruise missiles, and military craft which were named drones back in WW II, but lack the sophistication of today's drones. I include drones in space, air, water, land. I have not been paying much attention to the hobby dimension. I am sure toy drones are available in nations not on my list.
It seems to me that no one else can be doing what I am doing, because all other published reports with a count on how many nations have drones, are way below my running totals.
Al Mac (WOW) = Alister William Macintyre
Standford University
Webmaster - Drone Nations
OBAMA Heckled by "Medea" Brown of Code Pink:
"Will you apologize to Muslims...?"
He shouldn't -
Not at any rate, while he makes appointments like Chuck Hegal, the most anti-Zionist Defence Secretary in a generation and ends two major, decade-long wars in the Muslim world and replaces airstrikes, cruise missile attacks
(from "giant floating iron islands" as Bill Maher once described them),
invasion, occupation and special forces raids in violation of national sovereignty with surgical strikes targeting specific identifiable self-declared enemies of the state.
Drones Don't Kill People, People Kill People.
And drones don't make Muslims hate America, arming Israel does..
And Medea Benjamin knows that, which is why she is blaming the drones.
Her real name is Susanah Benjamin, by the way - and she appears to be well-connected across Washington and able to get into anywhere, carrying anything and say and do anything, while being photographed doing it.
It's helpful to Israel and the Israeli Right - as is the Syrian Civil War.
Which is a perfect storm of sectarian Islamist in-fighting intended to kill as many Arabs as possible before everyone is dead.
Which is a perfect storm of sectarian Islamist in-fighting intended to kill as many Arabs as possible before everyone is dead.
"From his own point of view, Obama has had a rough time lately. It has long been known that his greatest psychological satisfaction comes through the adulation he receives when making public speeches.
When he delivered his speech on national security at the National Defense University, he was subjected to prolonged heckling by the veteran provocateur, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink.
When he delivered his speech on national security at the National Defense University, he was subjected to prolonged heckling by the veteran provocateur, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink.
This heckling went on for a long time.
Ms. Benjamin is very suspect, because she demanded that Obama stop old drone attacks and close Guant?namo, but said nothing at all about the far greater danger of a short-term attack on Syria, a country she has vilified in the recent past...."
Webster G. Tarpley
Rule 1:
Drones Don't Kill People, People Kill People.
Rule 2:
All a Drone is, is Just a Big, Flying Gun
Rule 3:
Drones are Typically Used to Hit Targets in Remote, Inaccessible Regions without Ambulances or Paramedics
Rule 4:
Officials of The Pakistani ISI Habitually Lie and Make Things Up
Rule 5:
Same Goes for the Yemeni Security Service -They REALLY Don't Like America...
Rule 6:
Use of Drones Doesn't Make Muslims Hate America, Support for the Apartheid State of Israel Makes Muslims Hate America
Rule 6:
Use of Drones Doesn't Make Muslims Hate America, Support for the Apartheid State of Israel Makes Muslims Hate America
Is this going to be actual evidence like post-mortem autopsy reports or video footage;
Or just stories?
Yeah, sorry - this story doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
"The lone survivor of the Obama administration’s first strike in North Waziristan, Faheem Qureshi, stated that
“[u]sually, when a drone strikes and people die, nobody comes near the bodies for half an hour because they fear another missile will strike.”
He believes that he would likely not have survived if he had not managed to walk out of the smoking rubble of his hujra on his own, because his neighbors would have waited too long in coming to rescue him."
If he's the LONE survivor of the FIRST drone strike in North Waziristan.....
How can he possibly say "Usually, when a drone strikes...."
How can he possibly know?
He's supposedly never met anyone who has been involved in one before??
It makes no sense. This is a completely made up story - at least in terms of the victim placing his experience in a narrative context.
Does he know this?
Does he think this?
Is this something he has figured out all by himself?
Is it his oppinion?
Rumour?
Is he a liar?
Or is he just telling his interlocutors from Stanford what they want to hear?
Former FBI Field Agent Ali Soufan Explains What Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) Actually is and the Drone War in Yemen from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
These are all people who have BEEN THROUGH due process, many of them detailed and convicted at Guantanamo and then LET OUT by the Military Commissions under the Bush Administration from 2006-2009.
These are people who have been turned and recruited by CIA in Camp X-Ray and sentenced to time served,
They are a CIA- Mossad Contra Death Squad created as policy under Cheney and turned into protected hired killers to destabilise foreign governments and cause carnage.
