Judgment Pending

Judgement Pending

The Navy's court of inquiry on the S-4 disaster (TIME, Dec. 26 et seq.), closed its hearings at Boston last week. Summing up, Navy men blamed Coast Guardsmen, who blamed Navy men, for the collision in which either a) the destroyer Paulding, scouting at top speed for rum-boats, gored the rising submarine 54, or b) the S-4 "ran into the Paulding." Evidence showed: that the Paulding's inexperienced lookout had mistaken the S-4's splashing periscope for a fishnet buoy; that the Navy had not notified the Coast Guard that submarines were operating on the Provincetown trial course. With regard to the failure to rescue S-4 survivors, the most notable evidence brought out was that the officers in charge had not known about the trick of passing air through a submarine's "ears" (S.C. tubes) until too late; that Navy bureaucracy was at fault for the S-4 lacking soda lime (air purifier).

The court removed to Washington. Judgment pended. Another inquiry, by experts appointed by President Coolidge, on the S-4 in particular but more specially on submarines and their safety in general, impended.