The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-06-15

WdS44QSbO1, ~. H.. SQuc II
Americas real work in the naval
! disarmament program is being
started in earnest The conference
itself is history and the men who
reduced to writing the agreements
are engaged in other affairs. The
actual scrapping of the ships of the
war is just beginning. It is job
which is making the United States
the seat OF the biggest junk indus
try the world ever has known.
Dismantling a battleship is a task
second only to building one A
battleship is designed to withstand
destruction In war it is its func-
ton to endure the pounding of the
heaviest shells which the ingenu-
ity of man has invented. to say
nothing of the pounding of the seas.
And now, under the disarmament
treaties, a whole fleet is to be de-
stroyed.
Practically all of the work is to
be done in private yards of judk
men or shipbuilders. A Philadel-
phia firm made the government a
proposal to take over the entire
fleet scrapped by the treaty, but as
a matter of public policy it was de
cided not to give the entire job to
one Company However, this COM
pany has obtained the job of scrap
ping several battleships and a num-
Der of smaller vessels. Among the
important warships to be scra pped
at Philadelphia are the battleships
Missouri, Wisconsin, and Maine, the
Cruiser Columbia, the Cruiser
Raleigh. which was with Admiral
Dewey at Manila bay. and the Mon
itor Monterey. The junk company's
yard is on the waterfront and it now
is dredging a channel deep enough
to receive these great ships.
The most useful implement in
the destruction of an armor-clad
battleship is the oxy-acetylene
torch This is a device which
sheets flame of extremely high
temperature into a mass of steel
and cuts it as a knife cuts bread
These torches are used in cutting
the huge armor plates into com
mercial shapes and sizes. The
pneumatic drill and the chisel are
used in the Remembering of light
er parts, and ponderouS hammer.
something between a trip-ham
mer and a pile-driyer,-is used to
crush and break up large blocks of
metal into smaller, more workable
chunks
Material For Automobiles.
Battleships are made of the best
quality of material and therefore
have a large value as junk. Armor
plate is made of the finest nickel
steel This is cut into billets and
sold to automobile manufacturers
who remake the material into en-
gines. springs and other parts re
quiring great strength. The heavy
machinery used in operating gun
turretS is sold to manufacturers of
farming implements or to iron
foundries. There is much copper.
brass, gln-metal, bronze, lead,
zinc. and manganese on a battle
ship. These are all used in ship
building as we'll as in other lines
of manufacturing. When taken
from the battleship they are sorted
and sold to dealers or direct to
manufacturers.
All the material IS as carefully
sorted and graded as new metal.
1t is stacked in neat piles and elias
sified by shapes and sizes. Expert
ence has taught the junk men the
best forms into which to convert
their materials to attract buyers
and the big modern junkyard looks
more like a department store than
the ordinary backyard junk piles of
small dealers. To make the re
quired sizes, crocodile shears are
used. These have jaws which cut
with a ten-ton pressure
Also. tangled fragments of light
er material are pressed into blocks
in a sort of mould on which enor-
nous pressure is exerted.
While great fighting ships of the
navy will be reduced absolutely to
scrap some of the lesser craft will
be dismantled only so far as fight
ing equipment is concerned. The
bulls will be used for merchant
ships. new interior arrangements
being effected to make them suit
able for the carrying of cargo