GREAT BRITAIN: Malicious Damage

H.M.S. Urania, a 1,710-ton World War II destroyer, lay at a Liverpool dock, undergoing conversion that would turn her into a fast, light, submarine-killing frigate. Her steel superstructures were being replaced with aluminum and she was being equipped with Britain's new, secret "Limbo" sub-finder, a sort of electronic bulldog that locates and "locks on" to a submarine until it can be destroyed. One afternoon, when the last work shift left the Urania, the security patrol combed her and found nothing amiss. She was floodlit, and two guards stayed, as usual, in a hut by a gangplank. But in the...