One night in 1944, an American military pilot was flying over England when he turned around in his cockpit and looked at this panel of switches that was right behind him. After looking for a particular switch, he reached out and he was about to toggle it, but he stopped because he knew what he was about to do, flipping this switch, would easily be the most dangerous thing he had ever done in his entire life. But this was his duty. He had to do it. So after taking a deep breath, he flipped the switch. Immediately, chaos ensued, and the course of American history, would be drastically changed forever. If you've never heard the story before, and many people have not, this is not nearly as well known as it should be, then you are in for a huge reveal at the end. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious, this delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week. So if that's of interest to you, please secretly log in to the like buttons computer and then transfer all of their Bitcoin to your untraceable offshore account.

Also, Please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. At around 5:30 PM on the evening of August 12th, 1944, a young American military pilot named Joe walked out of his quarters on his base in England, where he was stationed. And as soon as he was outside, he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. And as he smoked the cigarette, he began walking towards the huge hangar on the other side of the base, where his plane was waiting for him. Joe had been preparing for this night for weeks. He and his copilot, a 35-year-old lieutenant who was nicknamed Bud, were about to step off on a top secret military mission called Operation Aphrodite. This mission was not only top secret, but it was so unbelievably dangerous that basically anybody who knew about it, considered it a suicide mission. But Joe tried not to think about that as he walked towards the hangar. Instead, he tried to think about the reason he was here in the first place, the reason he had joined the military, and that was to defeat the Nazis.

And what he and his copilot were about to do, Operation Aphrodite, was going to play a huge role in defeating the Nazis. So this was about five years into World War II, and at this point, the Nazis were actually losing. However, it was making them more dangerous, not less, because they becoming very, very desperate. And so they were launching all these outrageous attacks, basically because they had nothing to lose. And one horrible thing the Nazis were doing at this time were dropping these things called vengeance weapons. Hitler called them vengeance weapons. They were basically these huge bombs that the Nazis would drop arbitrarily across the United Kingdom on major population centers. And by this point in the war, these vengeance weapons had killed over 5,000 civilians. And at this exact moment, like this night, as Joe was walking towards the hangar, the Nazis had a stash of vengeance weapons aimed directly at London. That was going to be their next target. And so the mission that Joe and his copilot Bud were going on, Operation Aphrodite, was going to be to go out and destroy those vengeance weapons to save London. And as nervous as Joe was about this mission, and he was really nervous, he was also very excited.

He actually had volunteered for this mission when many other pilots had done everything they could to stay away from this mission. And on top of that, Joe Joe actually had flown enough missions by this point in the war that he didn't need to fly anymore. He could just go home. But instead, he volunteered for this mission. And a reason why Joe might have decided to do that has a lot to do with the family he was raised in. Joe came from a family that was very successful and accomplished, and his father really pushed Joe and his younger brother to be the very best at whatever they were doing and to be very competitive with each other. And so while Joe and his younger brother did love each other, they also had a pretty intense rivalry. And for a while, Joe's father obviously favored Joe. I mean, Joe was the favorite child, and his father would always say, Joe is going to be the President someday. He's so talented. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, both Joe and his younger brother joined the military. And pretty early on in the war, Joe's younger brother got an award for heroism.

He had basically saved his platoon of men, and he won all these awards, and he was all over the news. And pretty quickly after that, Joe felt like he fell out of favor with his dad, that his dad looked at the younger brother as being the favorite child now. Joe really started to feel insecure and wanted to prove himself really to his dad. And so when Operation Aphrodite came up, Joe volunteered for it really because he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to show his dad that he, too, could do something huge and change the course of history. He would change the course of history, but not in the way he expected. Joe continued to smoke a cigarette and hustled across the base towards the hangar. As he did, he found himself speeding up. He just wanted to get over there and get started. Joe's commanders had given him a special code he would call out over the radio if this mission was successful. It was spade flush. That's what he'd say over the radio. As Joe hustled towards the hangar, he imagined how incredible it was going to be to yell out spade flush over the radio.

I mean, it was only like 30 minutes away from that moment. This was a short mission. Finally, Joe reached the hangar and he looked up to the sky one more time to make sure the weather looked solid because actually they had tried to launch Operation Aphrodite a couple of days earlier, but it had been canceled because of fog. But Joe looked around and the weather looked good, and so he knew it was going to be a go. So he flipped his cigarette butt and stepped into the hangar. Inside this hangar was this massive big open space, and in the center of the hangar on the floor was this huge plane called a B-24 Liberator. This was, of course, Joe's plane for the night. And so Joe immediately began walking towards the plane to check it out. Now, this particular type of plane was It was the type of plane Joe had been flying for the past three years. I mean, he'd flown many combat missions in this type of aircraft, so he was very familiar with it. But this particular B-24 was unlike any of the other B-24s Joe had ever flown. In fact, this aircraft was so unique.

