USS POTOMAC MINI-HISTORY

BY WALTER ABERNATHY

This presidential yacht, off the coast of New England for some relaxation and to escape the Washingtonheat and humidity. It was expected to be the usual fishing routine on the Potomac with the traditionaldaily betting contests for first, biggest, and most fish.

But on this trip the fish would be spared.

About this same time King George VI of Great Britain signed a letter at Windsor Castle he sent to PrimeMinister Winston Churchill approving his plan to leave the United Kingdom during its time of war withGermany to meet in secret with President Roosevelt off the coast of Newfoundland.The Potomac was to play the role as decoy for this first wartime meeting between the two leaders andthe plan was plotted by FDR himself.

Great Britain was standing almost alone against Hitler and Nazi Germany. The British had establisheddaylight air superiority over the Germans in the Battle of Britain, but Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goringordered a new policy favoring night operations. London was systemically bombed by the Luftwaffestarting in September 1940 for 56 of the following 57 days and nights. More than 40,000 civilians werekilled by the Luftwaffe bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than amillion homes were destroyed or damaged.

Churchill’s principal strategy was simple: engage the Americans. FDR’s situation was not so simple. Hehad won re-election in 1940 with 55% of the popular vote and the electoral votes of thirty-eight stateswhen popular opinion favored isolationism and non-intervention. It was a narrow victory in comparisonto the two other Roosevelt elections. The campaign was centered on the issue of America’s entry into thewar and Roosevelt had promised not to get involved.

Still Roosevelt knew America had to be involved, and he needed to lead the public to that conclusion. Hethought it was in our country’s interest to come to the aid of Great Britain but he moved incrementallygiven the isolationist mood of the country. He arranged for the exchange of more than 50 outdatedAmerican destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. One ofthose bases, the Naval Station Argentia, in Newfoundland would be the venue for his historic secretmeeting with Churchill.

In mid-December 1940, FDR introduced a new policy initiative to lend not sell military supplies to GreatBritain. Payment would be deferred and could come in any form Roosevelt deemed satisfactory.Congress debated for two months before passing H.R. 1776 in March 1941, officially titled “An Act toPromote the Defense of the United States,” better known as the Lend Lease Act. The pretense of anyneutrality was ending.On March 7, 1941, the appropriations bill (H.R. 4050) funding the Lend Lease Act was signed by the presidenton the Potomac while on a real fishing trip off the coast of Florida. The Potomac’s log reads in part:“Present in the cabin of the POTOMAC when the President affixed his signature to this most importantmeasure were Attorney General Jackson, Secretary Ickes, Mr. Stephen Early, General Watson, AdmiralMcIntire and Mr. Harry Hopkins. The President presented to Mr. Hopkins the pen with which he hadapproved the bill.” ($7 billion available to June 30, 1943)

It was a big day for Mr. Hopkins. In addition to receiving the signing pen, his 7.5-pound mackerel took honorsas the largest catch of the day and his 6-pound tuna came in next. History does not reveal his winnings.As Churchill courted Roosevelt, the president wanted better information about Britain including itsleadership, morale, and military situation. His former ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy (President John F.Kennedy’s father) was considered an appeaser who believed that Britain would lose the war. So, FDRturned to two of his most trusted allies, Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins.

Harriman was in London coordinating with the British government and Churchill providing constantupdates to FDR. An example is from a then confidential telegram he sent to Roosevelt while on thePotomac during his March 1941 Florida fishing trip:

“Everyone and especially Winston Churchill has received me cordially, and am given all informationand cooperation. At the moment, the most urgent question is that of shipping and its protection…If you like to sleep with the windows closed, or one ear is deaf, you will enjoy life here…”

The connection that brought the two leaders together was Hopkins who Roosevelt sent to England beforetheir historic meeting in Newfoundland. He arrived with ham, cheese, and cigars for Churchill. Hopkinsunderstood Roosevelt as well as anyone. They had developed the same way of thinking as practicalidealists. Churchill was desperate for American support. Roosevelt was aloof, wary and physically distant.Hopkins was to assess the situation with cold and practical eyes. He could influence FDR more than anyperson. To Churchill, Hopkins was the country’s most important visitor in his lifetime.

Churchill recalled that Hopkins came to the garden of 10 Downing Street and said, “the President wouldlike very much to have a meeting with me in some lonely bay or other.” Churchill jumped at the chance.“All was soon arranged” Churchill said after he and Hopkin spoke that night to Roosevelt by telephone.Secrecy was paramount to protect Churchill from Nazi submarines in the North Atlantic and Rooseveltfrom the isolationists at home.

