Sunday, July 29, 1945
C54
JFK started the day in Paris and left with Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in a C54 plane for Berlin. Leaving at 3 pm, there was ample daylight for Kennedy to take note of the German landscape below.
He notes in his diary entry that the fields and small towns looked undisturbed, but the cities such as Frankfurt lay in ruins.
After arriving in Berlin, JFK notes that party drove to Potsdam through miles of roads lined on both sides with Russian soldiers, wearing green hats and epaulettes. These personal guards of Stalin presented arms as JFK’s motorcade passed.
After arriving at FDR’s quarters in the town square of Potsdam, the American entourage was similarly greeted with military at arms by U.S. soldiers. Kennedy waited while Forrestal and Roosevelt conversed for several minutes JFK and Forrestal were driven to their lodgings outside of Potsdam to a lake house next to the Kleine Wann See.
In the evening, Jack went for a motorspeed boat tour of the lakeshore on noticed that many of the houses were badly damaged by bombs.
[129, p. 43-4]