USS Augusta

USS Augusta was the cruiser that carried Harry S. Truman across the Atlantic to the Potsdam Conference and brought him back toward the United States. During the return voyage, it also served as the setting for his first announcement about the atomic bomb and for the moment he learned that Hiroshima had been bombed.

The voyage to Potsdam

Transporting the President overseas required an immense operation involving American government departments and military services, White House staff, the Secret Service, and British and Soviet counterparts. Truman’s immediate party numbered fifty-three. USS Augusta, a 10,000-ton cruiser, carried him across the Atlantic, accompanied by the light cruiser Philadelphia. As the ship neared the English Channel, a British cruiser and six destroyers joined the escort.

After eight days at sea, USS Augusta docked at Antwerp on July 15. Truman continued to Berlin by air, traveling from Brussels aboard The Sacred Cow with two other C-54 transports. The return journey also involved USS Augusta: on August 2, Truman flew from Gatow airfield to Plymouth, where the cruiser was waiting. He had arranged to leave by air rather than make the slower passage out of the English Channel from Antwerp. After lunch aboard a British battle cruiser, the King came aboard USS Augusta, inspected its guard, and asked Truman for autographs for the Queen and his daughters. The ship got underway at 3:49 that afternoon.

Atomic-bomb statement at sea

On August 3, during his first full day aboard, Truman called the small group of reporters traveling with him into his cabin. Seated at a green-felt-covered table with an open looseleaf notebook before him, he described the atomic bomb and its history. The prepared statement was intended for the country and had been drawn up before he left for Potsdam. Reporters recognized the significance of the news but could not immediately publish what they had heard.

The following days combined official work with the strain of keeping the secret. Truman studied conference reports and worked on an address to the country. On August 5, reporters remembered the atmosphere as tense and Truman as worried; they avoided discussing the secret among themselves. The ship continued at a recorded full speed of 26.5 knots.

The Hiroshima message

Shortly before noon on August 6, Truman and the secretary of state went below to eat with the crew. Truman had just begun lunch with six enlisted men in the after mess when a Map Room officer hurried in carrying a map of Japan and a decoded message from the Secretary of War. It reported that Hiroshima had been bombed four hours earlier and described the results as successful; the city was circled in red pencil on the map.

Truman took the officer’s hand in excitement and sent him to show the message to the secretary of state at another table. The news had reached the President not in a formal briefing room but during an informal meal with sailors, aboard the cruiser that had carried him home from the conference. USS Augusta thus frames a sharp change in the return voyage: the guarded, prepared account of the weapon gave way to immediate news of its use.