Read Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings for Free Online

compensating for his ruined legs. Immune to seasickness, he may also have derived satisfaction from the fact that while others struggled, often unsuccessfully, to maintain their dignity as the boat swooped and plunged through the waves, he always remained master of himself. Because some of his advisors could not match this aplomb in the midst of an active sea, they often dreaded invitations to accompany him. 27
    Roosevelt’s offshore vacations were frequent enough that the press took little notice of it when in August 1941 the White House announced that the president was leaving on another fishing trip. On August 3 he boarded the presidential yacht
Potomac
at New London, Connecticut, and headed outto sea. After dark, however, the
Potomac
rendezvoused with U.S. Navy warships off Martha’s Vineyard, and the president and his entourage transferred to the heavy cruiser
Augusta
, which then turned toward Canadian waters. The next day, as the presidential party steamed northward, reporters on chartered boats off Martha’s Vineyard watched through binoculars as a man wearing an old sweater, sporting pince-nez glasses, and with a cigarette holder clamped firmly in his teeth sat at the stern of the
Potomac
with a fishing pole in his hands. The reporters sent daily bulletins ashore announcing that the president was enjoying his vacation. Even the Secret Service was fooled. 28
    The elaborate charade was designed to mislead both the Germans and the opposition press, for Roosevelt was on his way to meet the British prime minister in Placentia Bay, on the south coast of Newfoundland near Argentia. The meeting was Roosevelt’s idea. It was a measure of how much the Anglo-American relationship had evolved since the ABC staff talks back in March. Whereas on that occasion he had remained aloof, he was now willing, even eager, to meet personally with Churchill, who more than anyone else personified Britain’s resistance to Hitler’s war machine. In addition, Roosevelt was the kind of face-to-face politician who was confident in his ability to affect events by the force of his personality. He wanted to take the measure of Churchill, to ensure that this “former naval person” understood American policy, and he also looked forward to hearing Churchill provide one of his already famous analytical disquisitions on the course of the war to date.
    On August 9, the
Augusta
and the rest of the American squadron, which included a battleship and no fewer than seventeen destroyers, was anchored in Placentia Bay in a dense fog. Around noon, an enormous gray shape materialized out of the mist as the newest
King George V–class
Royal Navy battleship
Prince of Wales
cruised slowly into the anchorage. Displacing 44,000 tons and bristling with ten 14-inch guns, the
Prince of Wales
was the newest and largest of the Royal Navy’s warships, and she still bore the scars of her recent successful fight with German battleship
Bismarck
. The fact that Churchill had chosen her to carry him to the rendezvous with Roosevelt was a measure of just how crucial he believed this meeting was. 29
    Roosevelt sent his naval aide, Captain John R. Beardall, over to invite Churchill and his staff to dine on board the
Augusta
that night. It was not to be a formal state dinner, the president told Beardall, just an informal gathering where he and the prime minister could talk comfortably. Churchill accepted, of course, and the evening was a great success. The two heads of government got on splendidly, and Churchill did not disappoint those who had anticipated a detailed and vivid
tour d’horizon
of the war.
    The next morning, Roosevelt returned the visit by attending church services on board the
Prince of Wales
. Symbolically, at least, this was the high point of the conference. The officers and men of the two naval services sat together on the broad deck of the
Prince of Wales
and sang familiar hymns in a common language. It was Roosevelt himself who urged the inclusion of