Events took place that will perhaps go down in history as the most momentous occasion of this World War II. This, of course, I cannot discuss for some time to come.
—Lt. John Manley to Lt. Ernest Loeb, September 9, 1943
In Canada, the business at hand for the president was fishing. Roosevelt took fishing “so seriously that it was like working,” in the opinion of James Byrnes, director of the Office of War Mobilization. Nevertheless, Byrnes, a South Carolina country boy, complained about waiting until afternoon to get onto the water.1
Admiral Leahy wrote in his journal that, by FDR’s established tradition, the party “had a daily pool into which each of the seven or eight participants contributed one dollar to provide a prize to the individuals who brought in the largest, the longest, and the greatest number of fish. . . . In the final settlement of our pool at the weekend only the President and I were winners. . . . Mr. Harry Hopkins joined our party on August 4th and thereafter contributed his daily share to the winnings of those of us who were the most successful fishermen.”2 There were plenty of fish—bass, pike, pickerel, and lake trout—in the clear, deep water that in the still of late afternoon could reflect the rocks so perfectly as to leave boaters feeling suspended in space and time.
U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. John Manley knew the Anna H and the waters well from prewar visits aboard her. The young officer captained the craft for FDR’s trip. He wrote about the trip to his prewar fishing buddy serving in the Pacific, Ernest Loeb, whose family owned the Anna H. Both men were of the generation of Americans who came of age knowing only Franklin D. Roosevelt as their president. The dreamlike experience of being in the cockpit of the little Anna H with his commander-in-chief and personalities he knew only from newsreels permeates Manley’s letter. He wrote of eating from the same lunchbox, FDR sharing half his sandwich with the boatswain, and the president making sure the enlisted sailors got proper rest. He wrote to Loeb, “It is almost unbelievable how good the fishing was. We fished in the Current Bay and waters of McGregor Bay, across the peninsula and in the uncharted waters of White Fish Bay. . . . Saw F.D.R. pulling in a good sized small mouth, General Watson (Military Aid to F.D.R.) betting a dollar it isn’t as big as the one he caught and Justice Byrnes picking up the bet of General Watson’s and Harry Hopkins, the stake holder.”3
The fishing party split itself between two boats usually with FDR, Leahy, Watson, Hopkins, Brown, and McIntire in the Anna H, and the rest with James Byrnes in the other boat. Of course rivalry and a daily pool immediately developed between the two craft. As they returned to the dock at the end of the day, FDR would pull alongside to show his catch with his observations on each fish.4
Mystified though most of the world was as to FDR’s whereabouts, McGregor Bay residents knew. Their experience of the president’s visit was of security, circling planes, machine gun–armed guard boats, and personal encounters with an affable FDR. E. D. Wilkins recalled to the Sudbury Daily Star that, while on the water and ruminating about the vagaries of Ontario politics, he looked up from his fishing pole to recognize immediately the smiling U.S. president. From across the water, FDR hailed Wilkins in a booming voice from the Anna H and asking, “What luck are you having?” When Wilkins raised a stringer with two bass, FDR called out to Wilkins, “We’re going after some like that right away. We had good luck yesterday.”5
Dusk each day brought cocktails aboard the Ferdinand Magellan. On their supposed and actual location there was “merry talk about the latest rumors and competitive talk about fishing exploits.”6 The end-of-day fresh fish dinners concluded well. Drawing from limitless wild blueberries and their finite sugar rations, local cottagers gifted the fishing party with homemade pies.7
The fateful issue of strategy for Europe’s liberation, however, would not be put off. On the morning of Thursday, August 5, a graceful, float-equipped USAAF Beech C-43 air courier from Alpena, Michigan, set down on the water near Birch Island with the day’s dispatches from Washington. In the pouch was Secretary of War Stimson’s package addressed to Harry Hopkins and meant for the president. This was the first of three communications that would reach FDR before the sun set that day in a completely unanticipated collision of the competing strategies for Europe.
Even as Hopkins and Roosevelt were out on the water fishing and discussing Stimson’s just-received memorandum, radiomen in the Signal Corps communication car, ashore, were decrypting a new, three-part message to FDR from Winston Churchill, relayed to them by the White House Map Room. The prime minister’s message was a fresh appeal for the competing alternative to cross-Channel assault, action on Churchill’s Mediterranean strategy. Soon there arrived the third communication from an unexpected source in London, another encrypted radio message, one that challenged Churchill’s facts.
As the president’s party had traveled north, the new government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio in Rome, deciding to contact the Allies about exiting the war, had sent out emissaries on July 30. One of these, the Marquis Blasco Lanza d’Ajeta, had arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, where he met with British ambassador Ronald Campbell.8 Once relayed to London, Lanza d’Ajeta’s oral message stimulated Churchill to press upon FDR again, strongly, his Mediterranean strategy preference. Late on the evening of August 4, Churchill passed to U.S. ambassador John Gilbert Winant his message no. 405, an assessment and recommended response to the Italian diplomatic initiative. Winant then transmitted it to FDR over the U.S. embassy circuit as requested by Churchill.