It was unlike any aircraft that any pilot in the American military had ever flown. I mean, this was really a one of one. And so as Joe walked around the outside of this plane, he began to notice some of these unique modifications that the mechanics had made to this aircraft. The most noticeable modification was actually the cockpit. Now, normally the cockpit had all these windows basically all around it, so the pilot could look in any direction and see what was going on, but obviously, they needed to be protected from the elements. But this B24 had all the glass removed except for one pane of glass basically right in front of where Joe would be staring, just like a single windshield. And so it's almost like it was a convertible aircraft where it was all open air in the cockpit. And the reason this change is because Joe and his copilot, during the course of this top secret mission, Operation Aphrodite, they would have to jump out and parachute to the ground. And so by having this all open, it would allow them to do that much easier. And then another big modification to the B-24 is the guns that were normally located on the outside of the aircraft were gone, and they were replaced by broomsticks painted black to look like guns at a distance.

But the visible changes to this particular B-24 were nothing compared to the massive changes that were hidden inside this aircraft because the top secret part of Operation Aperdiody was really this particular plane. The plane was not really a plane. It was more like a huge flying bomb. The military's mechanics basically hollowed out the entirety of this plane, removed everything inside of it that was not absolutely vital, and they replaced it with explosives, 10 tons of explosives. This is an unbelievable amount of explosives. Explosives. A few minutes later, at around 5:55 PM, Joe and his copilot Bud, who by this point had come into the hangar, finished doing their exterior inspection of the aircraft, and then they climbed into the cockpit with Joe taking a seating the pilot seat and Bud sitting in a copilot seat. Even though the evening was cool, both men were visibly sweating. Once the pilots got the go ahead to begin the mission, Joe fired the first engine and then turned to look at the ground crew all around them, and he noticed all of them looked really, really serious. I mean, they obviously knew how intensely dangerous this mission really was.

The fact was the pilots might not make it home, and so they're looking up at these guys like, I'm sorry you have to do this. But Joe, he looked out at these people and he sensed that was going on. He made a big Joe to wave and smile at them to show confidence like he knew what he was going to do. He's going to be fine. But in reality, Joe really was terrified. In about 10 seconds, I'm going to hold something up in front of camera that our team has been working on for over a year, and it's finally ready to be revealed, and we know you're going to love it. All right, drum roll, please. Here we go. It's the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in book format, the official Mr. Balin Graphic Novel, our first book ever. In this just stunningly beautiful anthology of stories, are full stories that are brand new and have never been covered anywhere else on any of our other channels. So if you want to hear those news stories, you got to get this book. The book is not coming out until my birthday, October first of this year, but you can pre order a book right now by going to book.

Balinstudios. Com. The link is also in the description. And if enough of you pre-order this thing, it'll make the New York Times best seller list, which is so cool. But more importantly, that will show us there's big interest in books from the Strange, dark, and mysterious community, and we'll make more of them. So again, head on over to book. Boleynstudios. Com and pre-order a copy today. Oh, and also at the end of today's video, be sure you stick around because I'm going to go live on YouTube. And during this live event, I will tell you a little personal story from my time in Navy Boot camp and how that actually led to the creation of this graphic novel. I'll also speak with some very special people that helped make this book a reality, and I'll share some other exclusive details about the book. Oh, and also, I will answer any questions you might have about the book. So when this episode ends, just click on the Live tab on my YouTube channel to join the live event with me. And again, go to book. Bollenstudios. Com and pre-order a copy of the Mr. Boleyn graphic novel today and help us get on that New York Times bestsellers list.

By 05:59 PM, Joe had all four propellers spinning on the aircraft, and so he released the break and began taxiing out to the runway. And as they bumped along, Joe and Bud became really aware of just how heavy this aircraft was from all the explosives. I mean, every bump, this plane is lurching up and down and really creaking and making lots of noises. I mean, this was sketchy. Finally, Joe went full speed ahead, and he and Joe went tearing down the runway. And at some point, the plane did get lift, and it took off into the air. And then just up ahead of him were six other planes that had just taken off moments before who were going to escort Joe and Bud to their target area. Once Joe got the plane to its cruising altitude, he and Bud relaxed for a second and began preparing themselves for what was going to happen next. They had about 15 minutes of just casual flying before the real work of this mission began. The vengeance weapons that Joe and Bud were going out to destroy as part of Operation Aphrodite were located about 120 miles south, just outside of this little town in the very northern tip of France.

