 It gives you a funny feeling this business are launching. You feel sort of, you know, same time mighty proud. Something like that. Hard to say. I guess you and I feel we've got a little stake in her. She's no longer a number or just a hull. She's a ship. And now they're towing her over to the outfitting dock. They'll rig her to be our greatest flat dock. I remember the day they laid her keels. Doesn't seem too long ago either. She looked back. They fixed her name in bronze to the keel plate for keeps. She grew up almost without our knowing it. There was the inner bottom. And the big after gasoline tank. They started to midships and kept building up like a big pyramid. Adding structures, fore and aft from the midsection. Adding one deck level above the next. 11 decks in all, up to the flight deck. Then they added more compartments forward. And compartments further astern. Until her hull began to fill out and take its final shape. That job to thousands of men. More nearly 5,000 workers on the ship itself from 40 different trades to meet her production schedule. They based the locations of major construction points on the precision of a center line. Accurate and close enough to split the hairline of a lens. Over 6,000 plans were needed to build this ship. Plans that told the shipwrights, welders, angle smiths, the pipe fitters, copper smiths, machinists and electricians exactly what to do and where. For the ship's great hull, the blueprints message was first translated to wood. In the mold lock, fitters laid out full scale patterns and templates on wooden frames. Marked the centering points and zone numbers for later locations. These became the controlling shapes for steel. The plates, the bulkheads and the skin, which rounded out the final shape of the hull. From drawings to wood to steel. And then in the ship sheds of the yards, a giant torch cut the pattern shape. While over in the rolling shed, monster bending rows shaped up the plates that had to fit the slowly growing curves. Steel plates and more steel plates, sheet by sheet, were rooted according to their markings to final locations in the big assembly. Then on the skids away from the hull, the sub-assemblies grew. Off by themselves, they were free from the flow of materials and work traffic at the crowded hull. Whole sections of the ship, the bow assembly, the elevator platforms, the gun sponsors were assembled separately so that fitters and welders could work more easily. Each unit was erected on schedule as it was needed in the larger scheme of things. From the skids, giant cranes delivered the sub-assemblies to the building ways. Here, with the deafness of handling a building block, the huge steel sections were eased into position for final welding. It was amazing to see how much wood was used to build a steel ship. Wood for shoring, wood for staging. The dense jungle of timbers in there contained enough wood to build 20,000 homes. While hull construction went on, the shops were busy making and testing other equipment. Four bronze screws, each 22 feet across, designed to push her through the water at better than 40 miles an hour. Balance to the last ounce. Through access openings left clear in the hull, her powerful steam turbines and reduction gears were lowered. The giant boilers, two, eight of them. These to deliver steam for the ship's turbines and to launch her planes. They are a part of the ship's vitals, providing a sensitive and balanced mechanism which makes her, in performance, a living organism. Her power plant was divided into four independent units, each completely self-sufficient to provide for necessary maneuverability in case of battle damage. Finally, with her heavy machinery inside, work on the hull was rushed through its final stages. Her forged propeller shafts were lined up, then coupled, and the 22-foot props themselves squeezed through narrow spaces to their locations below the stern. The massive screws now in place, the hull was completely sealed and painted. All staging was removed above and below, and the hull made ready for launching. At the christening, Admiral Harp delivered the invocation. We praise the O God for this memorable and climactic moment of human achievement. We rejoice that Thou hast made it possible for the ingenuity, skill, and labor of free men to bring this ship into being. May there come now to those who have wrought as good workmen in its planning and construction the inner satisfaction of having done their tasks worthily and well. As we christen the forest doll, we commend her to Thy guidance and care, grant that her services may be used in the preservation of peace, and for war, only when the defense of freedom and honor shall so dictate. That blimp up there seems to be doing a good job of looking her over. Look at that flight deck. Yeah, she's plenty big. What was it? 1,000? Let's see. 1,036 feet long, and the deck is 252 feet wide. The morning paper said she was big enough to put the Queen Mary and the United States side by side on the flight deck and still have room to spare. Hey, see that? They've streamlined the angled deck right into a symmetrical flight deck design. It slents off about 10 degrees to port. One of the shipyard engineers told me that flight deck is not only armor-steel, full length, but she's got terrific stiffening topside for the hull. That's right. No elevators down the center line. They're all on the deck edges. That's good protection for the hangar deck, too. She's got two catapults forward and two on the angle, port side. They'll be steamed, too. With that set up, they ought to get