Seeing opportunity in the Italian overture, Churchill wanted urgent action in the Mediterranean. In his account to FDR, embellishing on what the ambassador had reported that Lanza d’Ajeta had said in Lisbon, Churchill gingered up his scene-setting with a dire picture of Italy following Mussolini’s arrest. Although Ambassador Campbell’s report on the meeting included no report by the Italian diplomat of internal unrest in Italy, Churchill inferred otherwise.9 Citing no source other than Lanza d’Ajeta, Churchill wrote in his account to FDR:
Every vestige [of fascism in Italy] has been swept away. Italy turned Red overnight. In Turin and Milan there were Communist demonstrations which had to be put down by armed force. 20 years of Fascism has obliterated the middle class. There is nothing [standing] between the King and the patriots who have rallied round him and rampant Bolshevism.10
Churchill continued with a summary of German forces within Italy generally reflecting the raw intelligence Campbell reported that Lanza d’Ajeta provided. On the basis of his description of internal unrest, German troop dispositions in Italy, and Churchill’s acknowledgment that the option of an Allied thrust into the Balkans was not on the table, the prime minister again argued that “the sooner we land in Italy the better” and that by doing so the Allies “shall find little opposition and perhaps even active cooperation on the part of the Italians.”11
The day’s third message, arriving at Birch Island from London via the White House Map Room on the heels of Churchill’s message, was from Ambassador Winant himself. Uneasy about the message he had sent for Churchill, Winant had spent the day checking further with British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, who also questioned the reliability of Churchill’s information as sent to Roosevelt. Winant sent to FDR Eden’s statement to him in full. Drawing from other intelligence, analyzed by professionals, Eden considered the military information from Lanza d’Ajeta exaggerated and possibly founded on a German deception. Eden’s statement concluded, “My own strong feeling is that there is nothing in this approach that should deflect us from our present policy including resumption of the bombing of Rome.” Courtesy of Eden, Winant added the full text of the British message from Lisbon on which Churchill had based his cable to FDR.12 If the two messages from London were compared side by side, as Roosevelt could do, the basis for the prime minister’s fresh entreaty to land in Italy looked thin.
The equation for success in getting an important decision from Roosevelt, which General Marshall had developed from experience, had rested on presenting for FDR’s consideration a single idea. But now a directly competing idea had presented itself as well in Churchill’s message 405. Each argument had a champion known and respected by Roosevelt, first Stimson and now Churchill. The duality was a new factor potentially altering Marshall’s equation in unknown ways.
Marshall and Stimson in Washington had not foreseen the secretary of war’s memorandum advocating a firm decision endorsing Overlord being considered simultaneously by FDR alongside its directly competing strategy concept. So, too, Churchill, now aboard the Queen Mary sailing toward Canada and a pre-conference meeting with Roosevelt at Hyde Park, did not know the timing or content of Stimson’s report to FDR on his London and North Africa trip. Unknowingly, Churchill had risked overreaching with exactly the kind of “Mediterranean diversion” Stimson’s memorandum warned FDR against.
Which course would the president choose if either? Famous for keeping his own counsel, Roosevelt did so now. Like the situation almost three years earlier, when FDR pondered Churchill’s 1940 letter that spawned Lend-Lease, Harry Hopkins could not determine whether or not Roosevelt had come to a decision about the conflicting cases for Allied strategy.
Outwardly in the days that followed, something about Roosevelt had changed, at least in the opinion of his Canadian fishing guide, Donald McKenzie. “He talked more freely, whereas the first part of the week he seemed quite preoccupied.” Asked, “Would you suggest that he had solved a problem that had been bothering him?” McKenzie answered, “Well he was very cheerful today [Saturday] when we were out fishing, and if he came here with a problem to solve I would say that he made some headway on it.”13
Lieutenant Manley was in close quarters with Roosevelt throughout the week aboard the Anna H. He also attended at least one of two dinners FDR hosted aboard the Ferdinand Magellan for officers of the Wilmette. In his letter to his friend about the experience, Manley wrote cryptically, “Events took place that will perhaps go down in history as the most momentous occasion of this World War II. This, of course, I cannot discuss for some time to come.”14
Marshall and Stimson, by August 5, had learned about Churchill’s long message to FDR from either the White House Map Room or Field Marshall Sir John Dill, Marshall’s trusted source on British intentions.15 From Birch Island, however, they received only the briefest message from Roosevelt to Stimson on August 5, stating that he had read Stimson’s memorandum.16
The fishing party departed Birch Island by train at 10 p.m., August 7. Reilly and Long’s original plan had been to make a circle to return along the beautiful Ottawa River and through Canada’s capital.17 However, there had been a security alert. An escaped German prisoner of war, Peter Krug, had been recaptured early August 5 near the railway in North Bay, Ontario, through which Roosevelt’s returning train would have passed.18 FDR’s train instead retraced its route through Ontario, then directly back to Washington.19
As the train traveled south, a reply from Stalin to Roosevelt’s invitation to meet informally arrived at the White House via the Soviet embassy. Because the German offensive on the eastern front had been delayed one month, from June to July, Stalin wrote, it would be impossible to “keep my promise” for a bilateral meeting with FDR during the summer or autumn of 1943. However, Stalin requested a meeting between the two countries when the situation allowed and suggested either Astrakhan or Archangel, each a city in the Soviet Union. Then he went beyond FDR’s desire for informality. The meeting, Stalin noted, would require preparatory consultation on agenda and drafts of proposals. He concluded by saying, “I do not have any objections to the presence of Mr. Churchil[l] at this meeting, in order that the meeting of the representatives of the two countries would become the meeting of the representatives of the three countries.”20
Late on the night of August 8, probably from Buffalo, New York, FDR sent Secretary of War Stimson a telegram that said only, “I hope you will lunch with me on Tuesday. Glad to have your memoranda.”21 Stimson and Marshall continued to wait in suspense.