Vickery's Victories

Franklin Roosevelt's don't-fight-in-public order dropped over Washington, like a black cloth over a parrot cage, in time to hide the second most rowdy, screaming battle of the summer.* Last week this battle, betrayed only by muffled sounds, was quietly settled beneath the cloth. The opponents:

> WPB's dour, able Shipbuilding Controller William Francis Gibbs, father of the Liberty ship which has answered the U.S. need for a swiftly built merchant fleet.

> The Maritime Commission's craggy, solid Rear Admiral Howard L. Vickery, who yearns to see the U.S. become a great maritime power after the war--and gets seasick every time he thinks of the Liberty ship's plodding, 12-knot speed.

Admiral Vickery, with an eye on the postwar seaways, thinks the U.S. should stop building Liberties and go to work on the Maritime Commission's Victory ship (13 1/2 ft. longer, 5 ft. more beam, 4.6 knots faster). All summer he has pushed this program. All summer he has run smack into Willie Gibbs.

Finally Admiral Vickery stormed to the White House, demanded that Willie Gibbs walk the plank. According to one report, the President agreed. But WPBoss Donald Nelson rallied to Gibbs' side, even threatened to resign, and this forced a compromise.

Terms of the compromise, as worked out by War Mobilizer James F. Byrnes: the U.S. will build 319 Victory ships next year. It will also build about 200 "C type" cargo ships of speedy Maritime Commission design. But the bulk of next year's shipbuilding will still be Liberties--1,300 to 1,500 of them.

Hopes v. Facts. Admiral Vickery had history on his side. After World War I, the big U.S. fleet of mass-produced Hog Island freighters gathered rust and barnacles while other nations, with faster, better ships, took over the world's trade.

Argued Admiral Vickery: 1) the Liberty ship will be the seagoing white elephant of the postwar; 2) a changeover to Victory ships could be made without loss of wartime efficiency, for although fewer Victory ships can be built, each one can make more trips; 3) since materials shortages already limit shipbuilding, materials might as well be used in ships better suited for postwar.

To sardonic Willie Gibbs, these arguments sounded more like hope than facts.

His retort: 1) After the war, the little 2,500-horse-power reciprocating engines of the Liberty ships can be pulled out, powerful turbines and gears installed, speed thus raised to 15 knots. The Liberty will then be good enough to compete with the battered merchant marine of the rest of the world.

2) A changeover to Victories now would require new ways, more manpower --and above all great numbers of turbines and gears, almost impossible to get. A complete switchover might cost the U.S. 1,000,000 tons of shipping.

3) Even the Victory ship would not be ideal for peacetime competition. Why not wait, to begin building up a fast peacetime fleet, until the U.S. has time, materials and manpower to build real dreamboats?

Of all these Gibbs arguments, the one which carried most weight was the shortage of turbines and gears. Thus Willie Gibbs, paradoxically, may himself be setting the stage for the eventual disappearance of his beloved Liberties. Under a new program he drew up, U.S. manufacturers are cutting the various types of gears from 35 to about ten, the types of turbines from around 25 to ten, are thus paving the way for more production. Willie Gibbs. may eventually win the argument--for Vickery.

* No. 1: Vice President Henry Wallace v. Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones (TIME, July 12).

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