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Show 9 - . ft He Speeded Up Navy ' ADMIRAL DAVID TAYLOR . BT PRESTON GROVEB5 WASHINGTON The mathematical mathe-matical genius who added extra miles to the speed of every mod-era mod-era warship afloat watches today to-day from a bed In Naval hospital hospi-tal here while younger comrades, using his plans, make ready to add another billion dollars worth ot might to the United States navy. The famous ship designer, whose texts have become the "bible" of naval architects In every country. Is Admiral David Watson Taylor. He Is one of the brightest naval minds that have come out of Annapolis. He Is the admiral who "took the bone out of the teeth of high speed fighting vessels," as navy people phrase it-Generations it-Generations of navy men knew that the huge boiling wave ot frothy water which plowed ahead of fast ships was a costly one, cutting down the speed ot the ship and eating up 1U fuel so that It could not stay at sea so long. It was beautiful to see an old style ship plowing the waves with "a bone in her teeth. But to the navy It was ""sT costly sight. It fell to Admiral Taylor to design ships which cut the water wat-er instead of 'rolling it majestically majesti-cally aside In a huge wave. Changed Werld's Navies It took years of painstaking experimentation In a cramped testing pool in Washington. The plan he evolved was called the "bulbous bow." To the Inexpert Inex-pert eye It looked as If putting a big bulge on the lower part of a ship's bow would raise even a bigger wave ahead than would a knife edge. Taylor proved it would not Every modern destroyer, de-stroyer, battleship and cruiser now has the "bulbous bow" design de-sign he worked out. Speed-lining of ships was not ' his only contribution to naval designing. He put the U. S. navy' in the lead ot other navies for a time by center-lining the ruing turrets. Old line battleships balanced bal-anced their gun turrets on opposite oppo-site sides of the ships. ' Taylor designed the system which permits the four heavy turrets, two. aft and two forward, for-ward, to ride the center-line ot the ship. It Increased fire power, pow-er, accuracy, and stability of the ship. Equally Important, It put the turrets farther Into the core of the ship, adding strength and efficiency. Every world navy followed suit. Brains Bailor' Taylor was not much of a seagoing sea-going sailor, for the navy would not waste his designing abilities by sending him to sea. He was a "brains sailor" from the time he entered Annapolis in 1881. after completing a college course at Randolph-Macon, where he enrolled at the age of 13. Fresh out ot Annapolis, from - which he was graduated with a scholastic record exceeding all previous records, he was sent to the . Royal Naval college in England for postgraduate work in naval architecture. There again he received highest honors. hon-ors. The lad seemed to have that ''something extra." Back In the U. S. he helped design the first three battleships . tha navy .aver haL-They-are , the Indiana, Massachusetts and Oregon. They all sailed with "bones in their teeth," in the old style. The bulbous-bow came 35 years later. Admiral Taylor was chief of construction during the World war when we built more than a thousand vessels, from the mosquito mos-quito fleet to first line battleships. battle-ships. In that period he put a million odd tons of fighting power pow-er on the - waves. Our newest ships Including the 45,000-ton monsters not yet begun will be Taylor-made. Now about 75, Taylor has been In a hospital for several years, victim of a stroke. Naval men expect him to get up soon to see a huge naval experiment station on the Potomac dedicated in his honor. |