At this point fits in the delightful story of what happened to the U.S.S. Potomac and her little escorting ship. When we left her at Martha's Vineyard she returned to Buzzards Bay, and in the late afternoon entered the Cape Cod Canal. Captain Leahy had dressed four or five of his crew in civilian clothes and had them sit on the after deck pretending to be the President and his party. Colonel Starling, the head of the Secret Service detail, swears that he knew all about my actual location, but I have my doubts, as the Secret Service on shore and the Massachusetts State Troopers guarded the "Potomac" on her way through the Canal, and the next day the good Colonel asked at John's house at Nahant whether he and Anne expected their f ather to turn up there that day or the followi ng day. After we had got well out into deep water, east of the Nantucket Shoals, the seven ships headed north and continued toward Cape Race, Newfoundland, at about twenty-one knots all day Wednesday. Early Thursday morning we found ourselves approaching the coast of Newfoundland. The approaches to Placentia Bay and the harbor of Argentia 'were' swept by mine sweepers and we anchored at the head of the latter harbor at 9.30 A.M. Soon afterwards the old battleship "Arkansas" entered the harbor accompanied by two destroyers. I had no previous knowledge of where my boy 'Franklin, Jr ' s ship, the destroyer "Mayrant" was, though I had been told that the ship was doing patrol duty somewhere off the north Atlantic coast. It was, therefore, a complete surprise when one of the destroyers accompanying the "Arkansas" turned out to be the "Mayrant". Captain Beardall, my Naval Aide, sent a message to the Commanding Officer of the "Mayrant" directing that Ensign Roosevelt report to the Commander-inChief on "U.S.S. Augusta". I think they believed he was to report to the Commander-in-Chief of theAtlantic Fleet on board the "Augusta", and Franklin was, therefore, completely surprised when he found on coming on board that he was to report to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy himself. I detailed him as my Junior Naval Aide for the great occasion and he borrowed what I always call "the gold spinach", i.e., the aiguillettes, which a Presidential Aide wears .on his right shoulder and which all other Aides wear on their left shoulder.. That afternoon Franklin and I got into the whale boat, cruised close along shore inspecting the waterfront and the Argentia base development, and doing some bottom fishing for small cod and flounders. |