Ships

ARMY & NAVY

While Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson at the London Naval Conference was last week explaining U. S. Navy needs, the U. S. fleet began to assemble at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for winter maneuvers. Well out of public observation, 136 vessels, manned by 100,000 officers and men, will there exhibit to their own satisfaction their sea prowess in attack and defense formation, in target practice, night scouting and all the other simulations of marine warfare. With more than 50 ships already at Guantanamo, the scouting and battle fleets from the Pacific began to pour eastward through the Panama Canal led by the Wyoming, New York, Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Utah.

P: Last week the actual fighting strength of the U. S. Navy was upped 10,000 tons when, in a bleak windswept ceremony at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the eleven million dollar cruiser Pensacola was officially commissioned. In ten minutes three flags were broken out, the watch set, the ship's clock started and the galley fires lighted. The Navy Department with one eye cocked on the London conference took this occasion to remark: "Events of recent years have proved only too clearly that a keel laid is not necessarily a man-of-war at sea."

P: In 1924 Congress authorized construction of eight "treaty" or 10,000-ton cruisers. The Salt Lake City and the Pensacola were the first commissioned. Uncompleted in the water: the Northampton, Chester, Houston. Fortnight ago at Newport News the Augusta was launched under a shower of yellow Savannah River water. Unlaunched: the Louisville (63% completed), the Chicago (65% completed).

P: In 1929 Congress authorized construction of 15 more "treaty" cruisers. Still anonymous, five of these have been contracted for. Work on the three assigned Navy yards was suspended by President Hoover as a preliminary token of goodwill for the London conference. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. is 3% finished with CL33, New York Shipbuilding Corp., 2% with CL35.

P: Cruisers come high, go cheap. Last week the U. S. sold six old ones on the Pacific Coast for $275,927: the Albany, New Orleans, Salem, Charleston, Huron, Frederick. Abe Goldberg & Co. of Seattle got the Charleston for $49,111.60, a record low price. Conditions of sale: the ships are not to be used for naval purposes or as rum runners.

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