* * * * *

                       Don't shoot, we're Republicans!

> Fifty years ago today, the Willie D as the Porter was nicknamed,
> accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship Iowa during a practice
> exercise. As if this wern't bad enough, the Iowa was carrying President
> Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time, along with Secretary of State, Cordell
> Hull and all of the country's WWII (World War II) military brass. They were
> headed for the Big Three Conference in Tehran, where Roosevelt was to meet
> Stalin and Churchill. Had the Porter's torpedo struck the Iowa at the
> aiming pointy, the last 50 years of world history might have been quite
> different.
>

Via Jerry Pournelle [1], “Don't shoot, we're Republicans! [2]”

Nothing much to add here, other than it's an amusing story and I'm finding it
fun to think about what would have happened had the torpedo actually struck
the Iowa. I don't think much would have happened in the long run—FDR
(Franklin D. Roosevelt) would have most likely survived, been transported to
another ship and still made Tehran, but still, there was that slight chance
he would have been killed.

Even so, I don't think the outcome of the war would have been that much
different; Truman still had to take over from FDR before the war was over.

[1] http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail244.html
[2] http://webhome.idirect.com/~jproc/radiostor/porter.html

Email author at [email protected]

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.conman.org. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.