Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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Story 2207
Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island September 4, 1943

The hum and rattle of aircraft overhead barely disturbed Elaine. The umbrella provided some shade and a couple of dimes gave all of her girls a cold Coke. Her ear caught hold of a big bomber coming into Quonset Point. Something was wrong. She glanced up and saw that a Liberator was in the landing pattern with only three engines working. Her eyes then went to the soft, gentle waves of the warm bay which called for her.

Hours later and after a good nap, the entire gaggle of girls primping. The married women had spent slightly less effort than the single girls, but they all were elbowing and jostling each other around the rooms' mirrors. The dress fit nicely, snug where it needed to be snug, and loose to allow imaginations to roam free. One of her friend's uncle owned a small restaurant with a good bar and a better band a mile from the hotel. The plan was simple; eat good food, drink amazing drinks and listen to incredible music.

An hour later, the laughter around the table forced the waiter to ask for their order twice. Elaine looked forward to her strip steak; the entire evening was costing her a day's wage, but it was worth it as her stomach was in pain from all the laughter. Around the eleven women, officers wearing wings or dolphins from three different countries checked out the scenery. A few brave Fleet Air Arm pilots had already gone through the flak trap of married women and suffered severe damage to their egos. One had made an emergency landing at the bar and was firing a flare of Kentucky bourbon in a call for aid.

She tilted her head down and slightly to the right to hear Ophelia tell a story about a sailor and his attempts to conduct a hostile boarding that had him land in the brig before shipping out. It was something almost all of the women had experienced at least once, and most more than once. The boys who thought they were men tried and often failed to convince women of their new self-perceived status. Often it could be played for laughs, but more than one girl had a story to tell after a bad experience.

In the corner of her eye, she saw the door swing open. Five more men came in. They headed immediately to the bar where the lead man with a very familiar looking face held up his right hand, nodded and put down a few bills on the table. The men took one, and then another shot before they started to laugh. She tried not to stare, but the face should not be there. That face should be in Tunisia or somewhere in Italy or Greece by now if she was reading the newspapers right.

Ten minutes later, her efforts to not stare had failed as the man with a familiar face tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a drink.

"Would you happen to know my brother Jack?" he asked.
 

Driftless

Donor
Elaine's little indiscretion coming back to haunt her, I see
Does that open the door to Joe becoming president after all? Fester alluded to Elaine, later in life, seeing her lover on TV as president .... If the Kennedy boys look that much alike to her.....
 
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Does that open the door to Joe becoming president after all? Fester alluded to Elaine, later in life, seeing her lover on TV as president .... If the Kennedy boys look that much alike to her.....
They don't look alike for her to mistake one for the other; just the faces are close enough that the memory is strongly refreshed and stuck in her head.
 
Does that open the door to Joe becoming president after all? Fester alluded to Elaine, later in life, seeing her lover on TV as president .... If the Kennedy boys look that much alike to her.....

I thought his plane disappeared a couple of months back (our time, not in-story time).
 
They don't look alike for her to mistake one for the other; just the faces are close enough that the memory is strongly refreshed and stuck in her head.
So we are left wondering how she will ensure Joe remains a gentlemen and doesn't tell. Hmm, I'm sure she can persuade him to keep her secret.
 
I thought his plane disappeared a couple of months back (our time, not in-story time).
Nope, his plane landed fine. He was on the tarmac waiting for planes to come back that never came several times. His time overseas ended and he has orders to teach at Newport to transfer his learning by doing and surviving to the masses of men who had not done in order to up their odds of surviving until they have a chance to do.
 
Well, JFK and Joe Jr. did look a lot alike (and their dad, Joe Sr. was a womanizer, too (Gloria Swanson was a notable mistress of his), so one can see where JFK and Teddy (to a lesser extent) got it from)...

Plus, JFK once told British prime minister Harold Macmillan when he was president that, if he went three days without a woman, he developed headaches so, yeah, he was a womanizer to Warren Beatty levels (until Warren married Annette Benning)...

Of course, JFK's Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson (and president after JFK was assassinated), was similar to JFK in his womanizing (to the point that he named a certain body part "Jumbo"--you can probably guess what it was)…

If JFK were around today--yeah, his career would definitely be different...
 
Story 2208
San Juan, Puerto Rico September 5, 1943

The U-boat's periscope slipped back under the water. The coastal defense batteries had reacted quickly to the radar return of an unexpected contact. A shell exploded two hundred yards short of the last known location a minute after the contact disappeared.

The next morning a single wooden hull minesweeper was out and about re-sanitizing frequently swept channels. Three hours into the routine, a mine was pulled up and the rifle men began to fire at the steel ball caught in the sweep gear. An hour later, two minesweepers from Roosevelt Roads were given new orders to get underway by nightfall to help resanitize the shipping channels out of the now closed Puerto Rican harbor. Half a dozen still working up destroyers, gunboats and subchasers would be at sea to hunt the for the intruder even as a dozen aircraft blackened the sky.
 
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Driftless

Donor
San Juan, Puerto Rico September 5, 1943
Half a dozen still working up destroyers, gunboats and subchasers would be at sea to hunt the for the intruder even as a dozen aircraft blackened the sky.

What strategic commodities were going in or out of Puerto Rico then, or was that day-to-day mercantile stuffs? Either way, the minelayer is tying up some pretty hefty resources. But,.... The US could afford that and it was useful operational training too.
 
What strategic commodities were going in or out of Puerto Rico then, or was that day-to-day mercantile stuffs? Either way, the minelayer is tying up some pretty hefty resources. But,.... The US could afford that and it was useful operational training too.
And I rather doubt that the sub is going to survive what is being sent to hunt it
 
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