Silenced Service

Lost somewhere in a Washington snarl of Navy gold-braid and personalities are four books glorifying U.S. submarines.

One of the books was suggested by the Secretary of the Navy, another has already been passed by censorship. All of them are indefinitely suppressed.

Submariners, who were having trouble attracting the best manpower to volunteer for the "silent service," gave enthusiastic cooperation to the writers. Carl Carmer (Stars Fell on Alabama) spent weeks in Washington and at the submarine base at New London, Conn., researching the record of the U.S.S. Sturgeon. Robert Trumbull (The Raft) got to know well the officers and men of the U.S.S. Silversides at Pearl Harbor, wrote their story and had it passed by Navy censors there.

Maxwell Hawkins, I.N.S. reporter, spent his time at East Coast sub bases. Bob Casey (Torpedo Junction), who set to work at the suggestion of Frank Knox, still his Chicago Daily News boss, spent so much time in subs that he could boast: "I'm a qualified submariner; I learned how to work the toilet." *

Submitted May 21, it took Navy censors until July 20 to decide that Casey's book must not be published. Even with suggested changes (including not calling subs "sewer pipes," as submariners do) the book has been indefinitely banned. Already cleared in a theater of operations, Trumbull's book was in galley form when the Navy stepped in and grabbed manuscript, proofs and correspondence. That was two months ago. The Navy still has not told the publisher what changes must be made or returned the material. Hawkins' and Gartner's manuscripts, each representing six months' work, are also tied up in Washington with no itemized reports on what is wrong.

Navy's announced reason: the four add up details of submarine tactics and operations that the Japs do not yet know. But when publishers request specifics as to changes and deletions, or quote newspaper stories that differ from sections of the suppressed books in wording only, the Navy does not seem to hear.

* But Casey is no Navy man. In the Navy a toilet is always called a "head"-from its location in the head of the ship in days before steam.

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