The Buffalo Bulletin

LAST "EAGLE" LAUNCHED AT FORD SHIP YARD
500 Ford Bodies Daily to be Made In Plant.
Ford "Eagle" Boat Number Sixty the last one to be built by the Ford Motor Company under the stipulations of its war-time contract with the Navy Department was launched at the River Rouge (Detroit) yard August 17th, at 3:30 p. m., and the long assembling building which is third of a mile long and housed twenty-one of the submarine chasers at time. is already being transferred into a body building plant with a proposed output of 500 bodies daily.
Ford officials, workers, sailors and many invited guests witnessed the launching. Number Sixty was dressed with flags and bunting and as it found its level in the Rouge and floated free from the railroad tracks which had carried it onto the elevator-like launching table, the factory whistle took part in the ceremony by blowing sixty blasts-one for each boat launched at the Ford yard.
Twenty-five "Eagles" have already been commissioned by the Navy. and it is expected that the remaining boats will be entirely completed by November 1st. One thing which greatly prolonged the work was the changes made in the outfitting of the boats shortly after the armistice was signed. As rapidly as the "Eagles" are commissioned, they are joining different squadrons of the U. S. fleet---Six of the Ford boats are going to the Philippines to replace six old destroyers and gunboats; another squadron will join the International Patrol off the coast of China; "Eagles" 1, 2 and 3 are now doing patrol duty adjacent to Archangel, Russia, and it is quite probable that a small fleet will be sent to Italy The "Eagles" are designed particularly to carry the submarine detecting devices or "listeners," depth bomb projectors and three inch guns with which to combat the U-boat once it has been located by the "listener.". They are practically noiseless in operation, are light, speedy, and so constructed that a quick get-away is possible-it being necessary to often stop to "listen" while chasing down a detected sub.
Had the submarine destroyers been called into actual service -which only the signing of the armistice prevented -they would have operated in flotillas of three.
Commander Nicholas, stationed at the Rouge yard, said he knew of no statement or report issued by the Navy Department relative to the merits of the Eagles, but that they have performed remarkably well on their trial trips and all tests given them just before leaving the Ford yard. And that had they been called into actual service, they would have proven a very formidable enemy to the submarines.
-Buy W. S. S.