But destroying these weapons would not be as simple as just Joe and Bud flying and releasing all their explosives and flying back home because the Nazis had buried these vengeance weapons deep inside the hills in this town in northern France. And so regular bombs wouldn't touch these vengeance weapons. They had to do it a different way. The way they were going to do it was Joe and Bud were going to fly their plane directly into the hills. The way they would do this is they would fly their plane as close to the target area as possible, at which point one of the other pilots that were in the escort planes would take remote control of the B-24 flying bomb. Then once they had remote control, Joe and Bud, who no longer needed to do anything, they would jump out and parachute to the ground. Then the pilot who was remotely flying this now vacant B-24 flying bomb them, they would just set it on autopilot to crash into the hills. At around 6:15 PM, just as the English channel came into view, Joe toggled a switch on his control panel. Then after he did, he and Bud held their breath for a second to see what would happen.

Then a couple of seconds later, the plane shuttered for a second and then leveled out. Then a call came over the radio from one of the pilots who were in the escort planes, telling Joe and Bud that they had just successfully taken remote control of the B-24. At this point, Joe and Bud are no longer flying the aircraft. They're just sitting inside of this flying bomb. Now, there were only two things left for Joe and Bud to do before they could bail out to safety. They would need to arm the plane, so basically arm the explosives and make them ready to detonate. Then after that was done, they need to call out over the radio, Spade Flush, the code Joe was given, which would signal to everybody else that the plane was ready and Joe and Bud were jumping out. And so once Joe and Bud nodded to each other and acknowledged that, Okay, we're going to do the last bit of this mission, Joe turned around in a seat and he looked at this control panel that was right behind him, and on this panel was the arming switch. And so once Joe flipped this, he and Bud would have a very short window of time to safely escape the aircraft.

And so it was like, flip it, make the radio call, and get the heck out of there. But Joe and Bud had trained for this moment over and over and over again, so they were ready. So eventually, Joe flipped the switch, grabbed this radio, and called out Spade Flush. What Joe and Bud could not have known when the mechanics were making all these modifications to this B-24 was that one of the mechanics accidentally crossed some wires in putting in all these explosives. Just seconds after Joe had armed the explosives, they detonated. They were not supposed to, but they did. Joe and Bud were killed basically a fraction of a second after calling out Spade Flush. But it would turn out the catastrophic failure of Operation Aphrodite had no impact on World War II. In fact, Operation Aphrodite should never have happened in the first place. It was totally unnecessary. What Joe and Bud and the rest of the American military didn't know at the time was five weeks earlier, the British Royal Air Force dropped a whole bunch of ground-penetrating bombs all across those hills in northern France, and they destroyed all of the vengeance weapons.

So when Joe and Bud took off on this doomed mission, there was no threat to London. None. But that is not the big reveal in this story because Operation Aphrodite changed the course of American history in a really specific and really enormous way. Because Joe, whose full name was Joseph P. Kennedy Jr, was a member of the very famous Kennedy family, a big-time political family in America. At the time, the Kennedy's were all saying, Joseph is going to be the next President of the United States. Everybody believed it. He was going to be the guy. But then, of course, Operation Aphrodite changed all of that because Joseph was killed. The war would end about a year later. When it did, Joseph's younger brother, John F. Kennedy, who won that award for heroism and got a Purple Heart early on in the war, and he became a war hero, which prompted Joe to volunteer Year for Operation Aphrodite. Yeah, John would begin his unbelievable political rise. And by 1960, John F. Kennedy, JFK, would become the 35th President of the United States, even though he wasn't supposed to. He was the second choice. It should have been Joe.

As I mentioned earlier, I am now going to go live on YouTube to discuss further our big announcement, our graphic novel. All you have to do to join this live event is click on the Live tab on my YouTube channel. During this event, I will cover a personal story from my time in the Navy. I'll also chat with a few special guests that help make this book a reality. I'll share some more exclusive details about this book, and I'll answer any questions you might have about this book. Okay, that's it. So head on over now to the live section of my YouTube channel, and we'll talk about the upcoming Mr. Ballon graphic novel.