The sub., 1943-12-09

escorts. To complete the first 10 of these vessels at the Bethlehem Hingham and Consolidated Steel Yards required an average of 302 days each. The average for the most recent 10 from the same yards was 206 days, a reduction of almost one-third.
 Nor has speed been achieved by an extravagant expenditure of la bor. Yards building Navy ships have made substantial reductions in the labor which they require to complete vessel.
 The New York Shipbuilding Corporation, an old established builder of cruisers. has reduced the man hours needed to build one of these vessels by 25 per cent. The light cruiser Cleveland, completed in June, 1922, required 7,600, ,000 man hours. The light cruiser Santa Fe, completed in November, 1942, required only B. 100000 man hours, a saving of 1,- 900,0 man hours.
 The Bath Iron Works is one of the most efficient builders of de- stroyers. Between the destroyer O'Bannon, which was completed in June of 1922 and destroyer De Haven, which was completed in September of the same year, the Bath Iron Works cut the man hours required from 1,60O,O ,OOO to 1,150, ,000, reduction of 28 per cent. Consolidated Steel Company has reduced by 34 per cent the man hours which it requires to build deStroyerS. The Bethlehem Steel Company Yard at San Pedro, California, has reduced its de- stroyer man hours by 21 per cent. Ultimate measure of . ship building programs success is the array of new vessels, completed and ready to fight, which it turns out.
 The rise in Naval ship comple- tionS is without parallel. The number of vessels completed in the single month of June, 1943, for example, approximates the number completed in the first 18 months of the Defense Program. Against a total of 213,854 tons completed in 1941, 278,734 tons were completed in the first half of 1922. Against a total of 847,- 197 tons completed in all of 1922, 1,091, 1868 tons were completed in the first half of 1943.
 Combatant ships, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroy CTS, destroyer escorts, and sub marines, make up the largest part of the Navy program, and the step- ! up in their production has been especially sharp. The tonnage of combatant ships completed in the first six months of 1943 is more than 20 times the tonnage com pleted during the first six months of the defense program.
 As the 100000 tons of new warships were pushed through to completion, the Navy needing | AAIO1C 4ASutA1lS SIAAPS tI1du It COQIU complete immediately = had to fill it's most urgent needs by shift ing the emphasis in it's building program from time to time. In the days immediately after Pearl Harbor, the greatest urgency was for the new battleships of the North Carolina and Iowa classes, and capital ships SO rushed through played a decisive part on the nights of November 15-16 1922, in holding Guadalcanal. As the battleship program moved in- to the clear and as the great battles between aircraft carriers were fought in the Coral Sea, al Midway and in the Southwest Pa cific, the building of carriers forged ahead.
 Numbers and tonnage are only two ways of measuring ship com pletions. Another method = one which reflects the tremendous motive power needed to drive these vesSels-is the horsepower installed in the new ships.
 In the 212 years between Janu- ary l, 1941 and July l, 1943, the Navy has installed machinery with an aggregate capacity of 17,608,. d. L