Word: yourkevitch
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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...that afternoon the Lafayette burned. Held back by policemen, Army & Navy patrols, crowds choked the streets, jammed skyscraper windows. Among the watchers was a small, greying man with a heavy accent. With agonized eyes Vladimir Yourkevitch, naval architect, designer of the ship's hull, watched the Lafayette burn. Suspicious policemen refused to let him through the lines. In the pier shed beside the ship, tall, urbane Rear Admiral Adolphus Andrews, Chief of the Third Naval District, watched...
Design and operating experts thought the primary negligence was in not having aboard a trained crew that really knew the ship. Said Designer Yourkevitch sadly: "She was helpless, like a sick man, unable to fight to save herself...
Engineers studied salvage plans. Designer Yourkevitch had one. After divers had sealed all openings, one after another of her compartments could be sealed and pumped out until she was buoyant. If water was then pumped into her double bottoms and deep tanks, Yourkevitch believes, the ship would finally right herself. At week's end, as she must for many a coming week, the Lafayette lay, desolate and shameful, in the river's grey...