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

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

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.

FDR’s Texas Fishing Trip – May 1937

FDR’s Texas Fishing Trip – May 1937

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.

Historic USS Potomac  Launches a Maritime Workforce Development Project with  West Oakland Job Resource Center, thanks to $430,000 in Grant Funding

Historic USS Potomac Launches a Maritime Workforce Development Project with West Oakland Job Resource Center, thanks to $430,000 in Grant Funding

New collaboration marks increased economic
efforts to support the local maritime industry, in the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt

OAKLAND, August 31, 2024 – With the help of a $430,000 combined grant from the state of California, the USS Potomac Association, which owns and operates FDR’s historic USS Potomac at Jack London Square, has launched a collaboration with the West Oakland Job Resource Center (WOJRC) to introduce young Oakland residents to the maritime industry through a comprehensive job training program.

Education on the maritime industry

“These grants from the California Workforce Development Board and the Employment Development Dept.  will fund learning sessions given by maritime industry professionals at the Potomac Visitor’s Center,” said Ford Roosevelt, the Potomac Association’s project manager for the grant program.  “It will also fund learning sessions with crew members and the Potomac’s maintenance team at dockside, and support short cruises on the ship where the participants can observe vessel operations.”

Overall, the program will help orient the participants from WOJRC to occupations in the maritime industry, he added, while providing a basic understanding so that that they can pursue their credentials and jobs in the field, if they choose to.

The WOJRC will select up to 85 participants, most aged 18 to 30, for this educational program, in which they will earn a stipend and undergo in-class and practical learning sessions aboard the USS Potomac. As part of the curriculum, participants will  learn different aspects of the maritime industry including crew roles and responsibilities, ship types and anatomy, Coast Guard certifications, cargo handling at the Port of Oakland, and more.

“We are thrilled to be working with the WOJRD on this new program,” said Jennifer Pettley, executive director of the USS Potomac Association which owns and operates USS Potomac.

“As a National Historic Landmark, Potomac offers a unique opportunity for these young Oakland residents to learn about the many career opportunities in the maritime industry,” Pettley added.

 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jennifer Pettley
Executive Director
USS Potomac Association
510-627-1215
jpettley@usspotomac.org

Photos available