Editor's
Note:
The
meeting between President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz in 1945 was made
possible by the use of two US Navy warships.
FDR traveled to the Yalta conference and then
to the Great Bitter Lake aboard the cruiser
USS Quincy. The USS Murphy, a destroyer,
 escorted
the Quincy on the voyage and was dispatched to
Jeddah to transport King Abdulaziz to the
meeting with FDR.
The
ship that delivered the King to the meeting
earned a storied place in the history of World
War II. The Murphy, commissioned in
1942, started her career seeing combat off the
coast of Morocco in support of the invasion of
North Africa, completing escort duties in the
Atlantic, and screening forces during the
invasion of Sicily. In October 1943 the
Murphy was screening a convoy in the North
Atlantic when it collided with a tanker and
was sheared in two. The forward section,
separated between the bridge and the forward
stack, sank with the loss of 35 crewmembers.
The after section was towed to New York where
the ship was rebuilt and returned to action.
The "new" USS Murphy screened
invasion forces at Omaha Beach on D-Day and
then sailed to the Mediterranean to support
the invasion of southern France. The
Murphy, after her historic appointment in the
Red Sea hosting King Abdulaziz, served in the
Pacific theater. She arrived in Japanese
waters after war's end but was one of the
first US ships to land at Nagasaki, Japan.
The
story of the USS Murphy's mission to Jeddah
would not have gotten much attention had the
St. Petersburg Times not published a firsthand
account of the historic sailing. Thomas
Hilliard was a boatswain's mate, or 'bosun'
aboard the Murphy and detailed his role in
hosting the King. We hope you enjoy this
glimpse at history which first appeared in the
St. Petersburg Times on September 12, 2005.
Sailor was
the piper of history
Thomas
Hilliard was an eyewitness when the U.S. and
Saudi Arabia joined destinies in 1945.
By
WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
Published February 12, 2005
ST.
PETERSBURG - He was a bosun's mate to history
as he piped the king of Saudi Arabia aboard
the destroyer for a meeting with President
Franklin Roosevelt.
Thomas
M. Hilliard didn't know it at the time, but a
deal was about to be done that would tie the
Americans and the Saudis together in
geopolitics and oil for the next 60 years.
 It
was the first time a president had met the
king, leader of a poor, clannish country
without much developed oil. With the close of
World War II, that was about to change.
The
bosun's mate, now an 82-year-old resident of
Coquina Key in St. Petersburg, was more
concerned with accommodating the apparent
quirks of a king than with watching the future
unfold.
Hilliard
remembers the mad rush to sew a 50-foot canvas
tent for the monarch who wouldn't sleep in
"an iron cabin." He recalls the
eight live sheep the 49-strong contingent
brought aboard, as well as the Persian carpets
servants rolled out everywhere the king
stepped  so
he would not set foot on the ship's deck.
Monday, Hilliard will be honored at a reunion
of the few still alive who were there for the
Great Bitter Lake meeting near the Suez Canal.
That
1945 Valentine's Day meeting of the two
leaders established an international
relationship that would help satisfy this
nation's diet for oil and set in motion events
that reverberated most notably in the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks and wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
* * *
At
the time of the 1945 accord, the United States
was producing its own oil. That was soon to
change forever, because of the demands of a
war economy and the industrial boom that was
to occur afterward. The nascent Arabian
American Oil Co. - Aramco - was about to
become a gusher for the globe.
At the most basic level, the request for
Hilliard's presence Monday at an elegant
luncheon in Coconut Grove is an attempt to
mend a fraying alliance.
"I
guess friendship with Saudi Arabia is a little
bit on the strained side right now," said
Hilliard, a 29-year Navy veteran, chatting in
a home chock full of Navy mementos and family
photographs.
 He
was aboard the USS Murphy when it took King
Abdel Aziz, or Ibn Saud as he was also known,
from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a historic
shipboard summit with Roosevelt, who was fresh
from the Yalta Conference that dictated the
shape of the post-war world. Roosevelt
died two months later.
In
addition to the sheep, the king brought along
several 100-pound bags of rice and a bountiful
harvest of watermelons and tomatoes.
