S-4, Finis

To the tragedy of the 54, Secretary of the Navy Wilbur last week composed a final chapter. It was a chapter more rueful than happy, but it brought balm to Rear Admiral Frank H. Brumby who, as commander of the Control Force and officer in charge of the rescue effort, was recommended for demotion by the Navy's court of inquiry (TIME, March 5).

Secretary Wilbur had asked the Court to reconsider its verdict of "unfit" on Admiral Brumby. Given an opportunity to explain himself, Admiral Brumby redescribed his conduct and Secretary Wilbur found it entirely "commendable." In the main, Admiral Brumby seemed to have conferred intelligently with his more technically expert subordinates and ordered what all agreed was best, including the delay in attaching airlines to the wreck's "ears." Moreover, said Secretary Wilbur, the Brumby record of 31 years in the Navy was so splendid as to overcome whatever "errors or oversight or failures" could be justly charged against him on his testimony.

Concerning the court's finding of partial blame against Lieutenant Commander Roy K. Jones, the S-4's dead chief, Secretary Wilbur thought it was "in accordance with the probabilities, but that these probabilities are insufficient to justify disciplinary action, assuming such action was possible."

To the destroyer Paulding, which gored the S-4 and whose commander the court also criticized, Secretary Wilbur did not refer explicitly. He admitted that submarines have to look out for surface vessels, insisting only that the latter should be careful. So there, apparently, rested the controversy between the Navy and the Treasury Department, in whose rum-chasing service the Paulding was functioning at the crash. And there, unless Congress or the President reopens the subject, ended the S-4 disaster--except as a legend in the Navy, a leaden memory in line of duty.

Last week the patched-up S-4 was floated again and towed from the drydock for internal repairs. Soon she will be in running order once more. She will be remanned. She will go to sea. She will dive down under the sea--and come up. . . .