a bunch of planes in the air on record time. Boy, look at the size of those elevators. The builders say each one is as big as two city lots. Well, jet planes, bigger and heavier jobs, greater ranges, more fuel. Guess it all adds up. Suppose it adds up to the reason for the forest all. You know, I guess they'll handle those heavy planes in less time than the old carriers handle the lighter ones. Well, she's a beauty, all right. Where are they taking her now? They're heading for the outfitting dock. When she was launched, she was about 70% completed. Then came outfitting. This is the stage when the floating hull and its superstructure is invaded by a host of skilled specialists, technicians, and craftsmen who will link power to the intricate mechanisms and make the ship responsive to control. Her propulsion machinery is now lined up perfectly from boilers and turbines out to the long shafts to propellers under the stern. Trude to the point of least possible friction. Because now that the ship's afloat, her new balance in the water puts different stresses on the entire hull. Machinery alignments will be affected and all these must be accurately checked. Then comes the day when her boilers are lit off, when the ship, in a very real sense, comes to life. She will grow more and more self-sufficient now, as each day passes. Provide her own power. Run her pumps. Operate some of her auxiliary units. Her electric light and power installations sufficient to supply a city of a million and a half people, get their final checkup during outfitting. Her communications system of 400 dial phones and 1,900 sound-powered battle telephones help make her a highly coordinated working unit. She will be fitted with plumbing and water storage sufficient to care for living spaces, galleys and laundries for over 3,000 men. Not to mention the shops, photo labs, and air conditioning units in remote places. There are no portholes on this ship. She can be sealed for protection against lethal exterior air or gases. Although there's enough air conditioning installed to serve two Empire State buildings, 3,500 tons of it. What the Navy calls ship habitability has developed some new departures in outfitting living spaces. All birthing spaces for the entire crew are air conditioned. Each compartment is accommodated with a recreation area with tables and chairs for writing letters or reading. Over a thousand of her crew will sleep in the new modular Pullman type bunks on foam rubber mattresses and have individual ventilation and fluorescent lighting. Deep down in the vitals of the big ship, the boys who checked the forestall's gauges and control her engines will be working in glass enclosed air conditioned cubicles. Up above, on the big hangar deck, big enough to enclose two and one half football fields, will be nested her brood of 100 planes. Interceptors, fighters, and patrol craft. Elevator platforms, too, and their lifting machinery are now installed and adjusted. All four of them ready to shuttle planes topside at a hitherto unbelievable rate. Five deck levels above the flight deck, the island structure has been fitted out inside with noise resisting materials to assure protection from freaks and whines of revving jets. For this is the operations tower and nerve center of the ship, yes of the task force which she will command. Spiked by radar detection gear, the island with its advantages of height for the control of aircraft is an operational necessity. Far into the night, outfitting proceeds and checks are made on each last detailed installation. Finally, the engineers and ship building supervisors give the word that she's ready for her sea trials. Smoothly and majestically, she heads out to deep water. This will be the ship's first real performance test, a check out on her coordination, endurance, and the sensitivity of her responses. On the bridge, the builder skipper, her first Navy skipper and the members of the trial board, all thinking, how will she measure up? How will she behave? It is now in this series of trials that all the planning, all the expert's calculations, all the man hours of skilled craftsmanship, and the hopes of those who watched her grow will really be tested. During the three-day trial run, she will be submitted to all sorts of tests. Steering, a stern endurance, boiler overload, anchor windlass, catapult, and many more. Gradually, her engines are eased into a build-up of power. First at one-third speed, then at two-thirds, hours of power build-up now. Will she stand up to the demand? What if she doesn't? Well, that's what the tests are for. She's as tough as any. Now comes the captain's order. All engines ahead. Whoa! 59,000 tons of steel plowing through at better than 40 miles per hour. 200,000 horses pushing the props at full power, determined and resolute. Deep inside, 30 feet below her waterline, the fellows in the machinery spaces can't see the ship's surge against the oncoming sea. But they know better than anyone how fast she's going. Their gauges show how smoothly she stepped ahead when they gave her full throttle. And topside, a feeling of confidence and assurance has replaced concern. Homeward bound, the trials were a clean sweep, and now, commissioning, the climax to the story of her building. The Navy's seal of acceptance on this ship and of the labor of free men who brought her into being. Worthy of the name of one of the nation's most dedicated naval leaders. This is their ship now. The mightiest warship of the oceans. She belongs to all the people. The free people. And she will defend them in time of trouble.