Hopkins continued to develop a rapport with Churchill to the extent that Churchill and Roosevelt nowshared something personal: faith in Hopkins and his judgement. Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela said,“Hopkins had that extraordinary ability to make WSC feel Hopkins was working for him at the same timehe was working for FDR” and could translate “Roosevelt into language that Churchill would understand.”By fits and starts, Roosevelt and Churchill were moving ever closer. Because of Hopkins, Pamela recalled,when Roosevelt and Churchill got together, they were “able to meet as old friends.” (Excerpt from “Franklin and Winston” by Jon Meacham)

At 11 AM on Sunday, August 3, Roosevelt began his journey by train from Washington’s Union Station toNew London, Connecticut, where he boarded his Presidential Yacht USS Potomac. It was still light outwhen he transferred to the yacht and Roosevelt said, “Many persons saw me and we stood out of theharbor into the Sound in full view of thousands, my Presidential flag flying from the main top.” He toldreporters he would be spending the next few days fishing.

Across the Atlantic, Winston Churchill and his party, including Harry Hopkins, were boarding the recentlylaunched and ill-fated battleship HMS Prince of Wales for the dangerous journey through Germansubmarine invested waters to Newfoundland. Four months earlier on May 24, 1941, the HMS Prince of Walesbarely survived a clash with the German Battleship Bismarck (In this same battle Germany’s battleship Bismarck sunk the HMS Hood, then the largest and heaviest battleship in the world, which went down in three minutes with a crew of 1,415. Only three survived. Britain mobilized every warship in the Atlantic to sink the Bismarck off the coast of France three days later.) in the Denmark Strait to escape back to drydock for repairs. Thirteen of her crew were killed and nine were wounded. Four months after the Atlantic Conference meetings, Japanese bombers sunk the HMS Prince of Wales off the coast of Malaysia with the loss of 327 sailors.

FDR was pleased with his plot to use the Potomac as the decoy for this meeting with Churchill. Here ishow he described it in a letter to his friend and distant cousin, Margaret “Daisey” Suckley:

“Strange thing happened this morning—suddenly found ourselves transferred with all our baggage & messcrew from the little ‘Potomac’ to the Great Big Cruiser ‘Augusta’ and then, the island of Martha’s Vineyarddisappeared in the distance, and as we head out into the Atlantic all we can see is our protecting escort, aheavy cruiser and four destroyers. Curiously enough the Potomac still flies my flag and tonight we havebeen seen by thousands as she passes quietly through the Cape Cod Canal, guarded on shore bySecret Service and State Troopers while in fact the Pres. will be about 250 miles away.”

To his wife, Eleanor, who was at their home in Hyde Park, New York, he maintained the fiction that he wasfishing, routing a message through Press Secretary Steve Early:

“The President sends word all well on boat and getting real rest. Weather excellent…”

Roosevelt thought it was a “delightful story” that while he was safely and secretly 250 miles away in thehands of the U.S. Navy the deception continued. Without Roosevelt onboard the Potomac was routedthrough Cape Cod Canal with three imposters of Roosevelt, Stephen Early and Gen. Watson dressed inwhite summer clothes lolling in easy chairs on the quarterdeck waving to the public that lined the banksand bridges.

The ploy was working but the press was getting suspicious and noting that key people were missing fromWashington. Absent were top U.S top military leaders including Secretary of Navy Frank Knox, Army Chiefof Staff Gen. George Marshall and Air Force Chief Gen. H.H. “Hap” Arnold. Also, Churchill and Hopkins had disappeared from London. A suspicion was growing that Roosevelt and Churchill might be secretlymeeting somewhere in the North Atlantic. Still the official dispatch from the Potomac read:

“All members of party showing effects of sunning. Fishing good luck. No destination announced.President being kept in close touch of international situation by navy radio. All on board well andweather excellent.”

Meanwhile at 05:30 on 5 August, the Potomac came alongside the heavy cruiser USS Augusta andmoored, the President and his party embarking in the heavy cruiser at 0617. For security purposes, thePresident’s flag remained on the Potomac while she, accompanied by Calypso, transited the Cape CodCanal to New England waters.

