Plastic Surgery

When the aircraft carrier Wasp began her precarious trip back to port after her mid-Atlantic collision with the destroyer-minesweeper Hobson (TIME, May 5), it seemed doubtful that she could be repaired in less than three months. Her whole lower bow had been chewed out, and a section of her hull 75 ft. long and 30 ft. high was missing. It was a blow to the Navy: ship, crew and air group had been painstakingly readied to replace another carrier in the Mediterranean.

Rear Admiral Roy T. Cowdrey, who commands naval shipyards in the New

York area, began an audacious piece of improvisation. While the Wasp was still far at sea, he sent hull-repair experts racing out on a destroyer to intercept her; they surveyed the damaged bow and radioed their findings. In New York, Admiral Cowdrey ordered a matching bow section removed from the Wasp's sister ship, the Hornet--which was being modernized at Brooklyn--and floated to Bayonne, N.J. on a barge. The new bow was fitted into place after the battered Wasp was drydocked.

Seven hundred navy-yard workers, working shifts around the clock, began what was to be one of the most amazing major repairs of a capital ship in U.S. naval history. The job cost approximately $1,000,000. This week, only ten days after limping into port, the Wasp was refloated and ready again for sea.

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