Did you know a U.S. destroyer almost torpedoed President F. D. Roosevelt?

Losing the head of state of your country, and the supreme commander of your armed forces, can be devastating in wartime. Losing that man due to a stupid mistake on one of your own warships is even worse: it’s downright farcical. During World War II, President F. D. Roosevelt came uncomfortably close to such a demise.
 
In November 1943, the battleship USS Iowa was carrying Roosevelt to Mers el Kébir in Algeria on the first leg of his trip to the Cairo and Tehran conferences. (Read our earlier article) Other notable passengers onboard included Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy, Army Chief of Staff General Marshall (Read our earlier article), Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King, and U.S. Army Air Forces Commanding General Henry “Hap” Arnold.

One of Iowa’s escorts was the destroyer USS William D. Porter, which, according to some claims, had been having bad fortune since the outset. While departing from the harbor, her anchor tore the railing and lifeboat mounts off another ship. The next day, one of her depth charges fell into the water and exploded, causing a false U-boat alarm.

On November 14, Porter participated in a torpedo demonstration at Roosevelt’s request. Chief Torpedoman Lawton Dawson, however, failed to remove the torpedo’s primer, and it was an armed warhead that was speeding directly for Iowa. Due to orders of radio silence, Porter first tried to warn the battleship with a signal lamp but sent the wrong message. Desperate to warn the bigger ship, she eventually broke radio silence to warn about the live torpedo. Iowa turned hard to avoid it, while Roosevelt had his Secret Service attendee push his wheelchair to the side of the ship so he could get a better view.
 
Tragedy was averted, but Dawson was arrested and sentenced to 14 years of hard labor which he only avoided thanks to Roosevelt’s pardon. Porter acquired a certain reputation, and other U.S. Navy ships routinely greeted her with “Don’t shoot! We’re Republicans!” as a joke referencing Roosevelt’s Democrat affiliation.
 
Porter was not done with misfortune yet. In 1945, she barely dodged a Japanese kamikaze plane which hit the water and sank. Unfortunately, the plane’s unusually large amount of explosives detonated directly under the destroyer’s keel. The blast lifted the ship clean out of the water and caused damage that caused her to sink a few hours later.

Save 25% until December 2!

We are offering all our available tours with a discount of 25% if you book and pay in full by December 2, 2024. After this deadline, you will get a discount of 22% if you book and pay in full by December 30, 2024. Note that this offer applies only in case of new bookings, and it cannot be combined with other special promotions. As before, we will continue our mission of bringing history to life and sharing the stories of the Greatest Generation with our Passengers. Feel free to browse our website to find the right tour for you. We encourage our former Passengers to return and continue their journey with us on our tours meant for returning and new Passengers alike, such as our Channel Islands tours, War in Poland Tour, Britain at War Tour, World War I Tour, Italian Campaign Tour and the Third Reich Tour. 
If you have any questions related to this promotion or our tours, please contact our travel consultants at info@beachesofnormandy.com or by calling our toll-free number: +1 855-473-1999.