On the USS Augusta With FDR and Churchill

For Memorial Day, I want to share a personal story written almost 80 years ago by my naval officer grandfather about how, in 1941, he played a small role in world history.
According to the Office of the Historian at the State Department:
Churchill and Roosevelt met on August 9 and 10, 1941 aboard the U.S.S. Augusta in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to discuss their respective war aims for the Second World War and to outline a postwar international system. The Charter they drafted included eight “common principles” that the United States and Great Britain would be committed to supporting in the postwar world.
Both countries agreed not to seek territorial expansion; to seek the liberalization of international trade; to establish freedom of the seas, and international labor, economic, and welfare standards. Most importantly, both the United States and Great Britain were committed to supporting the restoration of self-governments for all countries that had been occupied during the war and allowing all peoples to choose their own form of government.
Churchill didn’t succeed in his core aim to get America to enter the war then. It would take the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor four months later to rouse American opinion to back that. But the Atlantic Charter laid the foundations for the soon-to-be military allies’ goals, and it was seen as their unifying agreement through the worst of the bloody years ahead.