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From: Robert Swanson ship@internet-esq.com
Date: 31 Aug 2001
Time: 14:22:58
Remote Name: 149.123.12.121
An interesting factoid I just came across here in the NY Public Library while reading the book "General of the Army" the biography of Gen. George C. Marshall was that when Admiral Ernest King made the Augusta his flagship in April 1941 he discovered that the locked safe in the captain's cabin contained just one strategic plan -- for a war with Mexico!!!
----------- Some other "raw" details about Admiral King, the Augusta, and the Atlantic Conference which I plan to edit into the website in the near future are:
King wanted Augusta as his flagship (it had been designed as a flagship). He had been promised Augusta but in early 1941 it was in overhaul in Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, following a seven year deployment to the Far East. King prodded, Mare Island finished a month early, and King broke his flag in Augusta in late April.
King had to be near enough to Washington to get there on short notice. He also wanted to be centrally located for operations at sea. King there chose Newport, RI as the Augusta's homeport in the spring of 1941. Augusta would moor to a large buoy off Jamestown Island with a single telephone line as direct contact to the mainland.
Roosevelt was reluctant to provide Stark and King with detailed rules of engagements so King developed a simple plan for deploying his fleet. He stationed a force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers off Maine and Canada to escort North Atlantic convoys against U-boats and surface raiders. A small group of old cruisers and destroyers went to the South Atlantic (King was forever afraid of a German invasion from Senegal to Brazil). Finally he would maintain a reserve force off the Atlantic coast for deployment anywhere in the Atlantic.
In mid-May 1941 Augusta takes King to Bermuda to inspect the American naval facilities being built there.
Augusta returns to Newport on May 24 when King learned that Bismark was loose in the North Atlantic.
Without explanation or amplification King suddenly ordered the Augusta's to leave Newport on 2 August 1941 and proceed to NYC via the Long Island Sound.
Augusta anchors off Matha's Vineyard at mid-afternoon on 8/4. That evening Augusta receives signal light that the Potomac at entered the anchorage and that FDR was aboard and Potomac would come alongside at first light.
In the middle of April FDR summoned King to Hyde Park to tell him that he was anxious to meet with Churchill because only so much could be accomplished by letter, telegram and envoy. For political and security reasons FDR favored a clandestine rendezvous at sea.
After a long discussion with FDR using maps and charts it was decided the meeting would take place at Argentia Bay following FDR's visit with MacKenzie King of Canada. FDR gave King an arranged code word that FDR would use later by phone to tell King if the meeting was on.
FDR pledge King to secrecy (he was not even to tell Knox or Stark). The meeting was postponed for a number of reasons. Then on July 25 FDR summoned King once again to Hyde Park and told him the meeting at Argentia was a go.
To maintain security King issued only the minimum orders necessary. Not even Augusta's or Tuscaloosa's captains had known.
King ordered Augusta at 22 knots through fog to Argentia trusting the ship's radar to detect other ships. King arrived with 48 hours to spare. He could have gone slower.
Augusta arrives 8/7 on an unexpectedly clear morning passing though submarine nets and by patrolling destroyers.
They waited. Stark and King went sightseeing by air while FDR fished. Foul weather came and stayed for the next two days.
The British had brought an agenda and therefore were able to control the discussion. King noticed that Churchill to be talking, talking, talking while FDR listened.
When Churchil first came aboard Augusta he was startled to discover that Churchill in real life was short and stout with a florid complexion, and that he wore quixotic clothing (in this case a Brother of Trinity House uniform)
Admiral King appears on the cover of Life 11/23/41
12/6/41 - Augusta in Newport
FDR and Churchill ended their discussions with a ceremony of signing and exchanging illuminated copies of the Longfellow verse "O Ship of State" and autographed photos of themselves.
Master of the Sea; a biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, by Thomas B. Buell (Little Brown 1980)