An August 1941 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (right, with Admirals Ernest King and Harold Stark on board HMS Prince of Wales ) yielded more than the Atlantic Charter. The leaders set plans to move British troops to the Middle East in three former U.S. ocean liners—including the USS Mount Vernon (former SS Washington ). But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the orders changed, and the mighty liners became "the ghost ships of Task Force 14."
