[PAR35]

I’m not sure that the White House is being candid with us. Stimson calls for use of Navy for escort duties in the North Atlantic? According to the deck log of the USS Texas, she just got back (May 5) from a long range convoy escort that she departed on back on April 23.

[PAR35]

Left off the link

http://www.bb35library.usstexasbb35.com/movements/movement-bydate/MoveDateAll.html

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I’m not sure that the White House is being candid with us. Stimson calls for use of Navy for escort duties in the North Atlantic? According to the deck log of the USS Texas, she just got back (May 5) from a long range convoy escort that she departed on back on April 23.

This is both shocking and disturbing to me. (Not the part about the White House being less than candid.) According to my usually reliable academic source book on the war (Herman Wouk, The Winds of War) Adm. King has his flag on Texas at this time. This log suggests that the commanding officer of the Atlantic fleet personally took part in convoying. Not exactly a low-key operation.

And disturbing because, according to that same source, it was not Ernest King who headed the convoy patrol in April 1941 but Capt. Victor Henry, acting on verbal instructions from Adm. King, acting in turn on the wishes of FDR. I don't know how Wouk could be so far off the mark here.