Unlucky Ship

A really unlucky man can break a tooth on a cheese souffle, get bitten by the gentlest of Chihuahuas, lose a big poker pot holding four kings. Some ships are like that--for example, the U.S. Navy's destroyer escort Silverstein. During World War II, Silver stein* went aground on a Hawaiian coral reef, later was damaged in a typhoon. Fortnight ago, a locker of depth-charge-launcher cartridges exploded aboard the ship, injuring five crewmen.

Last week Silverstein got it again. On antisubmarine maneuvers off Pearl Harbor, Commander Charles S. Swift, the skipper, looked up to see the sub Stickleback dead ahead at 200 yds. Stickleback had just made a simulated torpedo run on Silverstein, was supposed to have dived to a safe depth. Skipper Swift reversed all engines, but was too late to avoid chopping a fatal 4-ft.-wide gash in Stickleback's side. Before sinking to the bottom, Stickleback managed to surface under its own power, making it possible for all 82 crewmen to escape unhurt. Silverstein's sea lawyers cheerfully gave the submarine all the blame, and Stickleback's skipper even admitted that he had unaccountably lost power during his dive. But all the same the crewmen of the Bad Ship Silverstein would never forget that, in addition to all their other troubles, they had now sunk a friendly submarine in friendly waters.

* Named for Navy Lieut. Max Silverstein, lost when the Destroyer Sims went down in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

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