Second Launching

For 17 months the great, grey Normandie lay in the mud at the end of Manhattan's 48th Street, a spectacle for tourists. Lights burned along her hull at night.

Her naked steel flank was cluttered with huts, tool houses and catwalks; the workmen called them "Normandieville." Last week Normandieville was coming down, and a big new grandstand was going up on the elevated highway which skirts the piers. The Navy was getting ready for the raising of the Normandie, burned Feb. 9, 1942, which had never sailed under her Navy name--U.S.S. Lafayette.

Biggest single salvage job in history, the righting of the 82,423-ton liner will be no short, champagne ceremony. Next week the newspapermen and Navy guests who watch from the new wooden stands will see only the beginning of the operation. Not for weeks will the Lafayette float upright. Not for months will she be ready to sail again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.