Invisible Convoy?

A solution to the transportation problem was proposed last week by two top-flight U.S. engineers (Vladimir Yourkevitch, designer of the Normandie, and Frederick B. Woodworth, Smith-Meeker Engineering Co.'s radio chief): a covey of small (2,000-ton) cigar-shaped concrete ships, lying low in the water with about a foot of freeboard. The ships are to be without superstructure, without crews, self-powered by diesel engines, controlled by radio from a single armed mother ship (corvette or destroyer). Advantages: the ships would be tricky targets, almost invisible to a submarine or from any distance at sea; loss of a ship would be small loss, cost no lives; construction is fast, cheap, would involve small amounts of critical materials (10% as much steel as a 2,000-ton freighter) would use labor from the building trades, where the manpower shortage is least stringent; the ratio of cargo-to-ship weight would equal that of a tanker.

Two recent technical advances are involved, 1) The design would not imitate orthodox ships, but would be oval, streamlined, making use of the plastic properties of concrete. 2) Advances in short-wave radio make possible accurate remote control of the entire convoy and of ships in dividually, even to permitting scattering of the convoy in case of attack. The ships may be controlled by code signals (like the combination of a safe) that would be changed every trip to prevent the enemy from learning and using them.

One 90-ft. model has been built in Florida and run to Washington under its own power. But despite the enthusiasm with which various agencies have greeted this development, Yourkevitch and Woodworth have encountered inertia. No one has yet been found with the authority to order a real trial of such life, labor-and material-saving tankers.

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