The Augusta accompanied by USS Tuscaloosa and their screening destroyers headed for Naval StationArgentia, Newfoundland arriving in the morning of Aug. 7 at Ship Harbour, Placentia Bay, where sheanchored to await Churchill’s arrival. While waiting, in some validation to the announced purpose of hisdecoy trip, FDR fished from the Augusta and a whale boat but with little success except for oneunidentified and “extremely ugly” fish that FDR asked be sent to the Smithsonian Museum.

On August 8, President Roosevelt watched the arrival of HMS Prince of Wales with Churchill and Hopkinson board. The Prime Minister and his party boarded the USS Augusta at 11 AM for meetings including lunchand dinner leaving the ship just before mid-night. The next day, Roosevelt and party visited the HMSPrince of Wales for religious services. Meetings were held back and forth until August 12 on the Augusta,when the two leaders agreed upon the final draft of the eight points of the Atlantic Charter that set forththe vision and principles for the post war world:

• Not to seek territorial gains from the war• Opposing any territorial gain changes against the wishes of the people concerned• Supporting the restoration of self-government to countries who lost it during the war• The right of people to choose their own form of government• Access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity• Freedom from fear and want• Freedom of the seas• Abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations

After the August 12 meeting, President Roosevelt and staff assembled on Augusta’s quarterdeck at2:50 PM to bid Prime Minister Churchill and his staff farewell. With the ship’s guard and band paraded, theparting ended with the playing of “God Save the King.” A little over two hours later, the Prince of Walespassed close aboard and rendered passing honors to the Augusta, after which the band struck up “AuldLang Syne.”

After the departure of HMS Prince of Wales, the Augusta got underway in company with Tuscaloosa and theirscreening destroyers enroute to Blue Hill Bay, Maine, to a return rendezvous with the Potomac and Calypso.

Back on the USS Potomac at an August 16 press conference in Rockford, Maine, Roosevelt sent conflictingsignals about the significance of his meeting with Churchill. Isolationism was still a major mood of thecountry. While the two men were at sea, the House of Representatives had approved the extension of the military draft by only a single vote. For the “boys” of the press, Roosevelt emphasized “I think the first thingin the minds of all of us was a very remarkable religious service on the quarter deck of the Prince ofWales last Sunday morning… It was one of the great historic services.” He said they had discussed what ishappening to the world under the Nazi regime that needs to be brought home to all the Democracies.When asked if they had discussed how to actually implement the provisions of the Atlantic Charter, hereplied, “interchange of views, that’s all. Nothing else.” To the reporter who asked if America was closer towar. Roosevelt replied, “I should say, no.”

The Japanese answered differently on Dec. 7, 1941, and Hitler settled the question four days later when hedeclared war on the United States.

On January 1, 1942, twenty-six allied governments signed a “Declaration of United Nations” pledging theirsupport for the Atlantic Charter principles which became the basis for the modern-day United Nations.History does not reveal that any fish were caught during the secret rendezvous of the two wartimeleaders in Newfoundland

USS POTOMAC MINI-HISTORY

BY WALTER ABERNATHY

The mooring was poor, the seas rough. The Presidential Yacht, the USS Potomac, was rolling continually from 25 to 30 degrees and yawed wildly during the night of March 26, 1941, while anchored at Settlement Point in the Grand Bahama Banks southeast of Miami. Fala, America’s favorite dog, was among the seasick keeping President Franklin Delano Roosevelt up most of the night.

Others suffering with temporary insomnia that night included the President’s guests joining him for “The President’s Inspection Trip and Cruise” aka “a fishing trip” from March 19 to April 1, 1941. Those guests included Robert H. Jackson, the Attorney General; Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior; Harry L. Hopkins, the President’s personal advisor; Stephen T. Early, the President’s press secretary; Maj Gen Edwin “Pa” Watson, his military aide; and Rear Adm Ross T. McIntire, the President’s physician; plus secret service agents and support staff.

The party had left Washington by train from Union Station on March 19 to Port Everglades, Florida, arriving in the evening of March 20. The train was run

out onto the pier with the President’s car next to the Potomac. After pausing for pictures on the dock, the President and his party transferred to the ship but decided to stay at dock that evening while an easterly wind of force 4 with heavy ground swells and rain had set in. The press had already released stories of the Potomac’s departure and were upset when she instead stayed at the pier. Rumors were linked with a German submarine being offshore.

The destroyer USS Benson was waiting to follow the Potomac out to sea, where it would stay close behind with its guns manned and depth bombs and torpedoes ready in preparedness for any emergency. FDR had given orders that the Potomac should at no time be more than an eight-hour run from a United States port and the holding of three cars of the Presidential train in readiness in Miami for any emergency.

