GREAT BRITAIN: Formidable

Formidable was to be the name of a 23,000-ton aircraft carrier standing ready for launching on the ways of a Belfast shipyard last week. Formidable, indeed, was the launching. As if sensing the pressure under which the had been built, anxious to get into the water as soon as possible, H. M. S. Formidable waited only for a crowd to gather, a band to tune its instruments and Lady Wood, wife of Britain’s Secretary of State for Air, who was to christen the ship, to clear her throat, before slipping its poppet, breaking a cradle, careening down the ways. The wife of a shipyard employe was killed, 20 were injured. Caught napping, the band burst frantically into Rule, Britannia. Resolutely Lady Wood hurled a bottle of wine after the retreating ship, shouted her 50-word speech above a din of cries and crackling timbers, burst into tears.