ARMY & NAVY: Blame

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After every disaster there are always the exasperating inquiries, the morbid inspections, the fixing of the blame. . . .

One night almost a year ago, the 3,000 ton freighter City of Rome towered over the gashed, sinking hulk of the S-51. Thirty of the crew died beneath the waves of Long Island Sound; 24 of them had swallowed the inky brine which swirled within the submarine, finally, the ghoul ship was raised from the ocean floor (TIME, July 5 et seq.) ; now the 24 sleep in Arlington Cemetery.

The Navy Board of Inquiry, soon after the crash, said that the S-51 had the right of way on that September night, that the City of Rome had not obeyed navigation laws. Last week, the Boston Board of Steamship Inspectors suspended for nine months the licenses of Captain John Diehl and Third Mate Timothy L. Dreyer of the City of Rome; blamed both the freighter and the submarine.