SS Washington before conversion to USS Mount Vernon. Along with USS West Point and Wakefield (former SS America and Manhattan) the three former ocean-liners carried 20,000 British troops to Singapore in a secret mission authorized months before America entered World War Two.
FATEFUL ORDERS
(The still unknown correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill authorizing a top-secret convoy to Singapore of 20,000 British troops on three American transports.)
A series of “Triple Priority”
telegrams between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston
Churchill began only two weeks after the Atlantic Conference in August 1941.
As a result, FDR approved the transport of British troops to war in
American ships, even as the United States remained technically at peace.
Churchill’s first message on September 1 revealed doubts about
maintaining Britain’s strategic Middle East situation.
“Would it be possible for you to lend us twelve United States liners
and twenty U.S. cargo ships manned by American crews from early October until
February…I know from out talks that it will be difficult to do, but there is a
great need for more British troops in the Middle East."
Churchill ended plaintively. “It
is quite true that the loan of these liners would hamper any large dispatch of
U.S. forces to Europe or Africa, but as you know I have never asked for this in
any period we can reasonably foresee in the near future.”
The President replied by telegram
on September 5. " I am sure we can
help you with your project to reinforce the Middle East army…we can provide
transport for 20,000 men. These
ships will be United States Navy transports manned by Navy crews.
Our Neutrality Act permits ships of the Navy to go to any port.”
In referring to the Neutrality Act’s permissions, Roosevelt was being
too clever by half. Subsequent
legislation permitted the arming of U.S. merchant ships, but neither the
original act nor its revision authorized the transport of a belligerent’s
troops in U.S. ships. The law had
to be evaded.
On October 5, in reconsidering the political risk at home, FDR wrote Churchill with a new plan. The 18th Division, he said, should sail from Liverpool to Halifax in British, not American, bottoms, then transfer to U.S. Navy ships. On December 12 1941, the convoy now well at sea, Churchill urgently notified Roosevelt, “We feel it necessary to divert 18th Division now rounding the Cape…to reinforce army we are forming against Japanese invasion of Burma and Malay.” The President immediately replied, “I am in entire agreement and orders have already been issued for the diversion of the convoy as requested.”
For more than 7,000 Tommies it would be a one-way trip.
From “Roosevelt’s Ghost Ships,” February 2003 WORLD WAR TWO Magazine.
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'GHOST SHIPS' FOR THE ENTIRE STORY, STILL UNKNOWN SIX DECADES LATER