24 Comments

🤦🏼. Thank goodness no one was hurt. Granddaddy what did you do during the war? I almost killed a president by accident.

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Lol 😄😃😅🤣

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😂🤣😂

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LOL! Rush a crew through training and that is what you get! I suspect that the training protocol was seriously reviewed and revised! Incompetence is the result of poor training. I am glad no one was physically hurt!

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OMG. I have heard of errant ships Captains in the past, but this takes the cake. I am an old Navy man who is proud of our Navy, but this is something that would be better left unknown, or at least make a cartoon of those characters.

Wow, the crew of the USS William D. Porter had to have been poorly trained or poorly led, or both. She nearly singlehandedly took out a good portion of the U S Naval ships and the President of the United States as well.

Thank you Tara for an embarrassing story of the "Willie Dee", one that I didn't know about until today.

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The Willie D was sent to the Pacific theater where it fought well. Attacked by a Japanese Kamakazi bomber, Willie D's crew shot down the plane but it drifted up under the ship before exploding. The damage was too much for Her, and Willie D sank, June 1945 during the battle of Okinawa. There were, however, NO REPORTED casualties!!!

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An amazing story. I hope they scuttled the Willie Dee when they got back to Nassau.

On a side note, FDR was a communist sympathizer, and was probably the reason the Federal Government has so many “Social” programs.

❤️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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By 1943, Roosevelt and the rest had already done enough irreparable damage to the US so that another few years wouldn’t really matter.

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Too bad Substack doesn’t have a hilarious button to click on. Sounds like a crypt right out of McHales Navy. Seriously though, how in the world did the skipper of the Willie Dee ever get a command?

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This is an entertaining piece of history. It’s unbelievable how many stories of American history I never learned about in school. Interesting to read about this event that happened because of inept leadership and some errors made by the crew. It’s amusing how Roosevelt reacted to it all. Franklin was quite the character and so was Theodore.

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"...Willie Dee’s crew was merely incompetent, not malicious. "

I about snorted coffee out my nose... Thanks, for the laugh, not the other.

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It’s difficult to understand how such an incompetent commander and cadre would be trusted with such a mission. Luck? Or treachery?

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A missing part of the story is that after the torpedo exploded the USS Iowa trained her guns on the destroyer (keep in mind they had the CIC on board) until the captain was under arrest and command of the ship was secured.

If you have ever been on board a BB - it is impressive- having all those guns at virtually point blank range pointed at you - must have been one of the most scariest experiences those sailors ever had.

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👍👍👍

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👍👍👍

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That's all madness. Good thing Roosevelt was a forgiving man. Hope nobody got hurt at the reunion.

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Thank you, Tara.

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That sounds like something that Hollywierd would turn into a comedy!

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