The Winds of War

“A presumptuous pup, I’m afraid.” Victor Henry was trying to read the document, which was explosive, while chatting with Roosevelt. It was hard because the pages were full of figures.

“I also have a son who’s an ensign, Pug. He’s aboard and I want you to meet him.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Roosevelt lit a cigarette, coughing. “I received a copy of that Jewish statement. A delegation of some old good friends brought it to me. The way the Jews stick together is remarkable, Pug. But what’s one to do? Scolding the Germans is so humiliating, and so futile. I’ve exhausted that line long ago. We tried to get around the immigration laws, with this device and that, and we’ve had some luck, actually. But when I’ve got a Congress that’s ready to disband the Army, can you imagine my going to them with a bill to admit more Jews? I think we’ll beat them on the draft, but it’ll be close at best.”

While he was saying this, Franklin Roosevelt cleared a space on the table, took up two decks of cards, and meticulously laid out a complex solitaire game. He moved cards around in silence for a while, then said in a new cheerful tone, as the ship took a long roll, “By George, Pug, doesn’t it feel wonderful to be at sea again?”

“It sure does, Mr. President.”

“Many’s the time I’ve sailed in these waters. I could navigate this ship for them, honor bright!” He observed Pug turning over the last page. “Well? What do you think?”

“This is something for my chief, Mr. President.”

“Yes, but Kelly Turner’s over on the Tuscaloosa. Anyway, another squabble between the service heads is just what I don’t want.” The President smiled at him with flattering warmth. “Pug, you have a feeling for facts, and when you talk I understand you. Those are two uncommon virtues. So let’s have it. Take your time.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Pug flipped through the document again, making quick notes on a pad. The President, chain-lighting a cigarette, carefully put down card on card.

Nothing in the document surprised Henry. He had heard it all before, in arguments with Army war planners. But here the Army was taking its case to the President, either through Marshall, or by some devious route which the President in his usual fashion kept open. The document was a scorcher indeed; if it leaked to isolationist senators, it might well end Lend-Lease, kill Selective Service, and even start an impeachment drive. Hence he was taken aback to see that it existed at all.

Roosevelt had called for the preparation of a “Victory Program,” a fresh start to unlock the paralysis of Lend-Lease and war production. Half a dozen agencies had tangled themselves and the big industries into impotence — the Army and Navy Munitions Board, the War Resources Board, the Office of Emergency Management, the National Defense Advisory Commission, the Office of Production Management. Their heads were jockeying for presidential favor; all Washington was bewildered by the flood of new initials; shortages and bottlenecks were mounting; and actual munitions were being produced in a feeble trickle. To break this up, Roosevelt had ordered the armed forces to list everything they needed to win a global war, and work out new priorities from this master list.

For weeks planners like Victor Henry had been calculating possible American invasions of France, Africa, Germany, Italy, China, and Honshu, air strikes against industrial cities, and joint operations with the British and even the Russians. The Army and the Navy, not particularly trusting each other, were hardly communicating about the program. Each had prepared a draft, and each had of course called for the greatest possible share of manpower and industrial output. They had been at the greatest pains to keep the Victory Program secret and the papers few. The document now in Victor Henry’s hands was a sharp critique by the Army of the Navy’s demands.

“How about some orange juice?” the President said, as a steward entered with a pitcher on a tray. “Wouldn’t you like that? Felipe squeezes it fresh. He’s gotten hold of some glorious oranges.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pug sipped at a glass of foaming juice. “This thing needs a paper just as long in reply, Mr. President. Essentially, the Navy and the Army are just using two different crystal balls. That’s inevitable. The Army’s the big service, and it’s ultimately responsible for the security of the United States. No argument there. They figure they may have to fight the Axis single-handed, after Russia and England fold. That’s why they demand so much. They arrive at the army of nine million men by working backward from the total manpower of the United States. It’s the biggest force our country can field.”

“And we may well need it,” said the President.

