USS Potomac (AG-25)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Potomac.

USS Potomac (AG-25)

USS Potomac at Oakland, California
History
Name:	USCGC Electra
Builder:	Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Laid down:	5 March 1934
Launched:	30 June 1934
Commissioned:	25 October 1934
Fate:	Transferred to the Navy, 8 November 1935
Name:	USS Potomac
Acquired:	8 November 1935
Commissioned:	1936
Decommissioned:	15 November 1945
Renamed:	Potomac, 30 January 1936
Reclassified:	AG-25, 11 November 1935
Struck:	25 February 1946
Fate:	Returned to the Coast Guard, 23 November 1945
Status:	Museum ship
General characteristics
Type:	United States Coast Guard Cutter
Displacement:	370 long tons (376 t) light 416 long tons (423 t) full
Length:	165 ft (50 m)
Beam:	23 ft 9 in (7.24 m)
Draft:	8 ft 1 in (2.46 m)
Propulsion:	2 × Winton Model 6-158 diesel engines, 1,340 shp (999 kW) 2 × three-blade propellers
Speed:	13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Complement:	45
Armament:	1 × 3"/23 caliber gun
USS Potomac
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Location	Jack London Square, Oakland, California
Coordinates
Built	1934
NRHP Reference #	87000068
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	20 February 1987
Designated NHL	14 December 1990

USS Potomac (AG-25), formerly USCGC Electra, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential yacht from 1936 until his death in 1945. It is one of only three still existing presidential yachts. On 3 August 1941, she played a decoy role while Roosevelt held a secret conference to develop the Atlantic Charter. She is now preserved in Oakland, California, as a National Historic Landmark.

Service history

1934–1945

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt with George VI and Queen Elizabeth, sailing from Washington, D.C., to Mount Vernon on the USS Potomac (June 9, 1939)

Potomac was originally built in 1934 by the Manitowoc Ship Building Company, Manitowoc, Wisconsin as the United States Coast Guard Cutter Electra. She was converted to serve as a presidential yacht and commissioned into the United States Navy in 1936. In the following years, Potomac was heavily used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for fishing trips and informal political meetings. The second funnel is fake, and concealed the elevator used for raising Roosevelt in his wheelchair in the unlikely event of having to enter lifeboats on the roof. In 1939 the United Kingdom's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth travelled with the Roosevelts aboard Potomac to George Washington's home at Mount Vernon.

On 3 August 1941, President Roosevelt left Washington to board Potomac at the submarine base at New London. Potomac then sailed for Appogansett Bay where the President did some fishing and entertained guests including Crown Princess Märtha of Norway. Eventually Potomac anchored in Menemsha Bight in Vineyard Sound, where the heavy cruiser USS Augusta already lay at anchor. In the early hours of 5 August Potomac came alongside Augusta and the President and his party transferred to the warship. Augusta then proceeded at high speed to Newfoundland for a clandestine meeting with Winston Churchill. During this meeting, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to the Atlantic Charter, agreeing to the principles of the Allied partnership during World War II and setting the scene for the United Nations to plan the post-war peace.

In the meantime and for security purposes, the President's flag continued to be flown from Potomac while she transited the Cape Cod Canal to New England waters. A Secret Serviceman, approximating the President in size and affecting his mannerisms when visible from a distance, played a starring role in the deception. Press releases issued daily from Potomac led all who read them to believe that the President was really embarked in his yacht on a pleasure cruise. After the meetings, Augusta returned the President to Potomac on 14 August.

After President Roosevelt's death, Potomac was decommissioned by the Navy, and returned to US Coast Guard custody in November 1945.

1945–1980

From 1946 she served with the Maryland Tidewater Fisheries Commission, and was sold to Warren G. Toone in April 1960 and used as a private ferry boat between Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

In January 1964 she was purchased by Elvis Presley for US$55,000. Presley offered it to the March of Dimes who could not use it. He then gave it to St. Jude Children's Hospital, in Memphis, to sell as a fund raiser. The hospital was able to sell it that same year for US$ 75,000. By 1980, she was involved in drug smuggling and was seized by the United States Customs Service in San Francisco, then towed to Treasure Island, where she sank.

1980–present

After being refloated by the U.S. Navy just two weeks later, Potomac was sold to the Port of Oakland for $15,000 and underwent a major restoration. She is now preserved by the Potomac Association, and berthed at Jack London Square in Oakland. She is open to dockside tours and regular cruises on San Francisco Bay.

Potomac was used in June 2011 to film shipboard scenes of the Paul Thomas Anderson film The Master. Actors Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and others shot scenes aboard the yacht while docked and under way.

Awards

• American Defense Service Medal
• American Campaign Medal
• World War II Victory Medal

See also

• USS Sequoia (presidential yacht)
• List of official vehicles of the President of the United States, which includes the other presidential yachts

References

Notes

Bibliography

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• Official site