S-4 Aftermath

The Navy's Court of Inquiry to investigate the S-4 disaster convened last week at Boston, visited the S-8 (sister of the 5-4. With the S-8, personnel and equipment arranged as the S-4's presumably had been, the Court quizzed the S-8's red-headed young commander, Lieut. Frank L. Worden, to visualize the instant and circumstances of the S-4's goring by the destroyer Paulding.

Lieut. Commander John S. Baylis of the Paulding, present as "an interested party," was formally made a defendant in the trial.

As Lieut. Worden answered questions, the faces of his fellow Navy men relaxed. Slowly but steadily, any blame for the collision was shifted from the Paulding to the 8-4, though the latter's chief, the late Lieut. Commander Roy K. Jones, was described as an almost "overly cautious" officer.

The inquiry continued.

Critic Silenced. Purple with cold, humble in spirit, Major Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York, one of the most vociferous orators in the U. S. House of Representatives, arrived at Boston. The Navy had given him a ride around Cape Cod from New London, Conn., in the S-8 which made a dive on the way. Major La Guardia, gallant aviator, had never before sailed in a submarine. Said he: "I tore up a speech I had all ready to deliver in Congress. I have found it seems much easier to navigate a submarine from the office building of the House of Representatives than from the conning tower of a submarine." He returned to Congress, his cudgel up for the Navy.

Salvage work on the S-4 was continued by 18 expert divers under Rear Admiral Frank H. Brumby. Seventeen shapes, sodden with oil and sea water, were retrieved, including the corpse of Lieut. Commander Jones. Twenty more "diving days" were needed to raise the hulk.