The US Navy also shelled industrial targets on Honshu in '45:
It’s probably more efficient to use air power to flatten those targets, but using the BB’s sends a clear message to the enemy populace as to who own’s those seas.
A sailor might know the location of his ship but this raises another point. If there were any British plans in 1940 that involved shelling American cities, I would guess they were classified “burn before reading” - they would have been top secret sealed orders for the Captain’s eyes only and only for him if he received orders to open them. No way would this have been the kind of scuttlebutt that the men in the crew would be talking about. Can you imagine what would have happened if rumors of this supposed plan had gotten back to the American isolationist press?
Canadians would not have automatically surrendered to the Germans if Britain fell, and I seriously doubt the Americans even thought that. They weren’t colonies like the French possessions in north Africa.
Plus - a ship going up and down the coast is a sitting duck for a sub attack. Subs were even spotted in the ST. Lawrence. Even convoys weren’t immune. I suspect ships not engaged in a specific action did not linger anywhere where they could be predictably found. I agree that the ships stationed over here were a waste of resources.
Plus, very true, such “secret orders” would not be known to any common sailor, nor likely to anyone young enough to still be alive today. As mentioned, very likely only the captain and first mate would actually read such orders.
So odds are this was idle speculation and rumor by the bored seamen during a convoy run.
Perhaps they still remembered WWI where America switched seemingly overnight from neutral (remember the 1916 election? Wilson won on “He kept us out of war”) with some Anglo and some German sympathy to war. It’s a stretch but possible.
Agreed, and I’ve also spent time in a planning cell. I’m surprised no one else has called bs on this. Markxxx, do you have anything to back up this wild claim?
