NAVY: Ship News

The U.S. Navy's newest battleship touched water last week. Twenty-three months after her keel was laid at Camden, N.J., four months ahead of contract schedule, the great hull of the U.S.S. South Dakota slid, smoking, down greased ways and smacked the Delaware River. In ordinary times, another year would pass before the hull became a ship with all her armor, engines, guns. Now the Navy hopes that New York Shipbuilding Corp. can have the South Dakota ready to commission next January.

That the South Dakota and her two 35,000-ton, $70,000,000 sisters are the world's finest, Secretary of the Navy Knox...