USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.
Preserved at Battleship Cove, USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. represents a generation of destroyers that served through the changing demands of the postwar Navy. Known to its crew as the “Joey P,” the ship was built at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, and commissioned in December 1945. Its career would include the Korean War, Cold War deployments, and support for America’s early space program.
Preserved at Battleship Cove, USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. represents a generation of destroyers that served through the changing demands of the postwar Navy. Known to its crew as the “Joey P,” the ship was built at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, and commissioned in December 1945. Its career would include the Korean War, Cold War deployments, and support for America’s early space program.
During the Korean War, the destroyer operated off the Korean coast, carrying out duties that included shore bombardment and screening aircraft carriers. Such assignments reflected the versatility expected of destroyers: they protected larger vessels, supported forces ashore, and responded to changing operational needs.
One of its most consequential assignments came during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. As President Kennedy confronted the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the ship named for his brother participated in the naval quarantine. On October 26, its crew stopped and boarded the freighter Marucla to inspect its cargo—a practical enforcement action within an international confrontation carrying the risk of nuclear war.
The ship also supported recovery operations for early American space missions, connecting naval service with the work of returning astronauts safely from the sea. After leaving active service in 1973, it joined Battleship Cove in 1974.
At Fall River, the preserved destroyer brings these different chapters together. Its decks and compartments hold the history of a working ship whose responsibilities ranged from combat operations to inspection duties and spacecraft recovery. They also preserve the setting in which generations of sailors carried out the daily work behind those events.
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