Casablanca with the FDRs

Future Navy Rear Admiral Edward K. Walker graduated from the Naval Academy in 1925 and following early tours on board battleships, spent 1927 through 1942 as a submariner. Intermixed with shore duty, he served in submarine command and on the staff of Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. As he recalls in these edited excerpts from his Naval Institute oral history, he was the originator of the submarine “down-the-throat shot”:

After I took destroyer command, I wrote a letter to Ed Swinburne, the flag secretary, strongly recommending that it be tried. Of course, this was on the basis that the magnetic exploder was working, the idea being that if the submarine showed a periscope and a destroyer started to chase it, then you’d fire right down the throat at it with the stern tube. And if the destroyer started to turn at all to avoid the torpedo, she’d yaw and make a bigger target.

As a lieutenant commander, Walker joined the destroyer USS Mayrant (DD-402) in September 1942. 

When I stepped on board the Mayrant [as commanding officer], it was my first day’s duty in a destroyer. The first operation I went on was the invasion of North Africa.

During the first day off Casablanca, we made about three runs past the forts, steaming anywhere from 33 to 35 knots. The French Fort El Hank thought they had hit me, so they all concentrated on me. Everywhere I looked was a colored splash coming up, so we’d wait for a salvo to land and then chase the salvo. They’d make a correction and we weren’t there. 

My gunnery officer was Lieutenant Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. He was a crackerjack naval officer and one of the few reserve officers I had with me. I could sleep peacefully at night knowing that if he got into trouble, he either could get out of it or know enough to give me a call. And he was a good gunnery officer. He was gunnery officer during the invasion of Casablanca.

We came back from that invasion and went on another convoy run in December. I was back in Casablanca over Christmas. While we were there, we were ordered to the Port of Safi, south of Casablanca, to act as antiaircraft protection. I called on the French naval captain while we were there. He invited me to dinner and said he hoped I would bring Lieutenant Roosevelt with me. Frank said sure, so over we went.

The next morning, the captain of the port called, said I had to help him out. It seems the French captain’s wife had spoken to the wife of the French governor, told her she had had the son of the President of the United States over for dinner. He said, “Will you please take Roosevelt with you and go call on the French governor?”

While we were in Casablanca, the aide to the admiral ashore came out to the ship and said, “I want to take Lieutenant Roosevelt ashore with me. The admiral assures you he will get him back to you at least 12 hours before you depart for the States.”

So I said okay. Before he left, Frank came up on the bridge. I said, “For God’s sake, Frank; what’s going on?” 

“Oh,” he said, “the old man’s here.”

The young Roosevelt had been with his father, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the Atlantic Charter conference with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Argentia, Newfoundland, in August 1941. Now, the President wanted him by his side for the new round with Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff from 14 to 23 January 1943 in Casablanca finalizing plans against the Axis powers and agreeing on the policy of unconditional surrender.

Sure enough, they got him back to me about a day before we left to return home to the States.