Kill them.
And how does he know its a US Drone, not a Pakistani drone...?
"As for the leaders or those sought after, they should not use communications equipment because the enemy usually keeps a voice tag through which they can identify the speaking person and then locate him.
The drones used in the attacks in Swat Valley depend on electronic chips or radioactive dyes placed at the target by the spy or the agent then the guided missiles come directly toward these targets."
Also, drones move INCREDIBLY slowly.
The idea that you wouldn't spot one coming around for a second attack run and lining up to fire is preposterous.
They're also pretty devastatingly accurate when the mark is tagged with a gamma emitting isotope or a radio transponder or GPS device.
Yes, I bet they did, and I bet they were - this is evidently, a Made Guy, protected on orders right from the top.... "He's someone very important to Mr. Dulles, y'honour..."
Inch perfect.
The Little Wedding: Means & Methods in the Dronestriking of Anwar al-Awlaki. from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
I'm sorry - but this is hilarious.
To be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR: Anwar Al-Awlaki IS NOT a US Citizen and never was - he held a US passport from 1994 until 2004, obtained by fraud, but was born in Yemen to to Yemeni parents and is second-generation CIA.
His father is a Fulbright Scholar and brother-in-law to the Yemeni Defence Minister, a prominent member of the ruling tribe of Yemen that has held power since independence in 1964 - he is not an authentic Jihadi and has a record of numerous arrests for sollicting whilst living in Colorado, where he was also known to enjoy Vodka.
So he isn't an American citizen, and he isn't even an observant Muslim.
Yup, there you go.
Predictable response. Can't even point out
"He's Yemeni Born, he had a fake passport and he's second generation CIA."
Which is all manifestly true.
"According to a 2012 investigative report by Fox News, the arrest warrant for passport fraud was still in effect on the morning of Oct. 10, 2002, when FBI Agent Wade Ammerman ordered al-Aulaqi's release. U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and several congressional committees are urging FBI Director Robert Mueller to provide an explanation about the bureau’s interactions with al-Aulaqi, including why he was released from federal custody when there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest."
I think we all know the answer to this one: CIA were protecting him and moving him around where they needed him most on the globe, radicalising domestic Muslim Youth, sowing the seeds for homegrown terror and adhering to the Blind Sheikh Omar Rahman model . Slick. Very slick...
"ABC News reported in 2009 that the decision to cancel the arrest warrant outraged members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego at the time. They were monitoring al-Aulaqi and wanted to "look at him under a microscope"."
Yes, I bet they did, and I bet they were - this is evidently, a Made Guy, protected on orders right from the top.... "He's someone very important to Mr. Dulles, y'honour..."
In any case, that isn't what a "double-tap" is - that's shooting twice.
A double-tap would be to fire off both Hellfires one behind the other in quick succession to ensure the kill - it's not coming around for a second go a quarter of an hour later. That's absurd.
Three THOUSAND people?!?
These are the same sets of figures quoted on the floor of Congress by Denis Kucinch and he should be ashamed of himself. For this, and other reasons, I would be glad to elaborate on another time.
The "Bureau for Investigative Journalism" should be treated with DEEP mistrust - in fact, I would trust them as far as I could throw them.
I first encountered them last November - I don't know who these clowns are, but they aren't journalists. They were the source of the (quickly discredited, libellous and false) allegation that Lord McAlpine had been named by a former abuse victim and ward of the State at the Bryn Estyn home in Wrexham as his abuser in a piece for Newsnight spinning out of the ever-spiralling out of control Saville Affair.
The Bureau for Investigative Journalism leaked his name, verbally at a media party and it hit Twitter - Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow's epoch making "Innocent face" has had a chilling effect that will reverberate throughout English libel law for years to come.
Their equally shabby reportage and fact checking of Drone Kills (in a manner eerily remincient (if not practically identical to) that of the notorious "Dodgy Dossier" on non-existant Iraqi WMDs.
Their equally shabby reportage and fact checking of Drone Kills (in a manner eerily remincient (if not practically identical to) that of the notorious "Dodgy Dossier" on non-existant Iraqi WMDs.
The Bureau was flung into crisis, their director resigned on the spot, their name and professional reputation in ruins.....
Here's the thing though, and where things turn really sinister - the story was true.
His Lordship is, indeed, a notorious pædeeast and photographic evidence exists - somewhere.
