The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-11-19
BIG BATTLE ship
TO BE SCRAPPED
LAUNCHED TODAY
West Virginia, If Com
pleted, Would Be the
Greatest Fighting Craft
of the American Navy
Officers Mourn Her
Probable Fate

Newport News, Va, Nov. 19.-The
battleship West Virginia, represent
ing the highest development of Amer
lean naval construction. was ready
for launching today from the yards of
| the Newport News Shipbuilding and
Drydock company.
The launching was arranged for
eleven thirty O'Clock, with ceremonies
of simple nature. Miss Alice Mann,
of Pramwell, West Virginia, had been
designated to christen the vessel. Sec
retary DENLY notified local naval au-
thcrities he would be unable to be
present and that Rear Admiral Philip
Andrews, commandant of the Norfolk
Navy Yard, would act as his repre-
sentative.
W;ll Be Scrapped
Washington, Nov 19.-Launched as
one of the proudest and greatest bat
tleships ever produced by the Amer
lean navy, only to be scrapped within
a few months appeared to be the fate
Of the uper-dreadnought West Vir-
ginia today when she slipped from the
ways of the Newport News Ship
bdi ding and Drydock company.
The American naval reduction plan
as presented to the Armament Con-
ference provides for the scrapping of
the West Virginia. II the plan
agreed to the dreadnaught, today
about IS per cent complete, will neve,
be finished and never plaw the seas
bearing the Stars and Stripes.
The West Virginia is of the same
class and power as the Maryland,
soon to be commissioned.
Her Armament
Somewhere among. government
stores are eight 16-inch rifles made
especially to fit her gunpits. She
ewaallta bassa sable;s H. comp lstea, as0I
steam at almost % knot speed: she
is built so as to be almost invulner-
able to torpedo attack; she carries a
hulk of the hardest armor ever rolled,
so thick that a man might walk on its
upper edge where it protrudes be-
yond the skin of the ship we'll above
the water line. No device that Amer
ican genius or war experience has
combined to produce has been omitted
from the ships fighting equipment.
The spectacle of this giant fighting
machine, the product of years Of con-
centrated effort of mind and body by
thousands of men-being launched
only to be destroyed-is pathetic to
naval officers. The have love for
and pride in such great ship that
endows the mass of steel and ma
chinery with almost human qualities.
They have watched the West Virginia
grow day by day on the ways at New
port News, they have seen her put to-
gether, plate by plate and heard the
riveting machines that hammered the
steel together. She has grown to be
to them a. friend and a comrade and
her destruction, with never a chance
to know the open road of the deep sea
and the far ports where she might
have gone will lie for them a sadden-
ing sight.
History of Ship
The West Virginias keel was laid
in 1920, year and seven months ago.
AS launched, she measures 624 feet
from stem to stern and 81 feet wide In
beam. Although her hull is practi-
cally complete and the main deck laid,
she lacks her equipment, much of
her armor and all of her guns. In ad-
dition to the eight 16-inch rifles, she
would, when completed, carry a Sec
ondary battery of IA five-inch rifles.
four three-inch anti-arcraft guns and
two 21-inch submerged torpedo
tubes. Designs call for an electric
drive of 29, 900 horsepower furnished
by oil burners and turbines.
The name conferred upon the new
dreadnaught at the christening today
was once borne by an armored cruiser
of the navy authorized in 1899. bui.
in the same yard and launched in 1903.
The name Of this forebearer was
changed in 1916 to the Huntington,
after the city of that name in West
Virginia.
Honorably retired after service in
the world war, the Huntington is now
at Portsmouth, N. H., where she is
still held by the department, although
not in commission.