The country was not yet at war. It was a year and a half after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939 and eight months before the entrance of the U.S. to war in December 1941. In July 1940, after Britain had sustained the loss of 11 destroyers to the German Navy over a 10-day period, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill requested help from President Roosevelt, and a major foreign policy debate erupted over whether the United States should aid Great Britain or maintain strict neutrality.

In the 1940 Presidential election campaign, FDR promised to keep America out of the war. He stated,

“I have said this before, but I shall say it again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” Nevertheless, Roosevelt wanted to support Britain and believed the United States should serve as a “great arsenal of democracy.” Churchill pleaded, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.”

FDR was reelected for an unprecedented third term, defeating Wendell Wilkie on Nov. 5, 1940, with 54.74% of the popular and 84.56% of the electoral votes (George Washington had set a two-term tradition). The President quickly focused on bringing the full force of the United States economic power to assist Great Britain in its lonely defense against Nazi Germany. Neutrality Acts enacted between 1935 and 1939 were designed to prevent the United States from becoming involved in foreign wars. By 1939, Congress had enacted a final Neutrality Act that placed all trade with nations at war under terms of “cash and carry” not to be transported on U.S. ships. U.S. monetary loans to belligerent nations were prohibited.

Great Britain had run out of credit and continuing support from the United States was threatened for munitions, raw materials, and food. The Neutrality Act of 1939 was in the way. FDR needed a “work around.” At a press conference on Dec. 17, 1940, President Roosevelt revealed his plan to “…get rid of the silly, foolish old dollar sign” to continue and expand his support for the British war effort. Don’t sell them supplies. Lease them instead. He said, “…if you lend munitions and get the munitions back at the end of the war, if they are intact, haven’t been hurt – you are all right; if they have been damaged or have deteriorated or have been lost completely, it seems to me you come out pretty well if you have them replaced by the fellow to whom you have lent them.”

On Dec. 29, 1940, in one his historic Fireside Chats (Nr. 16) he told the nation that if Great Britain goes down, all the Americas would be living at the point of a gun – a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military. He said, “We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.”

The Aid to Democracies Act (Lend-Lease Act) passed Congress on March 11, 1941. The President signed it one and a half hours later. The next day he recommended a $7 billion appropriations bill to fund the Lend-Lease authorization. In transmitting the funding request, he declared, “It’s the fixed policy of this Government to make for democracies every gun, plane and munitions of war that we possibly can.”

One week later, he left to board the USS Potomac in Florida for much needed rest and recreation after the stresses of the election and overcoming the country’s isolation with the passage of the Lend-Lease Act.

With heavy swells and intermittent rain, The USS Potomac finally officially started its “inspection” trip with a delayed 9:30 AM departure on Friday, March 21 to clear the dock for the Havana railroad ferry. For several days, the Potomac with its escort USS Benson enjoyed some good days fishing and others with stormy waters.

After its sleep deprived night on March 26, the President, his party and Fala awoke to better weather and calmer seas. The ship was underway at 7:10 AM to rendezvous with the Navy mail plane en route from Miami and to go alongside the Benson for sorely needed bread, water and ice. Included in the mail plane pouch to be signed by the President on the Potomac was H.R. 4050 passed by Congress appropriating a lump sum $7 billion to fund the Lend-Lease act enacted earlier in the month. This was the largest

peace-time appropriation for military purposes in the country’s history.

All members of the President’s party were present in the Potomac’s cabin when Chief Yeoman Terry brought the contents of the pouch to the President shortly before 11 AM. Steve Early sent out the following press release from the ship’s communication room:

At 10:50 AM, EST, the President signed H.R. 4050, an Act of Congress making supplemental appropriations for the national defense and to provide aid to the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States. The total amount of this bill is seven billion dollars, to remain available until June 30, 1943. Present in the cabin of the Potomac when the President affixed his signature to this most important measure were Attorney General Jackson, Secretary Ickes, Mr. Stephen Early, General Watson, Admiral McIntire and Mr. Harry Hopkins. The President presented to Mr. Hopkins the pen with which he had approved the bill.

It was a big day for Harry Hopkins. Later, his 7.5-pound mackerel and his 6-pound tuna took honors for first and second largest catch of the day. Mr. Hopkins had been FDR’s personal envoy to meet with Prime Minister Churchill to orchestrate the U.S.-British wartime alliance. He also exercised effective control over the Lend-Lease program, making sure it was in alignment with the President’s foreign policy goals.

