Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-05-23

UIBu otcdIu~
hip Company
as launch
nj another Nh. PICKERIN0
reighter, the A. II Ferbert,
here. II was one of n ships
)einR launched simultaneously,
q part of the beat-the-Axis
rive, throughout America.
The guards let us through the
rates, and we followed the road
way between shops. office and
Engineering laboratories. to the
iyer's edge. where the Fer
bert rested in its wooden cradle.
She looked ~ big as n sky
bogaper lying down, an eighth
" mile long, steel hull painted
with rcd lead. She land four
ister ships just like her. now
boing built) In bigger than any
lip ever built before on the
1r0at Lakes. Weigh her In
NTH the 70 others launched In
, day, and you know why Ger
Dans shudder ct the thought Of
nsr'c.-
She lay alongside a narrow
hip. We walked down the other
ride of the slip. Above our
heads (about seven or eight feet
of the ground) was the keel OF
another 600-foot freighter, al
ready being started.
At the outer end OF the slip.
1T the rivers edge. we climbed
up on a platform that had been
but there for the photographers.
"a tugboat chugged up beside us
and some of the photographers
bumped aboard. A steel crane
kept working, up above, lifting
iron handfuls of steel plates and
angles.
Presently II stopped. 1t was
nearly time for the launching.
The Farbert was built while
propped up by . ring Of timbers.
tree trunks, actually, with the
bark still on them. A row Of
men, perhaps 100 of them. crept
n under the hull. Criss-crossed
plles Of timbers had been laid
Setweon the tree trunks, with
wedges between the timbers.
The men. all ut once, started
swinging twelve-pound siedges,
driving tho wedges into the
nested timbers. Ii sounded like
n hall storm. but louder. You
couldn't zee IL, but those sledge
baows lifted the whole boat.
One by one the tree trunks
toppied loose and were taken
away.
Other workmen stopped to
watch - welders with their
goggles thrust up on their fore
heads: navy officers asking out
of.town photographers, Did we
meet you on that convoy? -;
men In leather gloves. one in
bveralls sitting on a steel girder
eating sandwiches and finishing
a quart bottle of milk. And
across from us, in a stand built
ut the prov of the ship, a
woman with a champagne bottle.
She Was Mrs. Farbert, wife
Of the president of Pittsburgh
Steamship. She was nervous,
We learned, because her son had
het . dollar that she wouldn't
break the bottle on the first
try. She did. The bottle had
been cut part way through with
. hle.
The foam from the bottle
came ut the same instant as a
rattle of chains as the ship was
released, and she slid sidewise
down the ways into the water.
We knew she would throw
ND a vast wave, but we didn't
know how far. Some thought
we would be spattered, some
said no. We weren't.
But the wave, possibly Is feet
hish or even more, beloved into
white froth and surged up onto
the ground. filling completely
the space under the keel OF the
new ship-where we had walked
n few minutes before.
The Farbert In 81 feet wide,
the slip only $50 feet wide.
Those who had seen other
Iaunchings argued, even while
she slid through the water,
whether she would hit the far
side of the slip and perhaps
knock some OF her plates loose,
Sometimes IL happens.
She didn't hit. 1t looked 10
me like three inches TO spare,
Maybe IL was less. Maybe she
actually touched. But the wave
that she had thrust up came
bounding back. She trembied
and settled down quietly.
Oyer 1000 tons of steel was