My Authors
Read all threads
Next time you make a mistake at work, comfort yourself that you are not the commanding officer of the USS William D Porter, a Fletcher Class US Navy destroyer commissioned in 1943.
On 12 November 1943 this singularly unfortunate ship set off from Norfolk, Virginia on an important mission.

She was to join the escort of USS Iowa, which was conveying President Roosevelt, General Marshall other senior American war leaders to conferences in Cairo and Tehran.
Things began badly.

After she joined the escort, one of William D Porter's depth charges fell into the sea and exploded.

The Iowa and the remaining escorts, assuming that the explosion indicated a torpedo attack, took evasive action and began hunting the 'sub'.
Regrettably, things proceeded to get worse. Much, much worse.

On 14 November 1943, at the President's request, Iowa conducted an anti aircraft drill.

The escorting destroyers joined in, carrying out a simulated torpedo launch for the President's edification.
Aboard the William D Porter, the 'simulated' aspect of this got a bit lost.
Due to a mistake with a primer, William D Porter achieved a feat which eluded the most daring U boat commanders, and launched a fully armed torpedo directly towards the Iowa (and, therefore, the President of the United States and most of his senior aides).
Startlingly, things proceeded to get *even worse*.

In order to maintain radio silence, William D Porter used a signal lamp in an effort to warn Iowa of the danger.

This would have been fine, if the signals had been any use.
They weren't.

The first one misidentified the torpedo's direction, and the second simply provided Iowa with the baffling information that William D Porter intended to go backwards.
In an atmosphere of what can only have been abject panic, William D Porter broke radio silence to warn Iowa, which carried out the battleship equivalent of a handbrake turn.

Fortunately, this was enough and the torpedo exploded in Iowa's wake.
Iowa trained her 16 inch guns on the destroyer, in case she had gone genuinely rogue.

I suspect everyone on her bridge would have gladly been blown out of the water by that stage.
President Roosevelt thought the whole thing was funny.

Admiral King, chief of the US Navy and a tiny bit irascible even when his own ships *weren't* trying to kill him, did not.
There was an inquiry.

Lawton Dawson, the torpedo rating responsible, was sentenced to hard labour.

President Roosevelt later intervened to reduce his punishment.
A more painful and lasting legacy for the embarrassed crew of William D Porter was having to put up with every other Navy ship greeting with them with the signal 'Don't shoot! We're Republicans!'.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Keep Current with The Cat From Greece

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!