Mrs. Miniver (character) President Franklin D. Roosevelt credited it for hastening America's involvement in the war. Winston Churchill is said to have claimed that it had done more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. Churchill is further quoted by Bernard Wasserstein in his book, "Barbarism and Civilization," as saying that the book (and later the film) was worth "six divisions of war effort." In 1942, when the film came out, Roosevelt ordered it rushed to theaters. The film adaptation of "Mrs. Miniver" was produced by MGM in 1942 with Greer Garson in the leading role and William Wyler directing. Under
SS Empire Miniver Columbia River Shipbuilding Company in Portland, Oregon. Though she was completed too late for the war, she was commissioned into the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS) of the United States Navy as USS "West Cobalt" (ID-3836) in January 1919. After her one overseas trip for the Navy—delivering grain products to Danzig—she was decommissioned in May 1919 and returned to the USSB. "West Cobalt" had a relatively uneventful merchant career for the USSB and, after her 1933 sale, for the Lykes Brothers Steamship Company. In June 1940, "West Cobalt" was sold to British interests and renamed "Empire Miniver". Just over four