Challenge in Escorts

U.S. industry last week was face to face with its greatest single challenge since Pearl Harbor--an immediate and terrific expansion in escort vessel construction. To do the job requires not only a mighty effort by giant shipbuilders and steelmakers but also an almost fantastic production boost by thousands of small partsmakers of whom most U.S. citizens have never heard.

Whatever the task, it must be done: lurking Nazi U-Boats recently sank as much as 1,000,000 tons of Allied shipping in a single month (TIME, Jan. 25), an annual rate actually in excess of the record-breaking 10,000,000 tons of merchantmen delivered by U.S. and British yards last year.

Only answer to the problem is escort ships--small subchasers (PC boats) in coastal work; fast-stepping, death-dealing destroyers and newly designed, highly efficient destroyer escorts (DEs), U.S. counterpart for Britain's corvettes, in transatlantic convoy. But the program as a whole is late. The destroyer-escort situation is worst, since only a handful have been delivered. As a result a single destroyer often convoys 15 hapless merchantmen across the Atlantic v. the ideal setup, which would be closer to one escort for every three freighters.

The Builders. The huge destroyer program is being handled by veteran naval shipbuilders like Bethlehem, Federal (U.S. Steel subsidiary) and Maine's crackerjack Bath Iron Works. Most PC subchaser contracts are held by inland builders like Dravo Corp. in Pittsburgh (where fighting ships are being built for the first time since the War of 1812), and Michigan's DeFoe Shipbuilding. To swing the new & vital destroyer-escort program the Navy picked Bethlehem Steel's reliable yard at Hingham, Mass., and Brown Shipbuilding, a new yard at Houston.

Trouble is, these shipbuilders all run into the same problem: shortages as seemingly endless as the rivets in a ship. Example: it was originally planned to equip destroyer escorts with steam turbines just like destroyers. But these turbines require hard-to-get herringbone reduction gears made by firms like De Laval Steam Turbine Co., Milwaukee's Falk Co. and the Farrel-Birmingham Co. Hence a switch was made to turbo and diesel electric drives. But this has run into a shortage of diesel engines and electrical equipment.

Besides this big engine problem the whole escort program depends on other hard-pressed suppliers. Probably the worst bottleneck is valves made by Crane, Lunkenheimer and Worthington Pump. Shafting comes from such companies as Erie Forge, Camden Forge and American Locomotive. From Cleveland's Bailey Meter Co. and Connecticut's Bristol Co. come meters and regulating devices.

The Handicaps. Big or little, all these manufacturers face the same terrific odds. Main reason for the lag in escort ships has been a series of Washington miscalculations. First, the Navy underestimated the real job. Then there was a drive for landing barges. The merchant shipping program itself has put enormous strain on all ship suppliers. More recently, the synthetic rubber program and high-octane gasoline program collided with the escort program for parts.

This week it looked as if Washington would give the escort program a real green light. It was too late to stew over past mistakes. The real challenge was to business--for on the success or failure of gear maker and instrument maker may rest the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic.

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