It was stolen from the offices of a magazine called Scallywag many years ago around the time of the Kengate Tapes and David Cameron's shenanigans with Carlton and the Cook Report.
Monarch Mind Control is a form of mind control which creates a mind control slave by utilizing the human brain's trauma response of dissociation to create a form of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) wherein various triggers can cause the slave personality to surface and respond to commands given by the master ("Handler" in Monarch parlance).
Despite the intuitive connection between the Handler and a King or Monarch, the Monarch in this context refers to Monarch Butterflies, not to a Monarchical form of government.
The Monarch Mind Control designation was originally applied by the US Department of Defense to a sub-program under the CIA's MK-Ultra Program. However, the techniques employed in the Monarch programming system extend back further under various names, such as the Nazi marionette programming.
Even further back, the techniques used in Monarch programming can be traced to various generational Satanist families among European royalty. The MPD state created by the Monarch programming techniques were used to isolate the personality involved in Satanic rituals from a public face. Without this alternate personality, the nobles practicing Satanism inevitably went insane, so it's practice spread rapidly through the occult community.
It is unclear who first started practicing the MPD techniques as a way of creating mind control slaves rather than as a defense mechanism, but it is clear that the Nazis were using Electro-shock and binding to create slaves in the 1940s. After World War II, some German and Italian psychologists who were working on Marionette programming were brought to the United States to continue working on their research.
After the original development of the Monarch program inside of MK-Ultra, it has been adopted by other groups such as the Illuminati and the American entertainment industry. Very notably, since the 1970's the Disney corporation has been involved heavily in Monarch programming, and several of their films (especially Alice in Wonderland) are used as a base for Monarch programming.
Monarch programming is achieved through repeated abuse and torture, until the victim dissociates from reality into a fantasy world in their head. When that happens somehow an alternate personality is created, and the handler (abuser) can trigger this personality at any time.
Newsnight was apparently the victim of an MI5 sting - a modified limited hangout and variation on the October Surprise Pilot gambit; the Dan Rather sting.
Charles Johnson's animated GIF comparison of purported 1970's era typewritten Killian memos with 2004-era MS Word document using default settings.
That's as may be, but almost totally irrelevant - these paper records and these documents DO exist, at least as late as 2003 - in the below W.-centric documentary, Greg Palast speaks personally with the public official who saw them and handled them, confirming that they were indeed secured by representatives of the Bush Family sent by Karl Rove prior to the 2004 Election.
Which makes it overwhelming like that the above facsimile of the REAL, actual documents were more than likely transcribed and typed up on Karl Rove's laptop and he sent the "whistleblower" to hawk the fake documents to Dan Rather to take him and his 35 years of Jouralistic Credibility (I don't count Dallas, November 24th 1963, for obvious reason) off the board prior to the crucial 2004 race.
Likewise, with McAlpine, its overwhelmingly likely that the abuse is real, his guilt is real, the victim is real and telling the truth but being used (either with or without his consent or knowledege) to discredit ALL the allegations and scare off further enquire via the standard instrument of the abuse of English Libel Law.
You know about English Libel Law, gentle reader, I assume...?
"English libel law is becoming a global disgrace" - Jo Glanville, Director English PEN:
"English libel law is a vulture circling the world ": Simon Singh, 2011
"English libel law is becoming a global disgrace" - Jo Glanville, Director English PEN:
"Our libel laws allow the rich and powerful to silence their critics and stop the general public from receiving vital information in their interest. We need to reform our libel laws now to protect the freedom of speech of every citizen."
- Kirsty Hughes, the CEO of Index on Censorship:
- Kirsty Hughes, the CEO of Index on Censorship:
"English libel law is chilling global freedom of expression, by silencing writers, journalists, bloggers and human rights activists in the UK and around the world. Reforming these antiquated laws is long overdue, which is why it is imperative that the government passes the Defamation Bill."
- Tracey Brown, Managing Director of Sense About Science:
- Tracey Brown, Managing Director of Sense About Science:
It is for this reason that in the notorious Trapped in the Closet episode of South Park, Tom Cruise famous yells
"I'll sue you!! I'll sue you in England!!"
This, then is the acknowledged strategy of last resort in a massive cover-up;
Surface a juicy titbit of conspiracy dynamite using a false whistleblower or phoney witness to disclose something TRUE, but with fraudulent and easily discreditable evidence, wait for the hungry WoodStein newshound to take the bait and swallow the story while, only for it to immediately blow up in his face - thereby discrediting both the (true) allegations and the journalist, making him a pariah and a laughing stock, and the whole story utterly toxic.
