1941: THE WORLD WAR II YEAR OF INFAMY

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



Like nothing had done to that point, Nazi Germany’s occupation of Paris on June 18, 1940 and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) nomination to an unprecedented third term as President of the United States the following month, alerted the American people to the threats to their nation posed by Europe’s Second World War. While during his first two terms as president, FDR had used his pulpit to educate the public about those perils, sentiment consistently weighed heavily toward non-intervention in the war. The summer of 1940 saw a shifting in the attitude, one toward building up the nation’s defenses, which resulted in an eventual outpouring of material aid from America to the Allied countries, shoring up America’s military forces, and instituting the nation’s first peacetime draft in its history.

Having gone into effect in September, the Selective Service Act of 1940 placed all men between the ages of 21 and 35 eligible for one year of military service. Marlin Landon “Bob” Gaffin, having turned 21 on January 20, 1941, and the president’s swearing into office for his third term on the same day, the lives of both men thereafter are to be defined primarily by their involvement in World War II.

            Following his nomination for his third term, FDR explained his motivation for defying the country’s traditional policy of two-term presidencies. He stated that he had suffered many sleepless nights over his own right to refuse the call to duty when the young men and women of his country were facing the call to serve. He said, “Like most men of my age, I had made plans for myself, plans for a private life of my own choice and for my own satisfaction…These plans, like so many other plans, had been made in a world which now seems as distant as another planet. Today all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger. In the face of that public danger all those who can be of service to the Republic have no choice but to offer themselves for service in those capacities for which they may be fitted. Those, my friends, are the reasons why I had to admit to myself, and now to state to you, that my conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service.”^[1] 

            The summer of 1941 also saw the opportunity of a new kind of personal life for Bob embodied in the alluring Dorothy Boldman of Cedar Fork, Ohio, a particular private life, like the president’s, that by year’s end will be held delicately in the balance while America’s foreign affairs unfold. Meanwhile, Bob ventures no more than thirty miles southwest of the farm of his parents in search of employment that he is confident will set the pattern for the home-life for which he hopes with Dorothy. In an illustration of Bob’s plucky nature, Bob writes to his mother from Blanchester, Ohio where he has found a job: …We sure had a time coming up here. We done all right till we got on the other side of Fayetteville. We had tire trouble and didn’t get here until 9:30. I went to work Monday morning…When I went to work the boss asked me if I could drive a truck and I said sure I could. He asked me if I could handle the tractors and I said I could, so I went to work. Ha – Ha. Well a fellow has to tell a few [lies] once in a while. But I operated them like an old hand and kind of fooled them. Ha. They just seemed to come natural to me or something…

While the tone and content of the letters exchanged among Bob and his correspondents during these months are amazingly devoid of any allusion to, or speculation about, the war, especially in view of the fact of the institution of the draft, writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh, in her journal, which later is published in book-form, portrays a picture of civic-minded and politically-savvy individuals whose thoughts and daily lives are deeply influenced by the government’s stance on the war. At that juncture, she states in her journal the greatest issue of speculation was whether or not Washington DC would go one step further and finally grant Great Britain’s request that American ships convoy, or in effect, act as full-metal and armed shields to British supply ships crisscrossing the Atlantic. She writes of the high tension in Washington, a state of affairs she speculates cannot go on. At the same time, she sympathizes with Roosevelt’s dilemma regarding establishing a convoy system, a predicament based on the fact that doing so will require transferring ships from the Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic. Such a move would render America’s presence in the Pacific so thin that the president fears it will encourage the Japanese to ever greater expansion into the Pacific. But by mid-August, FDR seems to waver in his position, and in a secret meeting off the coast of Newfoundland with Winston S. Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, the British leader comes away from the meeting convinced that FDR has agreed to America’s convoying of British ships as far as Iceland.

            But still the president is disinclined to step up his nation’s presence in the European war to such a degree. With Germany’s breaking of its non-aggression treaty with Russia and its placement of troops on the Russian border, FDR is often of the opinion that he should just sit back and let Russia handle Germany – or better still, let the two repressive dictator-nations wipe each other out. In his characteristic manner, the president adopts a stance of “wait and see.” 