“Yes, sir. It’s mainly on Lend-Lease that we see the thing differently. The Army says we want to give away too many arms and machines which the Germans may capture and use against us. But our contention is that even if the Soviet Union does go down soon, and the British too, a hell of a lot of Germans will have to die first to lick them. And every German who dies is one less German who’ll be shooting at us one day.

“I agree,” the President said, very flatly.

“Well, then, Mr. President, should we at any cost strengthen these people who are killing Germans right now? We can rebuild and replace lost materiel pretty fast, but it takes twenty years to raise a live Boche to replace a dead one.”

The President observed with a slight grin, “Well said. But Lend-Lease isn’t the only bone of contention here. I notice the Navy wants a pretty hefty share of our total steel production.”

“Mr. President” — Pug leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands outstretched, talking as forcefully as he could — “Hitler didn’t beat England last year because he couldn’t land the strongest army in the world on a coast a few miles away. He had all the ships he needed to carry them across. But he couldn’t dock them on the other side. Assault from the sea is a tough battle problem, Mr. President. They don’t come much tougher. It’s easy to put your men ashore, one place or another, but then how do you keep the defenders from wiping you out? Your men are stranded. The defenders have all the mobility, the numerical superiority, and the firepower. They can concentrate and crush you.” As Pug talked, the president was nodding, cigarette holder drooping between his teeth, eyes piercingly attentive. “Well, sir, the answer is special craft that can hit an open beach in large numbers. You throw a large force ashore, and keep it supplied and reinforced until it captures a harbor. Then you can pile in with your regular transports, your luxury liners too — if you’ve got ‘em — and your invasion’s on. But those landing craft, you need swarms of them, sir, of many different designs. This analysis has been assigned to me. It looks as though we’re going to have to manufacture something like a hundred thousand, all told.”

“A hundred thousand!” The president tossed his big head. “Why, all the shipyards in the United States couldn’t do that in ten years, Pug, even if they stopped doing everything else. You’re talking sheer nonsense. Everybody exaggerates his little specialty.” But Roosevelt was smiling in an excited way and his eyes were lighting up. He spoke of landing boats the Navy had used in the last war, when he was Assistant Secretary, and of the disastrous British landing at Gallipoli. Victor Henry took from his briefcase pictures of German invasion craft and of new models, and some designs for American boats. The President scanned these with zest. Different craft would perform different missions, Pug said, from a big landing ship to cross the ocean with a great load of tanks and trucks in its belly, to little amphibious tanks that could crawl out on land, chug back into the water, and maybe submerge. Roosevelt obviously loved all this. Under the spread of pictures and sketches lay his solitaire game, scattered and forgotten.

“Say, have you fellows ever thought of this?” The President seized a yellow ruled pad and sketched with crude black pencil strokes as he talked. “It’s an idea I had back in 1917, studying the Gallipoli reports. I sent it to BuShips, sketches and all, and never heard another word. I still say it has merit, though it hadn’t crossed my mind again until this minute. Look here, Pug.”

The drawing showed an oblong, flat-bottomed craft. Amidships on an arching frame, over the heads of crouched soldiers, an airplane engine whirled its big propeller in a screened housing. “I know there’s a stability question, with all that weight so high, but with a broad enough beam, and if you used aluminum — you see that boat could go right up on the beach, Pug, through marshes, anywhere. Underwater obstacles would be meaningless.” The President grinned down at his handiwork with approval, then scrawled at the bottom, FDR — on board USS Augusta, en route to meet Churchill, 7 August 1941. Here. Don’t bury it the way BuShips did! Look into it. Maybe it’s just a wild notion, but — Well! Will you look at Old Man Sunshine, pouring through that porthole at last!”

The President put on the white hat, and smoothly slid into his wheeled kitchen chair, pressing his hands on the table with almost simian strength to lift and move himself. Victor Henry opened a door to the sun deck. Roosevelt wheeled himself briskly across the gray-painted wooden ramps over the coaming. “Ah! Doesn’t this feel