Kaiser Scores Another

Shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser outdid himself last week. He came up with two winners, adding a dazzling burnish to the Kaiser legend which delights so many U.S. (and foreign) citizens, baffles and annoys so many experts and businessmen.

> In placid Puget Sound, the U.S.S. Casablanca, first of the 50 new small Kaiser aircraft carriers, triumphantly sped through its trial runs, just 236 days after the keel was laid.

> In San Francisco, a thousand miles away, a scandal-sniffing House subcommittee nosed into Kaiser's Richmond No. 3 yard and had its muckraking charges against Kaiser blown back in its face.

To slow-looking, fast-moving Henry Kaiser, both triumphs were sweet. As a production man, the sweeter was the flat-topped Casablanca. For when Kaiser hopped into Washington only last March with plans for large-scale construction of desperately needed carriers from merchant-ship designs, he was cold-shouldered. As usual, the Navy turned him down. As usual, "practical" shipbuilders said the ships would be no good.

With only a paper model under his arm, "Hurry-up Henry" finally went to F.D.R., the man with whom he works best, got the President to order 50 carriers built. Next came an even bigger hurdle -- a shortage of turbines, gears, diesel engines. Finally he adopted a little-known steam engine invented in 1912, one never used before on large ships.

Mum Navy. This week, as the Casablanca crisscrossed Puget Sound with happy Henry Kaiser aboard, the engine ran superbly. Smoothly, the $7,000,000 Casablanca did better than its designed speed, controlled nicely at slow speeds, came through perfectly on a crash stop.

Navy men aboard kept mum. But Maritime Commission's vice chairman, Rear Admiral Howard L. Vickery, who was also aboard, beamed at the ship's performance. The Navy has stated its objections to the ships: too slow for most combat jobs, too short to launch their planes on calm days, except with catapults. But the ships are fast enough to keep up with merchant convoys, to spread an umbrella of planes over them to fight U-boats. On their ability to do that well, the President and Kaiser have gambled. Only the Battle of the Atlantic can give the final payoff.

But the carriers were not the only gamble Kaiser had on the board. A year ago he gambled that he could build his Richmond No. 3 yard in time to turn out a new type of ship (a troop carrier) by this summer.

Loud Congressmen. Into San Francisco, to probe this bet, came a House Marine subcommittee, chairmanned by Congressman James A. O'Leary (D., N.Y.), no friend of Kaiser's. Maritime Commission Auditor Alonzo Bryan made some scandalous charges to the committee:

> At Richmond $105,000,000 had been spent, and not a single ship delivered; the yard has enough cable and welding iron to supply four other Kaiser yards, has hoarded so many materials "it is small wonder other shipyards are delayed"; workers quit 15 minutes early, costing the Maritime Commission $15,000 weekly in lost time.

Cried outraged Auditor Bryan: "The yard is one of the greatest messes I've ever seen."

Echoed Committee member James F. Van Zandt: "Where is the remarkable record of Kaiser shipbuilding we have read so much about?"

Defense by Vickery. Quickly they were set straight by a man who should know. Said tough, plain-talking Admiral Vickery: The troopship that yard 3 is building is much more complicated than the production-designed Liberty ships. Moreover, production was delayed by an emergency order for 15 special type ships which the Navy badly needed. Yet the first troopship will still be completed this summer (five have been launched, are being fitted out) and "no other yard in the country will beat that record."

Trumpeted Admiral Vickery: "The kind of talk I've read this week from the subcommittee stirs up trouble and lowers morale. I know what's going on here and I know I'm right."

With this cruncher, Admiral Vickery dropped the question, went on to Vancouver, Wash. to ride on the Casablanca. The junketing committee moved north to see what they could find in Son Edgar Kaiser's record-breaking yard at Portland.

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