Bob Gaffin spends his workdays in Blanchester and heads home for the weekends where he cuddles with Dorothy on the front porch of her parent’s Peebles, Ohio country home nestled peacefully beneath a pitch black sky alight with stars. In New York City, top-drawer matrons such as Anne Morrow Lindbergh in mink coats, Made-in-Paris chapeaus, and Estee Lauder’s “V” for “Victory” lipstick read Vogue’s latest issue sporting models in military garb in front of “Bundles for Britain,” while fuzzy-cheeked American military recruits pack the subway trains to take in the sights. All the while, spanking new Made-in-America airplanes buzz a sky streaked with searchlights.  

            Bob’s desire to marry Dorothy in the near future is dashed on November 18^th when a letter arrives, one informing him that he has been drafted into the Army. A letter of a few days later tells him to report to the Reception Center at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.



Ft. Thomas, Ky. Dec, 4, 1941…Dear Mother: Will write you this evening to let you know I am O K and hope everyone are well. Well, I’m in the army now (as the slogan goes) and its not so bad so far. Of course we haven’t had any actual training yet. I sure hated to leave civilian life, but we can’t help it…Your loving son, Bob



As tensions mount dangerously in the Atlantic theater of the war, the Japanese continue to aggress against their neighbors in the Pacific, and like the Nazis, have set against the land and resource-rich territories beyond the borders of their own land. Their resolve strengthened by the Tripartite Pact signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan, a pledge in support of one another if attacked by any outside enemy, the three aggressors strike, conquer, and plunder their ways across their particular hemispheres, to this point, almost none the worse for wear, and nearly with impunity.

            Roosevelt retaliates by placing an embargo against Japan: no more exportation to Japan of aviation fuel and highest grade steel and scrap iron. Japan responds by seizing oil-rich Indochina. The Roosevelt administration hits back by freezing all of Japan’s assets in the United States and cutting off all exports of oil to the country. Intended to halt the advance of the Japanese, the embargo ricochets and Japan counters with a threat to move in on the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies and other East Asian regions rich in natural resources. Several back and forth negotiations between the two countries failing, Japan and the United States are approaching a collision of epic proportions.

              Lulled to complacency by the promises of their president to keep their boys out of foreign conflicts, the American people conduct their daily business and personal lives as usual, unaware that warfare on a level never before seen was lying in wait for them.

In his address to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”^[2] In the Fireside Chat on the radio where he talked to the nation about the Declaration of War with Japan, in part he said:

MY FELLOW AMERICANS:

The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality. 

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated a long-standing peace with us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk; American airplanes have been destroyed.

The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge.

Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom, in common decency, without fear of assault.^[3]

A letter from his mother to Bob illustrates the shock of the nation at the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor that hurls the United States into the war: Monday Morning, Dec. 8, 1941…Dear Son. I will try to write some this morning. I was so nervous yesterday I just couldn’t write and not much better this morning…Bobby we heard down at the church last night that war had been declared. It sure does worry me. I just can’t help it. They tell me if I don’t be careful I’ll go crazy. But I don’t know. They surely can’t take you though until they get you trained. Of course I know that I am just one Mother in thousands. We will just have to trust in God. Of course you know that we are praying for you, and that will help you along…



Even as the greatest challenge of both of their lives has been placed before them with the attack on Pearl Harbor, and while Bob with his characteristic curiosity and composure is in the throes of noting the vastness of the differences between the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), in which he had served as a teenager, and that of the military, FDR is experiencing an odd form of relief. Japan’s strike against the American Fleet in Hawaii, while creating an enormous crisis for the president, at the same time, it lifts from him the solemn mantle of a choice between war and peace for his country, and as noted by his wife, he is serener than he has been in a long time.©



The above is a work of creative non-fiction by multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene. Her books are available worldwide on Amazon.



Image: “I WANT YOU” poster.



Recommended Reading: WAR WITHIN AND WITHOUT, DIARIES AND LETTERS 1939 – 1944, Anne Morrow Lindbergh; THE ROOSEVELT PRESENCE, The Life and Legacy of FDR, Patrick J. Maney.

