Tragic Tale of the Normandie Part I: Smoke Across the Skyline
Admiral Adolphus Andrews, commander of the U.S. Navy's Third Naval District, sat behind his desk at 90 Church Street in Manhattan; had he the time to look out his window on the frigid afternoon of February 9, 1942, the admiral would have seen clouds of black smoke billowing across the New York skyline, but he was too busy preparing for a three o'clock meeting with Captain Robert Coman, commanding officer of the U.S.S. Lafayette -- the former French liner Normandie. A few minutes before three the admiral picked up his ringing phone to hear an aide tell him that the Normandie was on fire.
"How bad is it?" he asked.
"I'd say it's out of control."
"What happened? What started it? Was it sabotage?"
"No one knows for sure, sir. It may have been sabotage, it may have been a welding accident."
"I'll be there in a few minutes."
Of all the great ships plying the Atlantic during the golden age of the transatlantic liners, arguably the greatest of them all was France's Normandie. Larger, faster, and more exquisite than her rivals, she was a floating Art Deco palace. On her maiden voyage, in June 1935, she broke the Atlantic speed record and continued toppling records until the war clouds rolled in.
In the early morning hours of August 28, 1939, the Normandie arrived in New York Harbor after completing her 139th transatlantic trip. Four days later Hitler's invasion of Poland brought war to France and turned Normandie's return trip into a dangerous gamble. Her owners, fearing the loss of their great liner to German U-boats, cabled the Normandie's captain to remain in New York until further notice. Most of the crew returned home by whatever means they could arrange, but their ship would never see France again.
The Fall of France in June 1940, spawned the Nazi puppet regime in Vichy, France; the new government ordered all French ships to return to their home port. President Roosevelt, fearing the Normandie's possible conversion into an enormous troop ship that would aid further Nazi conquest, placed the ship in "protective custody." When the United States entered the war in December 1941, Normandie was drafted into the United States Navy.
Following some initial arguement about turning Normandie into an aircraft carrier, her conversion into a troop ship began on Christmas Eve 1941. The Navy re-named her the U.S.S.Lafayette (AP53) to honor Franco-American friendship. The conversion job was under the command of Captain Clayton Simmers, who was joined on January 31, 1942, by the prospective commanding officer, Captain Robert Coman. By late January, delays had caused the target date for completion to move from February 1 to February 14. Both Capatins knew the ship would fail to meet the target date; so, on that cold afternoon of February 9, they were enroute to see Admiral Andrew's to request a postponment.
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