Word: reubens
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First revelation was at his press conference the morning the Reuben James went down (see p. 24). When 150 reporters filed into the President's oval study, the words of his fighting speech four days before were still ringing in their memories: (We wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot.} The shooting had gone on; U.S. blood had been spilt, U.S. lives had been lost...
There were practical reasons why the President did not turn the undeclared war into a declared war. One was political: no declaration of war could pass Congress. Another was that a declaration of war might bring in Japan. If Germany hoped, by such acts as the sinking of the Reuben James, to show Japan that she could keep the U.S. busy in the Atlantic, obvious U.S. strategy was to be unshaken by Atlantic defeats or victories. Pondering the tasks that Admiral Husband Kimmel's Pacific Fleet would face (see cut), strategists thought it likely that a declared...
From the established evidence it did not look as if the U.S. Navy, famous for equipment and famous for morale, was making a very good start in winning the Battle of the Atlantic. On the docket for all to see were the sinking of the Reuben James (see col. 2), the nicking of the Kearny, the near missing of the Greer. If the crack U.S. Navy had exacted any price from the enemy, it was not public knowledge...
Gunner's Mate Walter Sorensen of the Reuben James sat down and scrawled what was perhaps to be his last letter...
WASHINGTON--The Navy Department today abandoned hope of rescuing the 95 missing members of the crew of the U. S. Destroyer Reuben James, which was torpedoed and sunk off Iceland last month, and announced belatedly that the 16,800 ten Naval tanker Salinas had been "seriously damages" by a U-boat in the same general area...