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[1] http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3318

[2] http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1941_1208_roose…

[3] http://franklincollege.edu/pwp/bgaskins/EDE226/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt.html

FRANCE IS ON WINSTON S. CHURCHILL’S MIND

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



Winston S. Churchill, Lake of the Snows, Canada, August 27, 1943 – Our reprieve from the clatter of war began three days ago with the end of my conference with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that great and magnanimous human being who guides the mighty United States of America through this most perilous history. I was delighted with my American counterpart’s choice of Quebec as the location of our war-planning conference. I had seized the opportunity in the evenings of our four-day sail at the opening of the month from Scotland to Canada on the Queen Mary, now the Grey Ghost, to give forth to my wife and daughter on what I consider the copious charms and hallowed history of the ancient citadel of Quebec, at the gateway of Canada, overlooking the mighty St. Lawrence River. My wife and daughter indulged me, as they do always, and listened with great attention while I regaled them with the exploits of British Major General James Wolfe and his seize of Quebec from the French in 1759. Both Montcalm, the French commander, and Wolfe were mortally wounded in the battle. The outcome was France’s ceding most of its territory in eastern North America at the Treaty of Paris in 1763. It paved the way for Great Britain to emerge as the world’s leading colonial power and for Wolfe to be forever remembered by the British as the ‘Hero of Quebec.’ His immortal declaration reads: ‘Who at the Expence of his Life, purchas’d immortal Honour for his Country, and planted with his own Hand, the British Laurel, in the inhospitable Wilds of North America, By the Reduction of Quebec, Septr. 13^th, 1759.’ The time is nigh to plant the British Laurel once more, this time in Germany, at Hitler’s front door.

Britain’s defeat of France at Quebec in 1759 established the Anglophile as the ruling class, however, there is no denying that Quebec’s soul remains that of the Francophile. It is difficult to find any faction of life in Quebec in which the Catholic Church is not dominant. The French culture and language are similarly central. Quebec’s French spirit suffused our fortnight there and stood starkly as a metaphor of the cross the Allies bear toward the good people of France to free them of the Nazi specter that holds them in its yoke of terror. It is an obligation both heavy and inescapable. While the centuries have seen at times a trying relationship between France and Great Britain, we emerged as allies against Germany in the Great War and at the outset of the Second World War.

My thoughts are never far from the ‘Free French Air Forces’ or ‘Forces Aériennes Françaises Libres (FAFL)’, comprised initially of a few, brave, French airmen who undertook the dangerous flight from Bordeaux-Mérignac to England just five days before the signing of the terrible Franco-German Armistice. Some of them joined the Royal Air Force (RAF). During the following seventeen months, others escaped France as well as French North Africa and joined General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Forces. South Americans volunteered additionally, swelling its ranks from 500 in July, 1940 to 900 in 1941. Under the Allied umbrella, it continues to grow and fight alongside us, to date in the Anglo-American campaign of North Africa and in Sicily.

            The French tricolor with The Cross of Lorraine at its center is ever before my eyes, and never more so than during the hours of my conference in Quebec with President Roosevelt. Our agenda’s primary feature was the cross-channel invasion of Nazi-held France in the coming spring. The collateral damage the French people are sustaining from our air raids over their cities and countryside for the reason of reducing the Nazi defenses among them before our invasion robs me of my sleep. God help them as they will be caught in the crossfire whence we storm their shores.

At the bidding of my Canadian friend, Colonel Clarke, whom had been attached to me by the Dominion Government during the conference, Clemmie and I are ensconced seventy-five miles outside of Quebec amid mountains and pine forests at the lovely ‘Lake of the Snows.’ We are assured that the largest trout are abundant, and here we will remain for a well-earned week of rest and relaxation and fishing. I have been invited by Canada’s great Prime Minister, W.L. Mackenzie King, to speak by radio broadcast to my Canadian brothers and sisters, and to all of the Allied world. It will be an opportunity to acknowledge their enormous sacrifices and involvement in the war effort.    

