Contract for Cramp

Great news came last week to Philadelphia's dusty, rusting Cramp shipyards on the Delaware River, which built wooden clippers, Civil War ironclads, World War I destroyers. The recently reorganized, refinanced Cramp Shipbuilding Co. (TIME, Sept. 23) got a $113,822,000 contract to build six cruisers for the U. S. Navy's second-ocean fleet, an additional $9,500,000 to rehabilitate and expand the abandoned yards.

The Navy needed all the shipyard space it could find for the 17 battleships, 48 cruisers, 166 destroyers on its construction schedule. The measure of the Navy's need was the fact that cruisers take 32 to 33 months to build. Cramp's will be in shape to begin laying keels next August, will need 18 months to complete its reconditioning.

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