The Hammer and the Anvil

August 12th, 1944. The second front in Europe is two months old. The Allies are advancing towards Paris, but in the Pas de Calais, only 90 miles from London, Hitler's latest vengeance weapon, the V3 'super-gun', is being prepared to unleash two-hundred massive shells per hour on Britain's capital city.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy Junior, eldest son of the erstwhile US Ambassador to Britain (Joseph Kennedy Senior), has volunteered for an extremely hazardous attempt by the Allies to destroy the super-gun before it becomes operational. This mission involves piloting a Liberator aircraft full of high explosives - in effect, a 'flying bomb' - from Fersfield Airbase in Norfolk to crash-land on the V3 site at Mimoyecques. It is such a secret mission that he cannot even bring himself to tell his English lover, Jane, what she so much needs to hear - that he is definitely coming back...

Why did Joe volunteer for this mission, when similar attempts had failed? What happened to Joe and his American comrade in arms? Why was the full story of this mission hushed up by the US Government for over 40 years after the end of the War? And what would have happened to the Kennedy family - and therefore US and world politics - if this mission had unfolded in a different way? What, for example, might have been the climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis if a different Kennedy had had his finger on the button...?

This story explores the possibilities...