The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-10-19
A Great CHANGE
The New Shipbuilding Plant Is
q Wonder One.
War History of Plant Will Be
Interesting One.

Newport News, Va, Oct. 19.-New
ship ways, towering trestles, Spreading
shops. fields of steel and the incessant
clamoring, day and night. of autonat-
ic riveters. great steam hammers and
whirring machinery are the symbols of
wartime shipbuilding here where
deep sea craft have been turned out
since the sos.
In this great plant 1900 men and
women are working at top speed.
Sliding quietly from the ways, without
a semblance of the ceremony that at
tended launchings in the days of peace,
ship after ship has been built and
floated only to lose itself in the maze
of commerce at this gateway to the
Atlantic and to the fields of France.
When the wartime history of the
Newport News ShipbuiIding and Dry
Dock company is written, it will be an
interesting chapter in the romance of
the destroyer. 1t will tell how farmer
boys from the rolling plains of the
west, who had never seen a ship, and
women whose only experience with
metals had been in the handling of
pots and pans, answered the call of
their country to build many of the
destroyers which steadily are remoy-
ing the menace of the submarine and
keeping open the lanes thru which the
millions of American soldiers are go
ing to the western front.
How well these men and women
have done their work under the guild
ance of skilled workers is demonstrat-
ed by the fact that every destroyer
turned out has more than met the eX-
| press-train speed required under the
navy contract. And it is no secret, at
least not here, that the finished ships
which have gone into the war zone
have given q good account of them
| selves even the Tanning and other
pre-war products of this yard have
added new laurels to American naval
records.
While all possible energy is going
into the building of the bridge of
ships" to France and their guardians
the expansion of this plant into one of
| the worlds greatest shipyards is
| planned for after-ths-war needs as
well as for those of the present. Shop
after shop has been built and cranes
and other labor saving devices in
stalled SO that when peace comes for
| eign yards may be met in the great
race that is inevitable for the restora-
ton of destroyed tonnage.
Even now there are in the building
| two of the largest shipways in Amer
i lea. Here, after the war, will be laid
down two of the monster battle cruis-
| ers congress authorized in 1915, de-
| signed as the fastest and most pow
| erful ships of their type on the sea.
Nearby these new ways four
emergency ways have been thrown up
| on ground made" within the year.
On these emergency ways naval ves-
| sells are building and more will follow
| when these are launched. A few
hundred yards away more fighting
ships are building, two and three to
| one set of ways. On still other stocks
merchant ships and other craft are
| being put ogether.
| Turbines largely have supplanted
the old-style reciprocal drive engine,
| and it is on these that women have
been pressed into service, performing
| the delicate work of finishing the
| myriad brass paddles against which
| the steam strikes to revolve the tur-
bine drum, much as water runs a mill
| wheel.
In the yard dispensary, where men
! who are injured are treated, nurses
A band gives concerts in the yard
each noon.
Housing has been the greatest
problem. Two miles beyond the city
on a high bluff overlooking the river
is a new city to be peopled exclusively
by shipyard workers. High wages are
| the rule as at other yards, with rivet-
ers, many of them negroes, making as
high as s25 and $50 day. Loyalty
| is preached in season and out.
| In peace times this yard completed
merchant ships in six month or less
but it is lettering that now even as ii
has more than cut in half the time for
turning out destroyers. Officials and
workmen alike have ever before them
on a bronze tablet set in the side of a
stone column the words of the founder
of the yard. the late Coils P. Hunting
ton. master railroad and ship builder
in the nations pioneer days:
Here we will build good ships: a,
a profit if we can, at a loss IL we must