Bosworth, Allan R. "Short of War".

An interesting short story dating to the period just before America’s entry into the War. Its Maclean’s tag line neatly sums up Bosworth’s plot conceit: “There was no doubt about what ‘all aid short of war’ meant to Swede Murphy, U.S. destroyer skipper — not when the fate of his old ship hang in the balance.” Swede’s “old ship” turns out to be one of the destroyers traded to Britain and Canada for New World naval ports by Roosevelt. The story opens with Murphy and his ship (the destroyer U.S.S. GALLOPING GALLOWAY) on neutrality patrol in international waters near the Canadian Maritimes. A distress signal is received and the American Navy vessel rushes to the aid of a British freighter that had been shelled and left to sink by a German U-boat. Murphy’s attempt to rescue the ship’s stranded survivors (the callous German had purposefully strafed and destroyed the ship’s lifeboats) puts several of his own men aboard the disabled vessel at just the time when the lurking Nazi sub reappears. After tense confrontation with the arrogant U-boat skipper (there’s no doubt where author Bosworth’s sympathies lie — firmly with the Allied cause), Murphy not only rescues his stranded men and the surviving English crew, but also manages to alert a nearby Canadian destroyer to the U-boat’s presence, all the while operating within the legal strictures of American neutrality. What tips the scale is Murphy’s realization that the Canadian destroyer is in fact an old U.S. destroyer — and one which he had once commanded.