The funding of the Lend-Lease program on the USS Potomac was the first of a program which ended on Sept. 20, 1945. A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $719 billion in 2021) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total U.S. war expenditures. In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China and the remaining $2.6 billion to other allies. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov both stated that Lend-Lease enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Germany on the Eastern Front.

After more fishing and adventures, the USS Potomac returned to Port Everglades in Florida. On March 30, the President and those who had been with him, including Fala, throughout the “inspection” cruise left the Potomac and went aboard the waiting train on the dock alongside.

After several stops on the train route home, the President’s train arrived at the Union Station in Washington D.C. at 8:30 AM, April 1, 1941.

The Presidential Yacht USS Potomac had played another important role in the country’s history.

Murray the Outlaw of Falahill
FALA
April 17, 1940 – April 5, 1952

Sources: Fala Biography – FDR Library & Museum, Hyde Park; US Navy Ship Logs USS Potomac (AG25)

Fala was President Roosevelt’s usual companion on his many cruises on the USS Potomac, including in August 1941 when he joined FDR on the Presidential Yacht for his secret rendezvous with Winston Churchill for the Atlantic Charter conference in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. FDR had announced that he, Fala and other dignitaries were taking a fishing trip on the Presidential Yacht off the coast of New England when, in fact, they transferred to the USS Augusta in the pre-dawn hours on August 5, 1941, to meet Churchill arriving also in secret in Canada on the HMS Prince of Wales.

While FDR and Churchill were on the HMS Prince of Wales deck agreeing on the terms of the Atlantic Charter, Fala was below making friends with Rufus, Churchill’s poodle, establishing his foreign relations credentials.

Fala was given to the President as arranged by his cousin, Margaret “Daisy” Stuckley, also a Potomac passenger, and went to live in the White House on Nov. 10, 1940. He was FDR’s constant travel companion and was also with him at Hyde Park and Warm Springs. The dog had learned tricks to entertain the many famous visitors he met. His most impressive trick was curling his lips into a smile.

While on a Potomac fishing trip off the coast of Florida, Fala discovered a new stunt for himself. He noticed that as the fish were caught and thrown into a pile on the deck, they would all flip-flop back and forth and up in the air. To Fala, it looked like so much fun that he began to flip-flop like the fish; and he continued to do so for several days.

Records of the USS Potomac reveal about Fala that:

1. He got
2. He wet on the ship
3. The crew was not happy about #2.

The President’s dog became America’s dog. He received thousands of fan letters annually at his White House address requiring a full-time secretary (human-type) to handle his correspondence. During the War, Fala even became an honorary Army private by donating a dollar to the war effort. Hundreds of thousands of American dogs joined him with their dollars. He also received many proposals of marriage.

Fala even had a secret service code name “The Informer” because he was the certain “give away” when the President’s bodyguards were trying to conceal his location.

FDR was not unmindful of his pet’s public appeal and usefulness in presenting political positions like in a radio address when the President said, “I hate war, Eleanor hates war, and our dog, Fala, hates war.” Fala was a regular attendee at the President’s press conference and cabinet meetings.

Fala was made most famous by FDR in his 1944 campaign speech to the International Teamster’s Union. He addressed false Republican charges that at great expenses to the American taxpayers he had sent a

U.S. Navy destroyer to retrieve Fala, who had been left behind on an Aleutian Island. Late in the speech about an event that never happened, he said:

“Those Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family don’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian Island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the tax payers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself… But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.”

In April of 1945, President Roosvelt died in Warm Springs. Fala attended the funeral but seemed lost without his beloved master. He went to live with Mrs. Roosevelt at Val-Kill in Hyde Park, later joined by his grandson, Tamas McFala.

The Potomac Association Chairman, Michael Roosevelt, recalls as a young boy when his father, James Roosevelt, the President’s oldest son and founding Chairman of the Potomac Association, received a telegram from his mother, Eleanor. Fala had died. The family was notified by wire. John Roosevelt, the president’s youngest son, announced his death by the Associated Press in a story carried on page 1 in many American newspapers.

He was buried in the Rose Garden next to the sundial not far from the graves of the President and Mrs. Roosevelt.

USS POTOMAC MINI-HISTORY

BY WALTER ABERNATHY

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Luncheon Cruise – June 9, 1939

King George VI1 was the first reigning British monarch to visit the United States. It was June 1939, when war in Europe was imminent. Three months earlier, Hitler had seized Czechoslovakia and put Slovakia under German “protection.” Appeasement had failed. Francisco Franco took Madrid at the end of March 1939.

