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MUSEUM
OF THE ATLANTIC ALLIES |
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MUSEUM
OF THE ATLANTIC ALLIES |
| Headquarters
Of The North Atlantic
ARGENTIA came into world prominence in 1941 when Sir Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met here to discuss the Atlantic Charter. This meeting laid the foundation for the successful outcome of WW ll, as well as the creation of the United Nations and the World Bank. Following this historic meeting, the U.S. Navy stayed in Argentia to construct one of the largest naval bases outside the United States. This 4,047 hectare site played a pivotal role during WW ll as an operation headquarters for ships combating the enemy submarine threat. |
| http://worldatwar.net/article/newfoundland/
"NEWFOUNDLAND/History (Also has material about U-Boat landings and battles in newfoundland)
See ATLANTIC CHARTER*** below From the,HISTORIC SITES AND MONUMENTS
BOARD OF CANADA AMERICAN MILITARY PRESENCE IN NEWFOUNDLAND
*** ATLANTIC CHARTER
From Britanica.com Argentia village, southeastern Newfoundland, Canada. The village is situated along the west coast of the Avalon Peninsula just to the north of the town of Placentia and overlooks Placentia Bay. Formerly a herring- and salmon-fishing port known as Little Placentia, it was renamed Argentia (derived from argentum, Latin for “silver”) when silver was discovered in the vicinity. Most of its inhabitants moved to the nearby community of Freshwater in 1941, when Argentia became the site of the first U.S. lend-lease military base acquired from Great Britain. In August 1941 the Atlantic Charter on the sovereign rights of nations was signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill aboard warships anchored offshore; a memorial chapel on the base commemorates the event. The village is a coastal-boat terminus, connected by highway and railroad to St. John's, 81 miles (131 km) east-northeast. Pop. (1991) 121.
From HERE 1. A friendship by correspondence Churchill and Roosevelt had developed an easy camaraderie-but only through correspondence. They had crossed paths at a dinner in London nearly a quarter century before, when Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Churchill a British cabinet member, but as chiefs of state they had not met. Both were eager to get to know each other firsthand. "I have just got to see Churchill myself in order to explain things to him, " Roosevelt once said to Secretary Morgenthau. Churchill, speaking to Averell Harriman, the President's special representative for Lend - Lease in Britain, remarked: "I wonder if he will like me?" 2. Argentia A meeting was arranged at Argentia, a secluded port in the Bay of Placentia on the coast of Newfoundland. To get there, Churchill had to make a risky crossing through waters where U - boats lurked. The preparations took place in greatest secrecy on both sides-and with some subterfuge on the American side that fooled even the Secret Service. Roosevelt set sail from New London, Connecticut, on August 3, 1941. Ostensibly he was off on a pleasure cruise on the Presidential yacht Potomac, to do some deep - sea fishing in the congenial company of his doctor and two White House aides. Once at sea, Roosevelt secretly boarded the cruiser Augusta and headed for Newfoundland, while the Potomac set a course through the Cape Cod Canal, where crowds of vacationers had gathered along the shore to catch a glimpse of the eminent fisherman. Six days later, the real Presidential party rendezvoused in Newfoundland with the H.M.S. Prince of Wales and her passengers, the Prime Minister and his entourage. 3. The Atlantic Charter The public learned about the historic meeting in the form of a press release whose text has endured under the name of the Atlantic Charter, a statement of elegant simplicity and intentional vagueness designed to set forth the objectives of two nations. In the name of the British and American people, it declared that they sought no territorial gains from the War; that peoples everywhere ought to be free to choose their own forms of government; that all peoples should be entitled to trade freely, with the goal of better standards of living for all; and that all peoples must abandon force as a means of solving international differences. CoBased on Time-Life Books Inc. |
| Atlantic Charter http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic.htm
More links from the YALE AVALON PROJECT
AUGUST 14, 1941 The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world. First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them; Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity; Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security; Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want; Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance; Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments. Franklin D. Roosevelt Winston S. Churchill World War II Page WW II Conferences Page Avalon Home Page © 1996 The Avalon Project. William C. Fray and Lisa A. Spar, Co-Directors. |
| US
Naval Station at Argentia from Forgotten
Newfoundland
Apparently this is a group that likes to climb around through abandoned buildings and old military sites. They have many pictures. Unfortunately none are labeled and their narrative has a "gee whiz - look at what we got away with" tone to it. Nevertheless I have linked it simply because there are so few photos available on the net of the Argentia and environs' military sites. You may find some of the pictures, and maybe even some of the text, to be useful. You take what you can get. |