Surface a juicy titbit of conspiracy dynamite using a false whistleblower or phoney witness to disclose something TRUE, but with fraudulent and easily discreditable evidence, wait for the hungry WoodStein newshound to take the bait and swallow the story while, only for it to immediately blow up in his face - thereby discrediting both the (true) allegations and the journalist, making him a pariah and a laughing stock, and the whole story utterly toxic.
And then sue the living shit out of everyone in sight.
This is a truly terrifying ruling both for free speech an child protection - let us not forget, this was from all appearances an MI5 sting to shut down investigation an further reporting on a massive and pervasive decades long Conspiracy of Silence regarding elite pædophilia and Quasi-Satanic Ritual Abuse cloaked by Freemasonry at the highest levels of British society, both in the media, political and judicial realms, for decades.
What, then should we make of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism's London-based guesswork on drone casualties in South Central Asia?
Not much.
I'm concerned too, but I don't give the BIJ the benefit of thee doubt on the Good Faith score - at best, they are hopeless incompetents and therefore Useful Idiots for the intelligence community.
More likely, they are an intelligence cut-out.
Either way : they're full of shit.
Hang on - wait, what???
You've gone from 3325 down to (maybe) 155....?!
Possibly less than half that...?
How can you be out by more than an order of magnitude?!
Oh, wait - these people have a political agenda:
Relying on uncorroborated, anonymous, unarmed sources and reporting what they say verbatim, as fact, is never okay.
Reporting the word of Pakistani Government officials verbatim as fact is doubley not okay.
These are the same people who claimed for 9 years to have absolutely no clue where Osama Bin Laden had gone and now claim that they had him under surveillance in Abbotobad all along.
They can't even get their stories straight.
This is the Pakistani ISI, and you can't trust a word they say.
Figures of 3000 innocent children killed by US Drones is just pure ISI propaganda, plain and simple - it's manifestly not true and ridiculously absurd.
It's also (when you think about it), remarkably close to the official death toll on the day of 9/11 in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.
Although I'm sure that's just a total coincidence and in no way a conscious propaganda ploy / PR Stunt
(Not that 9/11 wasn't the ultimate PR Stunt of all time...)
Although I'm sure that's just a total coincidence and in no way a conscious propaganda ploy / PR Stunt
(Not that 9/11 wasn't the ultimate PR Stunt of all time...)
Further relevant information germain to the counting and quantitative metrics of The Drone Wars:
(My Italics)
23 February 2013
Drone Nations
From: "Al Mac Wow" <macwheel99[at]wowway.com>
To: "'Mark Gubrud'" <gubrud[at]gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:55:17 -0600
Cc: drone-list[at]lists.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: [drone-list] Nations where drones operating
I have been updating my notes, which I call "Drone Nations" as I see news reports, and government reports, identifying where drones are operating in which nations, doing what.
My Drone Nations notes on Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/105613448/Drone-Nations-Al-Mac
My collection of drone documents on Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info
My collection of drone documents on Google Drive Doc:
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4b-ZLWR0bmZLS3d5OVk/edit?usp=sharing
As I periodically upload revised editions of notes, I delete the prior version on Google Drive, but use the revision system on Scribd. Formerly there were other sharing sites I used, which have since died, so at some point in the future I will be looking into additional sites convenient for
me to use.
Definition of drone can vary with the person. I include cruise missiles, and military craft which were named drones back in WW II, but lack the sophistication of today's drones. I include drones in space, air, water, land. I have not been paying much attention to the hobby dimension. I am sure toy drones are available in nations not on my list.
I carefully cite my sources for the information. For each nation, on my list where drones are operating, or have been operating, I typically have a whole string of url citations.
It seems to me that no one else can be doing what I am doing, because all other published reports with a count on how many nations have drones, are way below my running totals.
Now I grant you that some nations may have in the past had drones, and no longer have drones. There's also all the nations where NATO has drone bases, but THOSE nations do not have their own drones. I found out about most of them, thanks to Drone Wars UK data base of where over 100 drones have crashed in recent years.
For that reason I have the two different running totals.
86+ nations have drones which THEY control.There are also nations with mixtures, like Pakistan controls its own military drones, but does not control the NATO drones, which are operating in Pakistan.
104+ nations have drones operating but
18+ nations have drones which they do NOT control.
