The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1917-10-30

United States Shipping Board is
building large number of cargo
carrying vessels to carry troops and
! supplies to France that will be UNI
| sinkable by submarines and will
make impossible a repetition of the
| Antilles incident.
| When these vessels are completed
! a few months from now they will in
sure the safe shipment of the great
American army to France and con-
stitute upon defiance to Germany's
i threat to make it impossible to as
semble a formidable American fight
| ing force on the western front in
France.
The sixteen and a half knot cargo
vessels for which contracts have been
awarded to private shipyards by
Rear Admiral William l.. Caps, of
the Shipping Board, will be of the un-
sinkable type, it became known to-
day.
This knowledge will go long way
towards allaying public apprehension
which has been aroused by the recent
loss of sixty-six Americans by the
sinking of the transport Antilles.
The features upon which their
greater safety depends are based
upon sound and well established prin-
cipIes of marine architecture and not
upon the employment of newly discov-
cred devices, such as those upon
which Thomas A. Edison has been at
| work for months, and which are said
to be among the brilliant and prac-
| teal accomplishments of one of the
greatest inventors of all time.
The new fleet, comprising proba-
bly, thirty-five vessels, will be built
with complete, instead of only par
tial bulkhead construction such as af-
ford limited protection to the ordin-
airy ship.
This has increased by over Is per
cent the cost at which they could
have been produced otherwise, but the
particular problem of Rear Admiral
Caps has been to save American
lives, not dollars, and the vessels have
been designed with that object in
view, against the time when the ma
ton will be sending across the Allan
tic the great trained and equipped
army of citizen soldiers.
Not wizardry, but practical ship
building, has been the basic idea OF
the shipping board There is to be
nothing unheard of or marvellous
about them. Any shipyard could
TURN out unSlnkaDle Sh1pS or this
type if private enterprise wanted to
pay the price, but this is precisely
what the ship owners of this and
other countries have not been willing
to do. Not even the loss of count
less merchantmen have conquered
avarice, but if cheap ships save
money they cost blood, and that is
matter of vital concern to this gov
eminent, which is putting the man
before the dollar
Experts state that the new fleet
will be practically submarine proof.
One of these vessels certainly couIe
not be sunk If struck with one tor
pedo, and except in exceptional cir
cumstances, could not be sunk even if
struck by two. It would be neces-
sary for submarine to fire three
torpedoes and hit the target each
time to break down the extraordinary
bulkhead protection afforded and
cause the vessel to founder-an OBJ
vloua iapossibility in view OF the fact
that all United States ships are
heavily armed and conveyed and pro-
vlded with smoke bombs.
Ws'ie the submarine peril is still
grNele U-boats are having troubles
O l--e-r own, and ore that manages
to score hit with single torpedo