Malvin Keith Hicks, a Falls County farm boy, had already seen plenty of action in World War II with the U.S. Navy.

A survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battles of Coral Sea, Guadalcanal and other island-hopping campaigns while serving aboard the USS Cummings, Hicks was weathering the war and hoping to make it back to Texas in one piece.

But in July 1944, he was witness to a mystery that had his fellow sailors buzzing: Why had their skipper directed them back to the lower 48 states and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard while the rest of the fleet stayed in the South Pacific, bedeviling the Japanese?

President Roosevelt sneaked away from the pressures of waging World War II in August 1944 for a few days of fishing on the Alaskan frontier.
FDRlibrary.marist.edu photo

And why was their ship being outfitted for what looked to be some kind of wheelchair-bound VIP?

“They were building a ramp for our split deck,” said Hicks, now 90 years old and living in Chalk Bluff. “They also cut the hatch wider for the captain’s quarters. We couldn’t figure it out, and everyone was being so hush-hush about it, too.”

The revamped Cummings headed down July 19 to U.S. Repair Base, San Diego, “and we had not much more than docked when here comes a big motorcade, with six men hanging onto the second limo. One man got a wheelchair out.”

The high muckety-muck placed in the wheelchair was none other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States for more than a decade.

“One man on deck who had been authorized to carry a camera was taking pictures of it all, but a Secret Service man saw him and ripped the film out of his camera,” Hicks recalled.

The general public, especially during World War II, didn’t know quite how debilitated the president was. While his paralytic illness was well-known during his terms of service, he kept his immobility from public view.

The presidential party included FDR’s private physician, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, three Secret Service agents, a chief boatswain’s mate “with lots of fishing tackle,” two cooks and the Scottie dog, Fala.

The USS Cummings brought Roosevelt to Hawaii for a series of meetings, but when they concluded, FDR expressed the wish to go fishing in the cold waters of the Aleutian Islands, so they set off for Adak, Alaska.

Even in August, it was cold at night in the waters at the top of the world, Hicks said.

A familiar voice

Hicks was summoned one morning at about 4 a.m. because the heating unit in the captain’s quarters stopped working. Toolbox in hand, he reported for duty, when a Secret Service agent detained him at the door for an interrogation.

Hicks said he recalled hearing through the door the voice he’d grown familiar with through numerous “fireside chats” — Roosevelt’s famous radio addresses.

“Let him come in here and fix this thing,” said the president, who was sitting up in bed, swaddled in blankets.

While he repaired the heater, Hicks said, the president peppered him with friendly questions about how long he’d been in the Navy and whether he wanted to make it his career.

“ ‘Yes, sir, I like it very well, sir’ — what else could I say to the president of the United States? He loved the Navy,” Hicks said.

FDR had served as assistant secretary of the Navy from 1912-20.

After visiting the troops in Adak, the Cummings headed into the inland passage, because, its skipper said, “The president wants to do a little fishing.”

Malvin Hicks is seen in 1940 as a young seaman during his U.S. Navy days.
FDRlibrary.marist.edu photo

On the water

They dropped anchor in the Bay of Juneau early one morning, so the president could discover what was biting. But after little luck, the presidential party hailed a local boy and asked him where the best salmon grounds could be found.

FDR asked that Hicks be brought along, in case the motor launch carrying them into the mouth of a tributary should start to fail.

The president caught at least eight salmon for the officers, Hicks recalled.

FDR asked Hicks if he wanted to fish as well.

“I have no gear, sir,” Hicks said.

The president offered to let Hicks use his gear, but Leahy stopped Roosevelt from sharing.

The Cummings stopped at least three more times “for the president to wet his hook” on the way to the Bremerton, Wash., shipyard where FDR gave a nationwide radio address on Aug. 12.

‘Last I saw of him’

“He stood in place behind the podium until we docked in the Navy yard. He gave a speech to thousands of people off our forecastle. When he boarded his train to leave, that was the last I saw of him,” Hicks said.

The USS Cummings went back to duty in the South Pacific, doing escort duty on destroyers and rescue duty for B-29 crews that couldn’t make it back to land after bombing raids over Japan.

The president won an unprecedented fourth term of office in November 1944. But because his declining health had been hidden from the voters, much of America was shocked when he died suddenly of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945.

Hicks, known to his friends as Mutt, married his sweetheart, Mary Radle, on June 4, 1945, and worked almost 40 years in the oil industry for Humble Pipeline Co. and Humble Oil.

They have a son, two grandsons and two great-granddaughters. They retired to Chalk Bluff in January 1984.

tjryan@wacotrib.com

757-5746