ARMY & NAVY: Fog Crash

The 10,000-ton U. S. S. Chicago steamed out of San Pedro harbor one day last week, headed up the California coast to join the Navy Day ceremonies in San Francisco Bay. Off Point Sur, 110 mi. south of the Golden Gate, a dense fog closed around her. Suddenly just before the 8 o’clock morning watch was called, a large brown ship loomed out of the mists across her bow. The Chicago slackened speed, veered sharply to port. The brown ship scurried across her path, disappeared into the fog. Before the Chicago could swing her bow around again, a second ship, the British freighter Silver Palm, came plowing down on her out of the fog on the port side. The Chicago reversed engines, blared a long shrill collision call. The Silver Palm tried to stop. With a metallic crash her prow rammed 18 feet deep into the side of the Chicago just forward of the first gun turret. Two officers and a pay clerk were crushed to death. The Navy Department immediately ordered an investigation but could not find or identify the missing brown ship which had caused the accident.

The collision seemed likely to reopen an old controversy over the 8-in.-gun cruisers of which the Chicago is one of ten. When the first eight were built, in conformity with the London Naval Treaty, five of them had to be altered because of sternpost trouble. They were severely criticized by Admiral William Veazie Pratt, naval adviser at the 1930 London Conference, who called some of them “tin clad” because their gun turrets were not fully protected with steel plates. But Rear Admiral Joseph K. Taussig, assistant chief of operations, last week explained that the Chicago’s turrets were armored and had helped prevent the Chicago’s prow from being cut clean off. “Not even a battleship has armor where the Chicago was struck, and would have experienced a similar result,” he declared.