As war with Germany threatened Great Britain, the King’s visit was largely political, aimed at strengthening relationship with the United States in the face of strong American isolationism and weariness of European entanglements that might drag the county into another foreign war.

The King wore his crown because of an American. His older brother, David, had assumed the throne as King Edward VIII when his father, King George V, died on January 20, 1936. David was recognized as a Nazi sympathizer and playboy. David’s father had earlier predicted to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that “after I am dead the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.” He announced plans to marry a soon-to-be a twice-divorced American socialite, Wallis Simpson. For a twice-divorced woman to become queen was unacceptable to the Church of England and the government, leading to his abdication on Dec. 11, 1936, and succession by his younger brother, Albert (Bertie), who took the crown as George VI.

The royal visit included motorcades in Washington and Manhattan seen by hundreds of thousands, a state dinner climaxed with an eloquent presidential toast and songs by Kate Smith and Marian Anderson and a luncheon cruise on the USS Potomac.

It was “bloody hot” on June 9, 1939, when the King and Queen boarded the USS Potomac at the Navy Gun Factory pier in Washington to a 21-gun salute and the welcome of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The King brought on board his own five-gallon container of water from England (you can never be too sure).

It was a short cruise down the ship’s namesake river including luncheon on board to George Washington’s home and tomb at Mount Vernon, Virginia, arriving about noon. The king laid a wreath at George Washington’s tomb which might have been an issue with his great-great-great grandfather, King George III (Mad King George), Washington’s adversary in the Revolutionary War.

The Royal visit by the Presidential Yacht to Mount Vernon was only possible because a few months earlier, FDR had arranged for the river to be dredged and marked to afford safe navigational access to the Mount Vernon wharf. Today’s navigation dredging projects can take more than 20 years.

The cruise to Mount Vernon was a favorite of the President. His custom whenever passing Washington’s tomb, as prescribed by Navy Regulations, was for the crew (those not on station) to man the rail and as the ship came abreast the tomb, the boatswain would pipe, “Attention” then “Hand salute” then “Carry on” while the Colors were lowered, then raised – total elapsed time, about a minute.

In addition to their Britannic Majesties, the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King and aides, the shipboard luncheon was attended by the senior leadership and wives of the United State government, including the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Attorney General, Postmaster General and the Chief of Naval Operations.2

Card tables3 were arranged for luncheon in the Potomac wardroom and fantail where the President and Mrs. Roosevelt were seated with their Britannic Majesties using White House china.

Although the King’s schedule was crowded with a series of ceremonial and highly public events, there was time for a few one-on-one private discussions with FDR, the first in the President’s study following the White House state dinner. These confidential discussions continued when the royal party concluded their trip with a more relaxed schedule at the Roosevelt compound in Hyde Park.

There the President and Mrs. Roosevelt arranged the much-publicized picnic at Hyde Park’s Top Cottage for their Britannic Majesties featuring hot dogs, baked beans, and strawberry shortcake but served on silver dishes. The King chomped down with gusto on his American-style sausage. The baffled Queen resorted to a knife and fork.

In this more relaxed atmosphere, the President and the King, sometime with and without Canadian Prime Minister McKenzie, continued their confidential conversations. One long tête-à-tête at Hyde Park between FDR and King George lasted until 1:30 AM, when the President said, “Young man it’s time for you to get to bed.”

“He is so easy to get to know and never makes one feel shy, as good a listener as a talker,” George VI later wrote about FDR. One probable key factor in their instantaneous rapport was that each had overcome a challenging disability: FDR’s polio, and the King’s severe speech problems (see movie “The King’s Speech”). The King’s speech handicap had also served to strengthen his traits as a “good listener.”

Shadowing these discussions was the Neutrality Act, which FDR was trying to amend or repeal, to enable America to supply armaments to Britain. FDR told George VI that he still hoped “something could be done to make it less difficult for the USA to help” what he described as the “firm and trusted” Anglo-American alliance. He showed the King a map of his plans for naval patrols and bases. This ocean patrol plan led to the essential U.S. trade of “Destroyers for Bases”4 and “Lend Lease” that eventually evolved into lifesaving assistance from the United States.

The King recorded these private conferences with FDR in a memorandum entitled “FDR’s ideas in case of war.” Back in London he would convey “the essence” of these discussions to the “proper quarters.” The actual documents he would keep to himself and carry with him in his red dispatch box wherever he went during the Second World War. He would, however, share Roosevelt’s map with officials at the Admiralty and explain “what Roosevelt had in mind.”

