65 Washington Avenue | Portland, Maine 04101 | 207.835.0590 furniture . fine art . pottery . jewelry . bags . linen . leather goods . photography . glassware Maine's Only Late Night Talk Show Local Guests. Local Music. Local Awkward Silence. Saturday Nights 7:30 made in maine 76 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine deal of battle during her service–even sur- viving Kamikaze attacks in the San Juani- co Straits. After the war, she was decom- missioned with four battle stars and sold to Pillsbury & Martignoni Shipping Bro- kers. From here, Caroline’s trail goes cold. The yacht’s whereabouts remains a mystery to this day, though some records claim she was scrapped in 1958. For the Aras, at least, the glory days weren’t quite over. Commis- sioned the USS Williamsburg, the Aras was converted to a gunboat during the war, but with duties in Iceland and the East Coast, she stayed mostly out of harm’s way. In 1945, the Williamsburg replaced the USS Potomac as the presidential yacht to Harry S. Truman. Truman loved the Wil- liamsburg, and together they cruised the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay re- gions, occasionally venturing into the open sea for cruises to Florida, Bermuda, Cu- ba, and the Virgin Islands. The BIW yacht hosted such foreign notables as Secretary of State George Marshall; President Miguel Alemán of Mexico; and two successive Brit- ish Prime Ministers, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was less enamoured with the yacht, and the Williamsburg was decommissioned after one very short journey and transferred to the National Science Foundation, where she floundered for nearly 50 years. There was a two-year stint as a hotel-restaurant-mu- seum in Pennsville, New Jersey, followed by several years as a floating restaurant in nearby Marlboro Marina. Later, the for- mer Aras yacht was sent to Italy, where bro- kers tried and failed to find a buyer with the guts and imagination to recreate her former glory. Their tired sales pitches didn’t work, and the yacht was finally scrapped at La End Games (continued from page 47) PresidentTrumanloungesontheafterdeckoftheU.S.S. Williamsburg,inKeyWest,Florida.Lefttoright,CharlesMurphy, counseltothePresident;PresidentTruman;AdmiralRobert Dennison;presssecretaryCharlesRoss.