Al Mac (WOW) = Alister William Macintyre
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Gubrud [mailto:gubrud[at]gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2013 11:12 AM
To: macwheel99[at]wowway.com
Subject: Re: [drone-list] US drone base added in Niger
Do you have an independent database or what sources are you using? The last claim seems particularly on the high side. What are the 11+ nations that have used deadly drone attacks, into what 18+ nations?
Mark
Niger was not previously on my list of nations where drones have been operating, so this news increases my tally to:
86+ nations operate drones by its government and people, mainly for spying.
104+ nations & regions have drones, if we include those operated by foreigners.
11+ nations used deadly drone attacks, into 18+ nations. _______________________________________________
From: "Al Mac Wow" <macwheel99[at]wowway.com>
To: "'Mark Gubrud'" <gubrud[at]gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:24:12 -0600
Cc: drone-list[at]lists.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: [drone-list] Nations attacking which nations with drones
Mark Gubrud asked
What are the 11+ nations that have used deadly drone attacks, into what 18+ nations?I shared links to my "Drone Nations" notes first, so you can go there to check my citations for how I came up with these nations.
There have been several wars, where drones were used on both sides, depending on how drones are defined.
*
*
*
*
Hezbollah claims to have sent drones into Israel in addition to the one Israel shot down, which, if the news media is correct, was merely surveillance.
Nations which have launched drone attacks, as opposed to surveillance of some kind: (there may be more, which I don't know about yet.)
*Nations which have been on the receiving ends of hostile drones from other nations: (this list is probably incomplete)Armenia
*Azerbaijan
*Britain
*France
*Georgia
*Germany
*Israel
*Russia
*Turkey
*Uganda
*USA
*11 = my count, as of 2012 Oct-28
Gaza and Palestine are on the receiving ends of Israel military drones.
Hezbollah has flown at least one drone, claims more, over Israel.
Sorry, had to interject - Hezbollah is not "a nation" - nor, if we are obeying the letter of the law (which we should, since this is research into quite an important area) is Gaza.
Afghanistan, Iraq; Libya, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Bosnia have been on the receiving ends of NATO nations' military drones, and in Somalia's case, also by Uganda's drones
Djibouti and Seychelles have bases for drones used by NATO nations in above conflicts, which have also experienced the phenomena of drone crashes.
Bermuda, Bahamas, and Caribbean are being spied on by US Border Patrol drones looking for drug smuggling.
Congo and Rwanda fighting monitored by UN drones.
Nations which have been on the receiving end of military attacks by drones, not surveillance but actual killing and destruction: (this list is probably incomplete)
*Afghanistan
*Armenia
*Azerbaijan
*Bosnia
*Britain
He's counting V-1 Doodlebugs and V-2 Rockets as "Drones" - Which, technically they are. But the point is, these WW2 Deaths are contributing to the 3325 figure.
His working definition of "Drones" includes "Cruise Missiles"
* Chechnya
*Gaza
*Georgia
*Iraq
*Mali
*Pakistan
*Palestine
*Russia
*Somalia
*Sudan
*Turkey
*Vietnam
*Yemen
I have not updated my notes with Syria latest, because it is unclear to me which nations are on the receiving end of which kinds of attacks ... drones, manned flight, ground troops.* 18 = my count, as of 2012 Oct-28
Al Mac (WOW) = Alister William Macintyre
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A final word on this -
Using this form of accouting, President Kennedy's eldest brother, Joe Kennedy Jr. is included in the totals of those killed by drones...
Operation Aphrodite made use of unmanned, explosive–laden Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers, that were deliberately crashed into their targets under radio control.
These aircraft could not take off safely on their own, so a crew of two would take off and fly to 2,000 feet (610 m) before activating the remote control system, arming the detonators and parachuting from the aircraft.
After U.S. Army Air Forces operation missions were drawn up on July 23, 1944, Kennedy and Lieutenant Wilford John Willy were designated as the first Navy flight crew. Willy had "pulled rank" over Ensign James Simpson (who was Kennedy's regular co-pilot) to be on the mission.
They flew a BQ-8 "robot" aircraft (a converted B-24 Liberator) for the U.S. Navy's first Aphrodite mission. Two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a Boeing B-17 navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield at 1800 on 12 August 1944. Then the BQ-8 aircraft, loaded with 21,170 lb (9,600 kg) of Torpex, took off. It was to be used against the Fortress of Mimoyecques and its V-3 cannons in northern France.
