In the War Zone

As President Roosevelt returned to Washington on the Presidential yacht Potomac from a weekend on Chesapeake Bay, two news dispatches told the U.S. how nearly two other U.S. ships came to involvement in the war:

> Crew members of the 125-ft. Coast Guard patrol boat General Greene, home at Woods Hole, Mass, from patrol off Greenland, reported that the ship had been too close for comfort to the battle between the Hood and the Bismarck. While attacking planes roared overhead in the fog, the reverberations of the big guns shook the General Greene, and "some of the shells came mighty near our starboard side."

> Columnists Alsop & Kintner (see p. 67) published a widely current story: that last month a U.S. destroyer on Atlantic patrol, picking up survivors from a British vessel, was approached by a German submarine, let go three depth charges. Said the columnists: "Although the President is waiting for the Germans to shoot first . . . there has been shooting already. . . . The interest of the Germans is to avoid ... an incident. It is perfectly possible that the submarine was in fact sunk, and that the Germans have suppressed all public complaint. . . . The Navy ... is fully ready to act. ... It is far from improbable that preventive occupation of the Azores and the Cape Verdes, or the garrisoning of Iceland will be ordered in the near future. . . ."

According to unofficial reports reaching the State Department this week, the 4,999-ton Robin Moor, bound from New York for Cape Town with eight passengers and a crew of 35, was "torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine" in the South Atlantic May 21. A Brazilian ship rescued eleven survivors adrift 18 days in a lifeboat. If the reports were correct, this was the first U.S. ship torpedoed in World War II.

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