Again, U. S. Lines

Of all the ships that sail the North Atlantic, only ten belong to the U. S. Lines. But in the past 15 years hundreds of imperiled seafarers owe their lives to the hail-fellow flag that the fleet flies from its Johnny-on-the-spot main masts.

On Christmas Eve a happy knot of womenfolk on a quay in Halifax had the U. S. Liner American Farmer to thank that their men were home to tell the tale of what happened when heavy weather struck the venturesome Nova Scotian three-master Fieldwood, bound from Hawkesbury, N. S. for Barbados. Two days out the pumps broke down. Water poured in through the racked hull to disable auxiliary engine and radio. Soon the captain, his crew of six and their mascot bulldog, Yummie, were marooned on the deck of the water-logged ship.

Flying their flag upside down by day, lighting flares by night, they drifted for three days. At nightfall of the third day the American Farmer came along, headed from London to New York with Captain H. A. Pedersen in command. Soon the lucky eight, like the crews of the Vestris, Antinoe, Florida, many another hapless vessel, were toasting their shins in a U. S. Liner's galley. Landing in Manhattan just in time to board the departing Cunarder Ausonia for Halifax, they got back home for a Christmas in which wide-awake U. S. seamanship played a far greater part than Santa Claus.

Score for U. S. Lines: some 250 lives saved in 15 years, an unequaled record.

> To the grand tally sheet of U. S. rescues at sea, the Maritime Commission's stubby 5,041-ton freighter Schodack at week's end added a few more numbers. Some 600 miles out of New York, plunging home through the tossing seas, the Schodack's watch spotted a flaring distress signal. As quickly as she could make it, the Schodack was at the side of the 8,181-ton Norwegian freighter Smaragd, foundering in the tumbled, ocean with a sodden cargo of coke, a crew of 18 and the captain's wife and daughter aboard. First boat the Schodack put overside was lost.

All that night the Schodack circled the stricken Norwegian, Skipper Clifton Smith pouring out oil to smooth the way for another lifeboat. In the early morning one of the Smaragd's boats made it with seven men. Then the Schodack lowered a second boat, reached the Smaragd and took off the captain and his family, the rest of the crew, two pet dogs. Radioing his owners, the Cosmopolitan Shipping Co., Inc., Captain Smith was brief and businesslike. "It was tough going. . . . We will need a new lifeboat."

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