The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-05-22

SECRET SHIPS
Here is the inside story Of how
the thing happened. Unfortun-
ately it indicates that the Navy Is
sadly lacking in far-sighted eX-
ecutives who L;an ahead.
The man who put across these
converted airplane carriers is
Howard Vickery, once virtually
kicked out of the Navy. Vickery
was a lowly commander, had been
passed over three times for pro-
motion, was about to be "broken"
when the President went over the
Admirals' heads and put him on
the Maritime Commission. Wick
cry is Republican, son of an
Ohio judge who has opposed
Roosevelt. But the Prc,.Sc1t
recognized his ability, later made
him an admiral, despite the
Navy.
Back in 1889 Vickery saw war
coming, saw the Importance OF
airplane carriers, got secret order
in writing from the President to
build passenger vessels for the
Pacific which could be converted
into airplane carriers. They were
to have smokestacks which could
be pushed to the side of the deck,
plus high-ceilinged saloons which
could become hangers.
Vickery even went before Con-
grcss secretly and got the
money voted for these ships.
After all this work, however, the
Navy vetoed the plan. 1t wrote
a letter saying it would not need
these converted carriers. Japan,
however, learned about the idea
and built this identical type oil
ship herself.
NOTE: Two years later, a few
days after Pearl Harbor, the Navy
proposed that most OF our big pas
senger vessei3-the Manhattan,
Washington, Mariposa, Monterey
be converted to carriers exactly
as Vickery had proposed. But
this would have taken 70 per
cent of our troops transports and
the Maritime Commission said
so.
PROPHET "OSTRACIZED"
Meanwhile, another Admiral,
once spurned by the Navy, came
into the picture. He was Admiral
William v. Pratt, chief OF Naval
Operations under Hoover, who
agreed at the 1890 London Naval
Conference that smaller cruisers
were valuable in addition to large
cruisers. (Guadalcanal certainly
proved he was right. Because
Pratt did not stand 100 per cent
behind the 10000 ton cruiser,
other Navy men claimed he had
sold out" to the British. When
Pratt retired as Chief Of Naval
Operations, few came TO say good
bye. He was almost ostracized.
Since the war, however, Pratt
has come back TO Washington
from his home at Bath, Maine,
and more than year ago, he
and Admiral Vickery went to work
again on converting small num-
Der of previously constructed mer-
chant vessels into airplane car
riers. This was done on a very
limited scale. But 1t happened
that the first one converted was
commanded by Harry Hopkins
brother-in-law.
He was so pleased with the
ship that Hopkins, in charge OF
Lend-Lease, told the British about
it. The U. S. Navy was still
working on grandiose plans for big
airplane carriers requiring about
two years to build. But the Bril-
fish were interested in the posi-
bility of quick carriers converted
from merchant ships. So Hop
kins called in Maritime Commits
sion's Vickery.
"How would you like to spare
100 of your cargo ships for air
plane carriers?" Hopkins asked
Vickery, having in mind lending
them TO the British.
ut would be just like taking
away my children" replied Wick
cry.
However, he went ahead and
turned several shipyards, making
fast merchant ships, to the pro-
duction of airplane carriers. This
was done entirely on the response
bility OF the Maritime Commits
sion. The Navy had nothing to
do with 1t.
KAISER TAKES A HAND
Later, Henry Kaiser wanted to
put an airplane carrier deck on