The King and Queen ended their five-day visit when they boarded the royal train for their return trip to Canada at the Hyde Park Station with the crowd signing “Auld Lang Syne.” Less than three months later, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany starting World War II.

Although His Majesty’s time on the USS Potomac was short, the “Floating White House” continued as a venue for implementing both of FDR’s promises of support, “Destroyers for Bases” and “Lend Lease.”

USS Potomac – “Destroyers for Bases”

• On March 24, 1941, President Roosevelt, while on the USS Potomac in waters off Florida, signed a message to Congress transmitting the text of the agreement for the use and operation of the United States bases in British territory, which had been obtained in exchange for the 50 S. destroyers previously transferred to the British government. The message was to leave by plane the following morning to ensure that it would be delivered to Congress on Thursday, March 27.
• During his 1941 Florida fishing trip on the USS Potomac, President Roosevelt used the ship’s radio room to send and receive secret dispatches to “former naval person,” his alias for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, concerning the “Destroyers for Bases” British war support

USS Potomac – “Lend Lease”

• On March 27, 1941, still on the USS Potomac the President signed R. 4050, an Act of Congress appropriating

$7 billion to fund the Lend-Lease act enacted earlier in the month and presented the signatory pen to Harry Hopkins, who had been FDR’s personal envoy to orchestrate the U.S.–British wartime alliance. It was a big day for Harry Hopkins. Later, his 7.5-pound mackerel and his 6-pound tuna took honors for the first and second largest catch of the day.

 NOTES

1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were the parents of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning British Monarch who acceded to the throne on Feb. 6, 1952 and died Sept. 8, 2022.

2 See attached USS Potomac luncheon guest list from archives Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library

3 See attached table layout plan USS Potomac luncheon from archives Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library

4 An agreement between the U.S. and U.K. on Sept 2, 1940, to transfer 50 U.S. Navy destroyers to the Royal Navy in exchange for British possessions.

USS POTOMAC MINI-HISTORY

BY WALTER ABERNATHY

FDR’s Texas Fishing Trip – May 1937

After dinner on April 27, 1937, FDR left the White House to overnight on his special train en route to New Orleans and a rendezvous with his Presidential Yacht USS Potomac.

The train remained in the rail yards overnight departing the next day at 6 AM1. The log of his trip starting that day was prefaced by this quote from the Koran:

“Allah does not deduct from the allotted time of man those hours spent fishing.”

 The Potomac would give him 10 days “off the mortal clock” for this fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas. He needed a break, especially from the stresses of sponsoring in Congress the “Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937,” otherwise known as FDR’s “Supreme Court packing plan,” which was facing political headwind despite his 98.44% win of electoral votes in 1936.

His train pulled into New Orleans the next afternoon in time for a late lunch at Antoine’s and a waterfront press conference. He was asked by the press to provide full coverage of his forthcoming trip, including the “fish stories.”

Joined by his son Elliott Roosevelt, Ross T. McIntire, Edwin M. Watson and Potomac Capt. Paul H. Bastedo, the President spent that evening on board the destroyer, USS Moffett2, anchored in the Mississippi River before departing early morning to meet with the Presidential Yacht waiting off the Texas coast. On the voyage off the shores of Louisiana and Texas, FDR used his stamp collection to occupy his time.

The destroyer USS Moffett and the USS Potomac rendezvoused at Aransas Pass, Texas, near Corpus Christi, where the President and his party transferred in the early evening on May 1. Not wasting any special time allotted from Allah, FDR went fishing on a small boat while the transfer was in progress and snagged a king mackerel to officially start the fishing trip.

Back to business that evening on board the yacht when the White House mail pouch arrived with 38 official documents to be signed including an extension of the Joint Resolution on Neutrality Act, which was due to expire at midnight. Although in 1937, FDR was politically advocating for U.S. neutrality in European conflicts including the Spanish Civil War, he would later move the country to engagement and confront the isolationist with his Lend Lease concept.

Still, the first fishing day was not over. FDR and his party had dinner, then fished off the quarter-deck for an hour, after which he retired for the day.

The next couple of days were at sea off Port Aransas fishing usually from small boats with random success. Elliott Roosevelt caught a five-foot, ten-inch tarpon on May 2. The next day they caught 12 tarpons from the fishing boats.