It
took two days to get to Great Bitter Lake for
the meeting with Roosevelt on the USS Quincy.
One recent afternoon, Hilliard thumbed through
two scrapbooks of fading photographs and
articles. One photo shows the tent the crew
erected for the king near the bow of the
destroyer.
"He
said he wouldn't sleep in one of those iron
cabins," said Hilliard, adding that the
monarch had been offered the commodore's
stateroom.
There
wasn't enough canvas on board to make a
suitable tent, so the Saudis provided 25 to 30
"great, big rolls."
"We
hand-sewed the canvas together" with
4-inch needles and sail thread, Hilliard said.
"I
started in the morning and worked all night.
And the next morning before the king arrived,
we were just finishing up."
His
royal highness also required other comforts.
"He
wouldn't step on a steel deck," Hilliard
said. "Wherever he went, they rolled
(rugs) out. He wouldn't have a sip of anything
or a thing to eat unless one of his tasters
checked it out."
An
elaboratedly appointed chair served as his
throne. The ship's crew built a corral at the
stern for the small flock the king had for his
own use. They also set a 2-by-6-foot plank
against the flagstaff - there the king's men
could hang the slaughtered sheep. They cooked
atop charcoal pots on deck.
U.S.
officers received camel hair Saudi robes,
including headdresses, leather sandals and
ivory-handled sabers. They also got Swiss gold
watches worth about $300. Chief petty officers
got $70 to $100 each. Hilliard and other crew
members got about $55 or $60. It was a
handsome sum at the time.
Monday
he will get a chance to reminisce with at
least three fellow crew members.
"We're
all getting up in age. And we're losing a few
every year," said Hilliard, historian for
the USS Murphy, which was decommissioned in
1946.
 The
destroyer's exciting assignment came soon
after the February 1945 Yalta Conference, the
momentous meeting of Roosevelt, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin. The Allies discussed key issues
such as Europe's postwar reorganization, plans
for dividing Germany into zones and the
founding of the United Nations.
Roosevelt
and the Saudi king's meeting that followed was
similarly significant. The United States was
looking for a steady flow of cheap oil,
military bases in the Middle East and Saudi
cooperation to help Jews settle in Palestine -
the modern state of Israel would not be
founded until 1948.
 The
king refused to help with the Palestine issue.
Instead, he said, "Give the Jews and
their descendants the choicest lands and homes
of the Germans who had oppressed them."
But
the United States achieved its other two
desires. For the Saudis, the summit led to an
influx of much needed America dollars and
technology.
Decades
later, Osama bin Laden would use the issue of
U.S. military bases on Saudi soil and its
support of Israel to justify his followers'
attacks. On Sept. 11, 2001, 15 of the 19
hijackers were Saudi nationals, a fact that
has enraged the American public and prompted
politicians to question the genuineness of the
U.S-Saudi Arabia alliance.
That's
where Friends of Saudi Arabia come in. The
nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., is
the organizer of Monday's luncheon. Executive
director Michael Saba describes Friends of
Saudi Arabia as a cultural, social and
educational organization whose members are
both American and Saudi. Many of the Americans
are former employees of Aramco. Others have
simply lived in the country, said Saba,
himself an American.
Friends
of Saudi Arabia simply wants to establish
"people-to-people relations" between
Americans and Saudis, he said.
Monday's
luncheon is the organization's inaugural
event. The leaders who met on the Quincy 60
years ago will be represented by two of their
descendants. Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz Al-Saud is the son of the Saudi
crown prince and grandson of the king. H.
Delano Roosevelt is Roosevelt's grandson.
About 10 veterans and their wives from the
Quincy and the Murphy are expected. The
occasion will carry on the relationship
established decades earlier, Saba said.
Hilliard
almost did not accept the invitation. He
couldn't afford the cost of travel and
accommodations, he said. Friends of Saudi
Arabia said it would make the arrangements.
Saudi
Arabia Basic Industries Corp., one of the
world's largest petrochemical companies, is
sponsoring the entire affair.
The use of
this material does not imply recommendation or
endorsement of any product or service by the
St. Petersburg Times or Times Publishing
Company.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/12/Southpinellas/Sailor_was_the_piper_.shtml
Reprinted
with permission.
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