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Show The Shangri-La The United States Navy, instigated insti-gated and abetted by that lover of naval lore, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roose-velt, is about to break a tradition. There are fairly strict rules for labeling ships of war: a battleship battle-ship is called after a State, a heavy cru;ser rates a big city, a light cruiser a small city, a destroyer de-stroyer honors some naval hero or some distinguished friend of the Navy, and a submarine takes the name of a fish or some animal ani-mal that is at home in the water. Aircraft carriers enjoy more freedom, free-dom, for they can be named after early fighting ships of our Navy of after battles. Thus the Saratoga, Sara-toga, the Bonhomme Richard, the Kearsarge. But until now no ship has been named after an imaginary place, the creation of ,a story-teller's dream. : One is going to be so entitled. It is, of course, the Shangri-La. In a moment of inspiration President Presi-dent Roosevelt told the reporters that the planes which bombed Tokyo took off from this never-never never-never land of James Hilton's invention. in-vention. Actually their starting point was the rolling deck of the Hornet, latter lost In the Midway fight. So the new aircraft carrier, car-rier, for which we are all being asked to buy an extra dollar's worth of war savings stamps this month, will bestow a triple honor: on Mr. Hilton's bold imagination, on the lost Hornet and on the men who carried out what was probably the most spectacular air raid of history. Subscriptions for the Shangri-La Shangri-La are now well past the halfway half-way mark. We are promised that her planes will take part in another an-other attack on Tokyo exact date withheld for reasons of security. se-curity. Those who haven't contributed con-tributed their dollars should do so at once. We don't wish to keep the Japanese waiting. The New York Times. July 16th. |