Upon our departure from this wondrous ‘Lake of the Snows’ and its generous trout, we will sally forth to the president’s family home at ‘Hyde Park’ in Upstate New York for a few days, and then to the White House in Washington D.C. There we will surrender ourselves further to the welcome smiles and open arms of our grand friend, Franklin. I dispatched to him my largest catch of yesterday. He sent word that he relished it. We will be glad to take up residence at the White House and submerge ourselves in the posh, air-conditioned suite in which Franklin will install us. It will be propitious for both me and my brother-in-arms to share the good reports we receive from our commanders on the progress of the Mediterranean Theater of the war.©

Note: The above is a work of historical fiction based on true events.



Images: Canada Prime Minister, W.L. Mackenzie King; US President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and Great Britain Prime Minister, Winston Spencer Churchill, and the flag of Free France, 1940–1944, made up of the tricolor with a Cross of Lorraine at center field.



Recommended reading: Memoirs of the Second World War by Winston S. Churchill.

CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage by Mary [Churchill] Soames.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and other booksellers.

THE PRIME MINISTER GETS AN EARFUL FROM A YOUNG CANADIAN

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



The Citadelle, Quebec, Canada, August 23, 1943 – Over our afternoon tea break, the prime minister was noticeably reflective. I had grown accustomed to the great man’s assorted dispositions. However, his mood today was solemn in a way I had not witnessed in him. Mrs. Churchill had retired to her room, leaving him and me alone at table. The idea flitted across my mind that perhaps Mr. Churchill’s somber tone reflected a concern over his wife’s health. He patted his mouth with his napkin and studied my face as if weighing whether or not to trust me with conversation I felt sure was about to commence, and one that would have to do with matters outside the Second World War business in which both he and I were involved. I was assigned to him as an Attaché from the Canadian government during his war-planning conference with Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States. It goes without saying that I was flattered that the prime minister had invited me to join him for tea, although it was well-known that he made a practice of doing such as this for the purpose of gaining the perspective of the young people who worked for him. I think he also enjoyed the openness of individuals decades younger than himself.   

Moisture rimmed his eyes. I was horrified that tears would spill down his cheeks, but he got hold of himself and raised his napkin to his face and wiped it. “My Clemmie and I are putting every good effort into distracting our minds from the death of our little daughter, Marigold twenty-two years ago today,” he said. I hadn’t the faintest idea that he and his wife had endured such tragedy. I was at the same time amazed at the personal character of his statement and hadn’t a clue as to how to respond. But then I realized there was no appropriate reply, and I sat back quietly against my chair. I understood then Mrs. Churchill’s low spirit. I was surprised when Mr. Churchill spoke about Marigold further. “Our little ‘Duckadilly’s greatest delight was in serenading us in song in her sweet, true voice: ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air…’” In a falsetto voice, he trilled the words of the song and twirled his hand in the air in accompaniment. His hand dropping to his lap, he continued, “Even as she lay dying, she asked Clementine to sing it to her. I wrote to Clemmie in a note at the time, ‘…It is a gaping wound – whenever one touches it and removes the bandages and plasters of daily life.’ The wound wounds evermore!”

His splendid head lowered and his hand rose to his heart. And then he looked around the room as if in search of an answer to life’s cruelties. He turned his face to me again and said, “This has been a year of difficulties for our family, not the least the illnesses that struck down both my wife and me. You are no doubt unaware that I was sent to bed for several days in late February for ‘convalescence.’ I suffered a roaring fever and sore throat, diagnosed finally as pneumonia. It kept me less of my normal self for many weeks. Overcome with concern for me, and exhaustion from these many years of the conflagration that holds the blade at our throats, as well as her demanding duties, Clemmie developed a painful affliction. It required her to endure seemingly endless treatments. She too was ordered to rest and managed to organize a nice seaside retreat for several days. She rallied and we were comforted with the assurance that she would be hale and hearty for this trip. But alas, she has suffered wearying sleeplessness throughout our voyage to Canada. Am I so selfish to wish her near me on these long journeys to foreign lands while I conduct the business of the war?”

