Word: bureau
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Navy Fumbling. The Navy had been building self-propelled steel lighters for years, by 1940 had tried several designs. None of them impressed the forces afloat with their seaworthiness. In the summer of 1941, the Bureau of Ships (then headed by Rear Admiral Samuel M. Robinson) yielded to pressure, called in famed Boat-Builder A. J. Higgins...
Told of the Navy's great need, Higgins designed and built a 45-ft. lighter in two and a half days. In two weeks, he turned out nine more. The forces afloat liked them, still distrusted the Bureau design...
...desk-bound BuShips, full of admiration for its own design, continued to cold-shoulder Higgins. It went on passing out contracts for lighters blueprinted from its own pet theories. With 1,100 of the Bureau's design on order, a test was finally arranged between a BuShips lighter and a Higgins boat...
Reported an official Army observer: ". . . it became apparent that the Navy Bureau-type tank lighter was in trouble. She appeared to have a tendency to dive . . . was taking considerable water aboard. She stopped several times and members of the crew could be seen manning hand pumps. . . . Once when under way . . . it appeared that the lighter was going to overturn . . . the coxswain had left the pilot house and was steering the vessel from the rail" (obviously preparing for a quick getaway if she foundered...
Fisher started with TIME as head of our Manila office, but just three months before the Japs swarmed in to the Philippines we sent him off to start for TIME & LIFE the first permanent news bureau ever opened in India. When he reached New Delhi he found only two other correspondents there-a lady who worked for the Manchester Guardian and an A.P. man who left a few months later. And the U.S. Army was represented by two officers, with whom Fisher had lunch on December...