Following behind them in a USAAF F-8 Mosquito to film the mission were pilot Lt. Robert A. Tunnel and combat camera man Lt. David J. McCarthy, who filmed the event from the perspex nose.
As planned, Kennedy and Willy remained aboard as the BQ-8 completed its first remote-controlled turn at 2,000 feet near the North Sea coast. Kennedy and Willy removed the safety pin arming the explosive package and Kennedy radioed the agreed code Spade Flush, his last words.
Two minutes later (and well before the planned crew bailout, near RAF Manston), the Torpex explosive detonated prematurely and destroyed the Liberator, killing Kennedy and Willy instantly.
Wreckage landed near the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk, England, causing widespread damage and small fires, but no injuries on the ground. According to one report, a total of 59 buildings were damaged in a nearby coastal town.
Using this form of accouting, President Kennedy's eldest brother, Joe Kennedy Jr. is included in the totals of those killed by drones...
Operation Aphrodite made use of unmanned, explosive–laden Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers, that were deliberately crashed into their targets under radio control.
These aircraft could not take off safely on their own, so a crew of two would take off and fly to 2,000 feet (610 m) before activating the remote control system, arming the detonators and parachuting from the aircraft.
After U.S. Army Air Forces operation missions were drawn up on July 23, 1944, Kennedy and Lieutenant Wilford John Willy were designated as the first Navy flight crew. Willy had "pulled rank" over Ensign James Simpson (who was Kennedy's regular co-pilot) to be on the mission.
They flew a BQ-8 "robot" aircraft (a converted B-24 Liberator) for the U.S. Navy's first Aphrodite mission. Two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a Boeing B-17 navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield at 1800 on 12 August 1944. Then the BQ-8 aircraft, loaded with 21,170 lb (9,600 kg) of Torpex, took off. It was to be used against the Fortress of Mimoyecques and its V-3 cannons in northern France.
Following behind them in a USAAF F-8 Mosquito to film the mission were pilot Lt. Robert A. Tunnel and combat camera man Lt. David J. McCarthy, who filmed the event from the perspex nose.
As planned, Kennedy and Willy remained aboard as the BQ-8 completed its first remote-controlled turn at 2,000 feet near the North Sea coast. Kennedy and Willy removed the safety pin arming the explosive package and Kennedy radioed the agreed code Spade Flush, his last words.
Two minutes later (and well before the planned crew bailout, near RAF Manston), the Torpex explosive detonated prematurely and destroyed the Liberator, killing Kennedy and Willy instantly.
Wreckage landed near the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk, England, causing widespread damage and small fires, but no injuries on the ground. According to one report, a total of 59 buildings were damaged in a nearby coastal town.
- Drone B-17 used as a guided missile during World War IIATTEMPTED 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
— Top Secret telegram to General Carl Andrew Spaatz from General Jimmy Doolittle, August 1944
According to USAAF records, the trailing Mosquito "was flying 300 feet above and about 300 yards to the rear of the robot. Engineer photographer on this ship was injured and the ship was damaged slightly by the explosion."
The Mosquito, which made an immediate emergency landing at RAF Halesworth, belonged to the 325th Reconnaissance Wing, a unit under the command of the son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Colonel Elliott Roosevelt. Years later, Roosevelt claimed to have been aboard this trailing aircraft, and his version of the event has gained wide currency.
However, Air Force records cannot substantiate this. Instead, an after-action account by the 8th Combat Camera Unit (CCU) noted that:
"...'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 plexiglass 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,' Lt. McCarthy reported from his hospital bed."
The 8th CCU film of the event, has, so far as is known, not been found.
The Navy's informal board of review, discussing a number of theories, discounted the possibility of the crew making a mistake, or that suspected jamming or a stray signal could have armed and detonated the explosives.
An electronics officer who believed the wiring harness had a design defect had warned Kennedy of this possibility the day before the mission.Kennedy was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal. His Navy Cross citation reads:
For extraordinary heroism and courage in aerial flight as pilot of a United States Liberator bomber on August 12, 1944. Well knowing the extreme dangers involved and totally unconcerned for his own safety, Kennedy unhesitatingly volunteered to conduct an exceptionally hazardous and special operational mission
Intrepid and daring in his tactics and with unwavering confidence in the vital importance of his task, he willingly risked his life in the supreme measure of service and, by his great personal valor and fortitude in carrying out a perilous undertaking, sustained and enhanced the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
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