I was startled by his inquiry, and of course, confounded by it. Did he expect me to respond? But then, I realized that in reality he was talking to himself, and that his question was a rhetorical one. I hesitated in the response I wished to interject in our exchange and nearly kept my council. But then I felt I would be doing him a disservice. After all, he had confided in me and perhaps hoped I would offer some contrast that might help him through his darkness. “Sir, mightn’t we allow our spirits to be rallied by the excellent progress of the Mediterranean Campaign of the war,” I suggested to him. “Mussolini has been removed from power and a new government set up in Italy. It began negotiating for peace with us immediately. The news that the Sicilian campaign came to an end just nine days ago with U.S. General Patton’s aggressive push into Messina puts the whole of Sicily under Allied control.” 

His brow relaxed and he sat back in his chair for a moment. And then he moved forward, reached into his cigar box on the table and commenced the fascinating ritual of lighting a cigar. He said in response to me, “It had been decided that Britain’s General Montgomery and his Eighth Army would take the lead in the siege of Messina, but his army was bogged down by German forces at Catania. He had no other choice than to send a message to Patton to go ahead with the offensive. A few days later, Patton and Montgomery met there and posed for photographs, staged for the good of the Allied cause. Montgomery looked none too happy in them. He had courted High Command for the job of taking Messina, and had won the assignment, much to the chagrin of Patton and his comrades. What a great disappointment it was to Montgomery to lose to Patton the honor of taking Messina.”

The prime minister’s summary was not new to me. These events were discussed and celebrated at the conference. He went on to say, “That seaside city will be our launching point for our invasion of the toe of Italy. I fear we lost needless time in the back and forth over Montgomery vs Patton in the Messina situation. Montgomery and his Eighth Army will lead the charge across the Straits of Messina and onto Italy’s shore, a decision of which Patton is unaware.” The prime minister took a deep draw on his cigar and then knitted his brow. “Eisenhower is conflicted over Patton, as are all of us. Nobody does his job better than Patton. In fact, he is the Anglo-American Allies best general, but he is a disciplinary thorn in our sides. Two recent incidents in which he slapped hospitalized soldiers suffering from nervous exhaustion whom he accused of cowardice have created a firestorm of protest against him. ‘I can’t help it, but it makes my blood boil to think of a yellow bastard being babied,’ Patton said in defense of his actions. Surely Eisenhower will sideline him.”

I felt emboldened by the prime minister’s willing acceptance of the shift in our conversation and pressed a point that exercised me. “Sir, with all due respect, has High Command considered that our success in the Allied North Africa campaign was due in perhaps the greatest part to General Patton’s stepping in and taking the situation in hand? Likewise, in my view, it is difficult to deny that our victory over Sicily must be credited mainly to General Patton. Montgomery has served the war effort well, but he is also not the picture of congeniality. This competition between the British and the Americans gives me pause. Does it truly matter who wins the bragging rights for gaining victory on any battlefield of the war?” The prime minister rose to his feet, heavily. I saw without question that I had trod on sacred ground. Nobody dares to argue against the supremacy of the British Empire upon which the sun never sets. Our tea was over! I pushed out of my chair, saluted him, made my way to the door of the room, and said under my breath, “If you didn’t want to hear the truth, you shouldn’t have invited a young Canadian to your table.”©

   

Note: The above is a work of historical fiction conjured by its author from Mr. Churchill’s actual journey to Quebec, Canada in August, 1943.



Image: Winston S. Churchill with his daughter, Mary, Quebec, Canada, August, 1943



Recommended reading: CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage by Mary [Churchill] Soames.

A DAUGHTER’S TALE by Mary [Churchill] Soames.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover on Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.

THE FIGHTING FIRST LADY!

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



Well-worn suitcase in hand, her Red Cross uniform snug and no-nonsense, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, forever known as Eleanor, and as she requests to be known to me, clip-clops in her stubby-heeled pumps to the airplane that will fly us from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, California. I would offer to unburden her of her suitcase, but I have learned that she would ignore my request. She is a self-sufficient soul—thoughtful to the extreme. She would deem surrendering her suitcase to me as an affront to my dignity as a human being, even though I serve as her assistant and helper on this trip. That her life has been one of wealth and privilege since its inception is not easily reconciled with the person I have come to know. Coddled she is not, nor does she wish it to be the case.

