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.
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 by this summer. Loud Congressmen. Into San Francisco, to probe this bet, came a House
Marine subcommittee, chairmanned by Congressman James A. O'Leary , 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?”
