Lafayette to Metal

For eight years the 25,000-ton French liner Lafayette shuttled travelers between the U. S. and France. In preparation for the summer tourist season, the Lafayette was last week getting an overhauling in the Havre drydock. One night a stoker, firing oil burners with a blow torch, accidentally set fire to some spilled mazut (fuel oil) in the stokehold.

Flames, spreading from one exploding fuel tank to another, licked rapidly upwards to the ship's luxurious superstructure. In the grand salon Guy Arnoux' lacquered panels of the Marquis de Lafayette winning the American Revolution cracked and sizzled. An Aubusson tapestry in the tea room, showing Washington's Mount Vernon in gay reds and blues, was soon so much burnt string. Firemen hurried aboard and hurried off again, intimidated by the explosions. In the morning all that remained of the Lafayette was a hot mass of twisted metal.

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