            Once again, she is going where her husband cannot go—he cannot go for the reason of his physical limitations, and because of the demands of his office as President of the United States of America. At this exact moment, he is at the war-planning conference in Quebec, Canada with Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill. The trip will give the First Lady the opportunity to meet troops stationed on remote islands cut off from their loved-ones. In this way, she will act as a surrogate for the mothers across the land, both to bring comfort to the troops and to their mothers to whom she will report in her newspaper column, My Day.

San Francisco is our first stop on this steamy afternoon of August 17, 1943, and is the inauguration of our secret, six-week-long, twenty-five thousand miles journey into the dangerous war-zone of the South Pacific. Eleanor is not cavalier about the possible peril facing us. She wears no jewelry, having stored it away safely back home with instructions as to its distribution lest she never returns. I am breathless from her courage. Admiration of her fills me from stem to stern.

From America’s west coast, we ride the wind across the Pacific in an all-night flight, landing mid-morning in Honolulu, Hawaii, at Hickam Field. This place so near to Pearl Harbor is the portal of the anguish of America’s plunge into World War II, wrought by Japan’s attack on the American Fleet there. The base as well as aircraft at Hickam, parked wingtip to wingtip to guard against sabotage on that fateful December 7^th morning not two years ago, were also heavily damaged or destroyed. Nevertheless, the airfield has been in non-stop use since then. Viewing bullet holes and other artifacts of the attack on surviving structures is not an item on our agenda, and we press on three and one-half hours later to our initial South Pacific destination. I am not an easy flier and I busy myself with writing in my trip’s log to avoid the view outside the aircraft’s windows. “Bear in mind that the log you keep of the trip will be of great interest to me and will influence the war’s policy, no doubt,” the president said to me before he left for Quebec. I struggle to regain my equilibrium when we touch down on Christmas Island.  

The war in the Pacific stretches from the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska to Australia, 6,600 miles of contested ocean in between. Our trip will concentrate on visiting Allied forces in New Zealand and Australia as well as copious time spent island hopping to call on troops. There are seventeen Pacific islands on our schedule, their melodic names spanning half of the alphabet. The initial seven are Christmas, Penhryn, Bora Bora, Aitutaki, Tutuliua Samoa, Fiji, and New Caledonia, all to be visited during six whirlwind days. Our welcome at Christmas Island is chilly and officious. U.S. Admiral William “Bull” Halsey is visibly impatient and put-off by our presence. He has a war to fight and visits by “do-gooders” are nothing but a nuisance, as well as expensive in terms of resources required to meet their agendas. This is not to mention the extra security required to keep them out of harm’s way—an impossible task in actuality. The fighting does not stop because the First Lady of the United States of America has come to town. In fact, were it known, the fighting would intensify. Eleanor and I do not escape the admiral’s displeasure.

 “Whirlwind” is an understatement in describing Eleanor. Within our twelve hours on Christmas Island, she inspects two Navy hospitals, an officer’s rest house a boat-ride away, returns and inspects an Army hospital, reviews her son James’ former Marine battalion, delivers a speech at a service club, attends a reception, and is the guest of honor at a dinner given by General Harmon. Even Admiral Halsey said, “…I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental. She walked for miles, and saw new patients who were grievously and gruesomely wounded. But I marveled most at their expressions as she leaned over them. It was a sight I will never forget.” She talks to the wounded, touches them, and shows them her sincere interest and concern. The admiral apologizes to her for his crustiness upon our arrival, and expresses his gratitude to her for what she has done for his men. This is a sampling of the schedule she keeps throughout the entire trip, and its impact.

In her My Day newspaper column, she describes her visit to Bora Bora: “I went through the hospital, saw the Red Cross man, the headquarters building, tents, and mess hall and day room and outdoor theater in a colored troop area. There seems to be no trouble anywhere out here between the white and colored. They lie in beds in the same wards, go to the same movies and sit side by side and work side by side, but I don’t think I’ve seen them mess together, but their food is as good and everything just as clean in their quarters. Southern and Northern Negroes are in the same outfits.” Civil rights, both for women and colored citizens, is one of Eleanor’s passions. She fights tirelessly for their equality in education, housing, employment, and voting as basic human rights. Her stance is that the status of civil rights in a country is the litmus test of its strength as a democracy. Her efforts to have our military fully integrated have been thwarted, but she will not give up, if I know her.