After fishing each day, when conditions permitted, dinner was served on the yacht and the fishermen were often joined by a steady stream of guests from ashore.

On the other side of the Atlantic on May 3, the German Zeppelin Hindenburg (LZ-129) left Frankfurt, Germany, on its second scheduled 1937 passenger-flight crossing to the United States. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, the airship carried 36 passengers and a crew of 61. For the next 58 hours while FDR and friends were on the Potomac, the Hindenburg traveled at approximately 78 miles an hour over the Atlantic toward Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base in New Jersey. Although it was designed to be filled with helium, a non-flammable gas, the airship contained highly flammable hydrogen. The Americans then had a monopoly on helium and had imposed pre-war export restrictions on its export. It was noted that the Germans had preferred hydrogen which provided more economic lifting power than helium, increasing passenger carrying capacity.

On May 6, the Potomac off the coast of Port Aransas, Texas, received the Naval Mail Plane with work for FDR who signed 32 Acts of Congress and processed other documents before the plane took off for Galveston, Texas.

The next day FDR received a flash notice on the Potomac that the Hindenburg had caught fire while landing at Lakehurst Maxfield Field in New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and an additional fatality on the ground. The live radio announcement by Herb Morrison of the tragedy in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” was recorded and immediately flown to New York and became part of America’s first coast-to-coast news broadcast. Commercial “lighter-than-air” travel was over.

FDR immediately sent from the Potomac the following message:

H.E. Adolph Hitler Reich Chancellor, Berlin.

I have just learned of the disaster to the airship Hindenburg and offer you and the German people my deepest sympathy for the tragic loss of life which resulted from this unexpected and unhappy event.

ROOSEVELT

And received the following reply:

H.E. Frankin D. Roosevelt President of the United States Washington.

I thank your Excellency sincerely for the heartfelt words of sympathy which you have expressed to myself and the German people with regards to the disaster of which the airship Hindenburg was the victim.

ADOLPH HITLER

Later that day at a press conference on the Yacht, he was asked about the possibility of lessening restrictions on the U.S. exports of helium and the future of dirigibles following the Hindenburg disaster. He said he needed to talk to Secretary Ickes about the helium issue and thought the whole field of dirigibles was worthy of further study.

Photo of Elliott Roosevelt with his father FDR’s catch, probably from the guide boat “Hangover II.”

Before the press conference the President had hooked a 77-pound tarpon from his fishing launch about a half mile off the bow of the Potomac where it was finally brought to gaff. He told the press and especially the photographers that he had arranged with the fish to be caught promptly at two o’clock in time for the press conference. FDR said he was having the fish mounted to be given to his son Elliott. The press asked if they had kept the fish waiting.

In addition to fishing, the President was regularly receiving visitors for meetings and dinners including Texas businessmen Sidney Richardson and Clinton Murchison. He also found time to visit Richardson’s estate on Saint Joseph’s Island.

After more fishing the following days, the USS Potomac arrived in Galveston, TX, at 8:00 AM to a 21-gun salute from Fort Crockett. The President returned to “mortal time” and left for Fort Worth to board a train to Washington, D.C.

On the train home, he reflected on the trip at a press conference in his dining room car shortly after leaving St. Louis, MO.

“Let me talk some more background for you. The objective of these trips, you know, is not fishing. You probably discovered that by this time. I don’t give a continental damn whether I catch a fish or not.

The chief objective is to get a perspective on the scene which I cannot get in Washington any more than any of you boys can. You have to go a long ways off so as to see things in their true perspective because if you sit in one place, right in the middle of the woods, the little incidents that don’t mean a hill of beans get magnified by a President just as they do by a correspondent.”

As the President returned by rail, the USS Potomac headed from Texas across the Gulf of Mexico to Miami and then up the Atlantic to Chesapeake Bay and its home berth at the Washington Navy Yard.

On May 14, at 10:15 AM, FDR’s train arrived at the Washington, D.C. rail station where he was met by Eleanor Roosevelt and returned to the White House joined by Mr. and Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt.

1 While FDR was en route to New Orleans, Eleanor Roosevelt had a full day of White House activities including having lunch with Amelia Earhardt.

2 The USS Potomac and the USS Moffett would meet again in August 1941 when FDR transferred in secret from his yacht to the battleship USS Augusta to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the Atlantic Charter Conference off the coast of Newfounland. The Moffett provided destroyer escort protection on his clandestine voyage to Canada while the world thought FDR was on the Potomac fishing in New England waters.