Sometimes the things that almost happened are as interesting as the things that did. Nearly every photo history book of World War II shows the famous picture of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin at Tehran in November 1943. The accompanying caption usually mentions something about the meeting solidifying the alliance that would go on to win World War II. Rarely mentioned, however, is that the historic moment might never have occurred — because the president, the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff and numerous other top American leaders on board USS Iowa were nearly victims of a torpedo attack on the way to the summit. This important fact is overlooked because it was not an enemy attack that could have killed the president but a torpedo fired from an American destroyer in a torpedo drill gone awry.

The shot that almost changed history was fired by William D. Porter, known to those who sailed on it or found themselves in its sights as the 'Willie Dee,' one of hundreds of destroyers the United States built in a hurry as it became obvious that much of the country's participation in the expanding global war would be at sea. The destroyer was put into service in July 1943, with a crew of 125 young men who, but for just a few experienced hands scattered here and there, were all in high school or working on a farm while the ship was being built. They were as fresh as the ship on which they served.

But that was the military in 1943 — lots of eager young men hoping to learn their jobs before someone started shooting at them. Time for training was short, so barely four months after Willie Dee hit the water, it was assigned to one of the most critical and super secret missions the Navy had yet undertaken. President Roosevelt was traveling to French North Africa to meet with Churchill, Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. No one was to know about the trip until the commander in chief arrived safely.

Roosevelt boarded the massive battleship Iowa on November 12, 1943, along with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and enough VIPs and top aides to awe even the most imperturbable sailor. The president's party, numbering about 80 souls, had all slipped out of Washington as quietly and discreetly as possible aboard Roosevelt's presidential yacht Potomac, and had cruised down the Potomac River to rendezvous with Iowa at the river's mouth in Chesapeake Bay. The 45,000-ton battleship, traveling up the bay from its berth in Norfolk, Va., to meet Potomac, had to discharge nearly all of its fuel just to keep from running aground in the river.

'We didn't know what we were doing in Chesapeake Bay until we saw the president's yacht come alongside,' recalls Grier Sims, a crew member on board Iowa. 'They had installed a bathtub when we were in Norfolk, and we were all asking what the hell a bathtub is doing on a battleship. Then it made sense when the president came on board.'

The president was taken aboard in his wheelchair with no fanfare, then Iowa slipped silently out to sea with strict orders to lie low and make no radio contact. The battleship was joined by two escort aircraft carriers, which would provide air cover, and three destroyers to provide protection from the German submarines that were still wreaking havoc on ships in the Atlantic. One of those destroyers was Willie Dee.

The mission was simple but critical: Get Roosevelt and his entourage to Mers-el-Kebir in French North Africa for the first of the high level summits between the Allied leaders. The ships traveled at high speed all the way across the Atlantic, with the smaller destroyers struggling to keep up. Most of the sailors in the convoy did not know the purpose of their secret mission, or that the president was on board Iowa, but the tension among the officers signaled that they were involved in some sort of high stakes operation.

'On the Iowa we knew he was on board but most of us didn't really see him much,' Sims says. 'We didn't know where we were going, but we were at flank speed all the time, so that thing was shaking. We were really moving.'

Even at maximum speed, the trip would take eight days, so during the voyage the ships and their crews continued with the training and drills that they normally conducted when at sea. Such activity was important to keep the men busy, and in the case of Willie Dee, to better prepare its relatively green crew for life at sea.

The destroyer's trip got off to a rough start. As Captain Wilfred Walter backed Willie Dee out of its berth next to another ship in Norfolk, there was a god-awful racket. As Walter and the other officers looked off the bridge, they saw that their ship wasn't coming apart — Willie Dee's anchor had snagged the Navy ship beside it and ripped off its railing, life rafts, a small boat and various other pieces of equipment. Although it wreaked havoc on its neighbor, Willie Dee's damage was limited to scratches on its anchor. Rushing to meet his rendezvous with Iowa, Walter only had time to make a quick apology before his destroyer continued on to its way.

Within the first 48 hours of the secret mission, Willie Dee continued drawing uncomplimentary attention to itself. At one point after joining the rest of the convoy, the ships were making their way through an area known to be infested with U-boats when a large explosion suddenly rocked the water. All the ships immediately initiated antisubmarine maneuvers and went on high alert, until Willie Dee signaled that there was no submarine. The explosion was just one of its own depth charges that had accidentally fallen off the ship because the trigger was not set on'safe' as it should have been.

Soon after that embarrassment, Willie Dee was hit by a freak wave that washed a man overboard, never to be found. Quick on the heels of that mishap the engine room lost power for a while, causing the destroyer to fall far behind the rest of the convoy. By then, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King, who was on board Iowa, had become aware of Willie Dee's difficulties and, with so many personages looking over his shoulder, the head of the Navy was becoming increasingly embarrassed and frustrated. He made his displeasure known to Captain Walter, who knew that he was fumbling a career opportunity on this high profile mission. Duly admonished, Willie Dee's skipper vowed to improve his ship's performance for the rest of the trip and ensured that his crew trained hard while at sea.

The other crews were hard at work also, and on November 14, when the convoy was just east of Bermuda, Iowa's captain offered to show Roosevelt and his aides how the battleship could defend itself against an air attack. As Iowa fired its defensive guns at weather balloons sent aloft as targets, and the president sat on deck enjoying the show, Walter and his crew watched from 6,000 yards away and grew eager to join in the fun. They got their chance when the battleship missed a few of the target balloons, which drifted into range of Willie Dee's guns. Seeing an opportunity to redeem himself, Walter quickly sent his crew to battle stations, and the gunners commenced firing on the balloons. At the same time, he ordered the crew to conduct a drill in which they would practice launching torpedoes at another ship.

So down belowdecks in the torpedo rooms, crewmen Lawton Dawson and Tony Fazio started simulating a real combat situation. The only difference between a drill and the real thing was that in a drill, Dawson and Fazio first removed all the primers that launched the torpedoes out of Willie Dee's four tubes. Without the primers, the firing signal could not cause the explosion needed to expel the torpedos from the tubes into the water. To carry out the simulated attack, the torpedo crew needed a target. As was common in drills, they used any nearby ship. The biggest and easiest target they could see was Iowa.

When Dawson and Fazio were ready, the bridge officer sent the commands for the simulated firing and the torpedo crew below 'fired' a torpedo. After a pause in which he normally would have confirmed that the torpedo was on its way, the bridge officer continued the drill with 'Fire 2!' As expected, there was another pause and then he commanded 'Fire 3!'

This time, his command was confirmed with a 'whooooooosh' as the torpedo flew out of its tube and into the water — to the astonishment and horror of the officers on the bridge. A live torpedo was in the water and headed straight for Iowa.

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