Eleanor can never be accused of being a chameleon. Expediency holds no store with her. What you see with Eleanor is what you get. By the end of the trip she is thirty pounds thinner and the new best friend of thousands of Allied troops and their families, a triumph of loving, kinetic energy over discord and despair.©

Note: the above is a work of historical fiction based on actual events.



Images: Mrs. Roosevelt visits World War II troops in the Pacific Theater.



Recommended Reading: Eleanor Roosevelt’s My Day newspaper columns are available for view at online web sites.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.

IF RMS QUEEN MARY’S WALLS COULD TALK!

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.

August 5, 1943, anchored at the River Clyde, Glasgow, Scotland, RMS Queen Mary awaited the arrival of Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Spencer Churchill and his staff of over two hundred and another fifty Royal Marine orderlies. Nearly nine years earlier, named for and christened by Mary of Teck, the wife of the British Empire’s King George V, the grand ship and the distinguished prime minister were well acquainted. Q.M. had received him onboard her decks before. Four years into the Second World War, the former greatest ocean liner in the world, plying the North Atlantic for the pleasure of the rich and famous, and the wannabe  rich and famous, was commissioned in her new call to service as a troop carrier. Transporting 15,000 troops per trip and traveling at 30 knots, she was the largest and fastest troop carrier sailing. In no way did she resemble her former glamorous self, for her luxurious Art Deco interiors were removed and stored away, her exterior lights extinguished, and her portholes shrouded. In addition, she was painted camouflage grey, which earned her the moniker: Grey Ghost. At sea, she looked like a grey whale on steroids. At war’s end, she would be retrofitted to her former glory, resuming her career as an ocean liner, service she was to provide for nearly two decades more. Upon her retirement, her illustrious and legendary career would be exulted in anew in her guise as a posh hotel and museum at Long Beach, California, USA. Listed on the ship’s log as “Colonel Warden,” Mr. Churchill and his flock boarded her that day in August, 1943 as the Grey Ghost.

Her Sun Deck, formerly a source of pleasurable entertainment and relaxation was now a gun collector’s dream. Thirty-three guns, twelve rocket launchers, a range finder, a central gun control house, machine guns, and a four-inch gun mounted on her fantail, the Q.M./G.G. was armored to the teeth. To protect her from submarines, from bow to stern she was girdled in a system of cables charged with electrical current that rendered her invisible to the sensors of underwater magnetic fields, assisted by an underwater sound detector system. To conceal her route, she got underway on a zig-zag course, less vulnerable to attack than earlier in the war. Although Allied ships traveled in convoys, they had been easy prey for Nazi wolf packs (German submarines that traveled together). In 1942 alone the Germans sank 1,664 Allied ships, and continued to dominate the Atlantic until early 1943. The Battle of the Atlantic that had raged simultaneously with the planning for the Allied counterattack on North Africa in November, 1942, had gained the Allies the upper-hand in the Atlantic by mid-1943.

Below deck, Q.M./G.G.’s transformation as a troop ship was a miraculous feat of engineering, but her Main Deck was reserved for Mr. Churchill and his entourage. His personal suite furnished to his taste and comfort, opened to a private dining area, conference room, and a map room, as well as a communications room that kept him in constant contact with both sides of the Atlantic. At the end of the voyage, Q.M./G.G. would deposit Mr. Churchill and his retinue at the landing jetty at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and there they would proceed to Quebec, Canada by train. Once arrived, they would take up residence at the Citadel, King George VI royal residence, an imposing structure that hovered on cliffs above the St. Lawrence River. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, was to join Mr. Churchill in Quebec for a confab on war policies. 

Mr. Churchill’s four days of occupancy within Q.M./G.G.’s walls prior to the conference were not set aside for leisure. His malodorous cigars chugged feverishly throughout his quarters the whole time. He even chomped on them while submerged in the bathtub of his private bathroom, bathing two times a day every day of the four days he was onboard her. Like a bloated, albino whale, he splashed around, gesticulating wildly, issuing orders to whomever perched beyond the bathroom door, waves of dirty water spilling over the side of the tub and puddling the tile floor.

