Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELANO, President. Typed document signed ("Franklin D. Roosevelt") as President TO ADMIRAL E.J. KING, Chief of Naval Operations, countersigned by King and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Washington, D.C., 18 December 1942. 1 page, 4to, on White House stationery, tipped to a larger sheet. Roosevelt authorizes Admiral King to pay the officers and enlisted men of the French Navy after the sinking of the Vichy French fleet by the Allies around Casablanca: "If you find it possible, I should think it desirable for the Navy Department to arrange to have the Navy Paymasters pay the crews of French ships and this memorandum will be your formal authority to do so..." In an accompanying typed statement Rear Admiral W.B. Young explains that "...a great part of the French Fleet was sunk in and around Casablanca Harbor and there were no supplies or money...The expenditures for this project, unappropriated and unanticipated by Congress amounted to several hundred million dollars...This expenditure and operation was never questioned by the general accounting office or by any Congressional Committee..."