Did you know President J. F. Kennedy’s first casket was buried at sea?

You might know that President Kennedy lies buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But did you know that the former World War II Navy war hero sort of almost got a sea burial, in that one of his caskets ended up in the ocean?
 
After Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas on November 22, 1963, a member of his team called a local funeral home owned by Vernon O’Neal to request the best casket he had. The casket, bronze with a white satin inlay, was driven to the hospital on a hearse. Kennedy’s body was in an appalling condition, with blood still seeping from the wounds. He was wrapped in linen and the casket was lined with plastic to protect it.
 
The body was flown to Washington, D.C. on Air Force One for autopsy, and the casket turned out to have been soiled by blood upon opening, rendering it unsuitable for public display. A new casket was bought, and the old one left in the funeral home that embalmed Kennedy for a year.

An argument developed between O’Neal and the government over the price of the casket. The original price tag was $3,995 ($36,000 today), but O’Neal wanted it returned to him, as he had buyers willing to pay $100,000 (almost $1 million today) for its historical value. The government didn’t want the casket to become a morbid curio, so it paid the casket’s price and stored it in the National Archives for two years.
 
What happened to the casket afterward was only made public in 1999. J.F.K.’s brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, approached the government about giving the casket a burial at sea to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. It was an appropriate and respectful idea for another reason, too: Kennedy served in the Navy during World War II, and became a war hero when his Patrol Torpedo Boat (The “Devil Boats” of America) was rammed and broken in two by a Japanese destroyer (The Sinking of PT-109). At one point in his life, Kennedy was actually considering a burial at sea; this wish was symbolically granted by making the ocean the final resting place of his first casket.

The Air Force placed the casket in a pinewood box and drilled dozens of holes through both to ensure they would be swamped. Three 80-pound (36 kg) bags of sand were placed inside for extra weight, and the box was rigged with two parachutes. In February 1966, a C-130 Hercules transport plane took off with the casket and flew to a spot roughly 100 miles (160 km) east of Washington, D.C., an area used by the military to dump old ordnance. The place is far away from regular shipping and flights, and the contents ensure it’s free of trawling and other sea-bottom activities. The casket was dropped from 500 ft (150 m), the parachutes softening the impact and making sure it stayed in one piece as it sank. In a way, J.F.K. the war hero got his burial at sea even though J.F.K. the president was laid to rest in Arlington.