His nasty habits that wreaked menace wherever he appeared notwithstanding, Mr. Churchill was an admirable and a likable fellow. He carried the weight of the war waged against his people and their considerable holdings around the globe on his shoulders, and still, he exhibited a ready and lively humor spiced with a charming eccentricity. His statuesque and elegant wife, Clementine was onboard with him, and most any onlooker would attest to the love they held for each other. Their long and admired romance expressed itself in a myriad of ways. His affection for the youngest of their five living offspring, their daughter, Mary, whom served as her father’s aide-de-camp on the voyage, was likewise palpable.

Oftener than not, it was Mary parked outside his bathroom door, a spiral stenographer pad in hand, pencil perched. “The impression I most want to convey to our friend the president…are you hearing me, Mary?”

“I hear you perfectly, Papa.”

“Take this down and do not miss a word. I will turn to your notes to keep me in touch with my own mind on these points, as you well know.”

“I am well aware, Papa, but you haven’t apprised me of any points to… ”

A great splash cut short Mary’s response as the prime minister slapped beneath the skin of the bathtub’s water. A wave jetted over the side and seeped beneath the cracks of the floor tiles. The great ship seemed to hold its breath as little florets of his air billowed up and danced along the surface, and then burst one by one, marking the seconds like a metronome. He popped back up, ran his hands across his eyes to clear them, and then honked like a goose to clear his sinuses. “I am pondering the points, daughter! Point A: the president must walk away from our conference reacquainted with Britain and her Dominion’s enormous contribution to our Anglo-American partnership, as well as our continued commitment to and involvement in it. We can’t have the American people develop an attitude that once we conquer Hitler, that we will fold up and walk away. We have much at stake in South-East Asia in the battle against Japan. I must be forthcoming with the president in shoring-up our position in that conflict. How does that sound, Mary?”

“Brilliant, Papa!”

“Point B: My water grows cold, daughter!” An impressive and talented assemblage of toes on his left foot crawled up the working end of the bathtub and turned the faucet. Hot water cascaded into the tub and he took a delicate sip of brandy that because of a lifting of the mandatory “dry-law” for his tenure aboard ship, hovered precariously in its glass on the rim of the tub. He then slipped the cigar between his lips, inhaled, and placed it in the ashtray on the flat surface behind his head as the smoke from it spurted from his nostrils. Presently the toes stole back up to the faucet and turned it off.

“Back to point B: I must dispel any notion on Franklin’s part that because of my desires for the South-East Asian Theater that I am not as committed to our cross-channel campaign into France next spring as is he. I must demonstrate to him that his Anglo partner is fully engaged in planning for Overlord. I also want to press on him that it is time to appoint the commander for the cross-channel operation.” Grunts and groans and splashing water accompanied his rise to his feet inside the tub. “Mary, I have misplaced my towel. Come! Come and help your Papa, my girl.”

Breakfasted, dressed and prepared an hour later, chugging cigar fixed in his lips, he joined the gathered Anglo and American Chiefs of Staff in the conference room. Thus began a working day comprised of hammering out the details of the goals for the approaching conference with the president. It was a routine that was repeated on each of his four days within Q.M/G.G.’s walls, workdays that extended well into the dinner hour.

A rumor abounds that the Queen Mary is haunted, but perhaps not in the way sponsored by certain persons who claim to know such things. Much more likely, the haunting stems from the startling reality of Mr. Churchill’s days onboard her, a time when he and a handful of other mere mortals pursued paths that would either safeguard the world against Hitler’s satanic power or allow it to flourish to the utter destruction of civilization, and/or of humanity.©

Note: the above essay is a work of fiction based on true events.



Image: RMS Queen Mary as the Grey Ghost



Recommended reading:

Memoirs of the Second World War by Winston S. Churchill  

HAUNTED QUEEN OF THE SEAS by Nicole Strickland

CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage by Mary [Churchill] Soames

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT and the Making of Modern America by Allan M. Winkler



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.