William Francis then sent her a dozen red roses and a note praising “the only woman in the world who can keep her mouth closed.”11
Back at his office, Gibbs had carefully studied the innovative new engine design pioneered by German engineers during the late 1920s: high-pressure, high-temperature turbines. Gibbs believed enlarged versions of this improved turbine engine, built and designed by American manufacturers, would work nicely in the four small Santas, and he found a shipyard that could do the work. The boilers could superheat the steam to 743 degrees and pressurize it to 375 pounds per square inch, giving the ships a service speed of about 20 knots. The compact American turbines would not just free up space for cargo, but also be more fuel efficient than the turbo-electric drive Ferris had used on Morro Castle.12
News of the well-designed Santas had spread, and the U.S. Navy took notice. For the naval brass, the appearance of the Grace Line ships could not have been more perfectly timed. By 1933, as Germany installed a Nazi government and Japan marched into Manchuria, the need for a new American Navy had become increasing evident. The Navy was eager to expand and update its aging fleet. And in the White House was a president whose understanding of naval requirements could be counted on. Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that, like dams and bridges, new naval vessels provided both a clear public benefit—national defense—and the jobs Americans so urgently needed.
Among “New Navy” advocates, there was no more fervent advocate for the abandonment of the Parsons design than the combative Vice Admiral Harold Bowen, the guiding light of the Navy’s Bureau of Engineering. Early in his career, Bowen had experienced faulty naval technology when he was chief engineer of the battleship USS Arizona, built in 1916 with geared turbines based on the British model. Bowen was furious that the battleship could not make a single voyage without the engines breaking down. He also joked that the ship’s engines “should have been put in a museum to show young engineers what turbines looked like before the development of the Curtis (American) turbine and before we knew how to cut reduction gears.”13
For Bowen, it was almost criminal that American naval development was held hostage by conservative shipyards and their reluctance to risk profit margins to work with American suppliers. These Navy contractors were, in his words, “totally dependent upon Parsons, Ltd., for research in engineering, which at this time reflected the inbred conservatism of British engineering.”14
Like William Francis Gibbs, Admiral Bowen thought that America’s big industrial corporations could design and build much better propulsion systems for American naval vessels. General Electric and Westinghouse had developed turbines well suited for high-pressure steam, “characterized by their high speed, small size, and small number of parts… adaptable to the highest steam temperatures contemplated, [they] were very rugged, and free from distortion.” When paired with the now-perfected double reduction gears, like those Gibbs & Cox used in the four Santaships, Bowen believed, the resulting naval vessels could outrun and outcruise anything afloat.15 When he saw the Santas, he knew their designer offered something America needed. “These vessels,” Bowen said, “embodied engineering practices far in advance of anything that had ever been attempted in the U.S. Navy.”16
President Roosevelt’s massive Navy rebuilding program became a reality. Bowen’s friend Admiral Samuel M. Robinson, chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Engineering, pushed for the use of the new engines, in a new class of destroyers. Going with tried-and-true Navy relationships, he selected United Dry Docks of Staten Island to design and build them. But the company balked at the immense and unfamiliar technical work involved. They approached Gibbs & Cox.
“United Drydocks came to us and asked us whether we would undertake the technical work, supervision of the technical work, for them if they obtained a destroyer to build,” Gibbs recalled later. “We told them we were glad to do that on condition that the Navy would welcome an outside firm in the industry.”17
Destroyers were among the leanest and meanest ships in the fleet. A typical destroyer was only about 350 feet long and of just 1,500 tons (one-thirtieth the gross tonnage of a big transatlantic liner). At sea, they protected battleships, cruisers, and troopships from enemy vessels, usually submarines. Because its job was to circle slower vessels to protect them, a destroyer needed a short turning radius, along with speed and maneuverability.
Naval work was unchartered waters for Gibbs & Cox. The firm had just lost their most valued naval advisor. Shortly after the completion of the Grace liners in 1932, Admiral Taylor was struck down by a stroke at the age of sixty-eight and rendered a complete invalid.18 Gibbs was devastated at the loss of his surrogate father, and the greatest supporter of his yet-unrealized superliner project. “During our years of association and after his illness,” he wrote, “he had endeared himself to us all.” Gibbs saw in Taylor not only vast technical skill, but intuition, courtesy, and consideration for others. “My brother and I counted on him as our best friend and wisest counsel.”19 Taylor would die eight years later.
Gibbs had no choice but to carry on without his mentor’s help. “I only knew one naval officer at the time, I think, Admiral Robinson, who was then Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair,” Gibbs recalled. As it turned out, Robinson was just the right person to know, and his subordinate Admiral Bowen was eager to work with the Gibbs brothers because of their experience with the new engines. Robinson’s decision meant that Gibbs & Cox was going to have a future.20
The final contract called for Gibbs & Cox to design a distinct new class of destroyers, to be named for Alfred Thayer Mahan, the father of American sea-power strategy. Sixteen vessels were to be built, a massive amount of work, and Gibbs & Cox’s Depression-era cutbacks had left it short of staff. “Our office was small,” Gibbs recalled; “the only thing we could do was to give our technical aid in guiding such projects.”21 The Navy agreed that its own staff would prepare basic plans of the ships, which Gibbs & Cox’s technical staff would turn into “working plans” to guide construction at United Dry Docks.
At Admiral Bowen’s invitation, Gibbs took a train to Washington to make a presentation on the principles of high-pressure, high-temperature steam at the Bureau of Construction, headed by Vice Admiral Emory S. Land. Gibbs talked for five hours about how the new propulsion system would shrink engine room space, improve fuel economy, and increase a destroyer’s cruising radius.
Key to these advantages was the rapid revolution of the turbines made possible by the very hot, pressurized steam. As the revolutions increase, Gibbs pointed out, the size of the machine can come down.
If a large Parsons turbine is subjected to such pressure and temperature, Gibbs explained, “the whole thing expanded, causing the rotor blades to rub against the casing and the bearings to wear out.” But the small, high-speed turbine Gibbs favored “has very little expansion. The result is that it is extraordinarily reliable.”22
Gibbs almost certainly discussed his designs with President Roosevelt. Few written communications survive between the two men. But the commonalities between their lives and interests are remarkable, not least their love of ships. FDR was four years older than Gibbs, but both went to Harvard, both attended Columbia Law School, both were part of New York social and business circles, and both had an intense interest in naval architecture and maritime history. An avid sailor since his youth, the president was also a big reader of naval publications and a passionate model ship builder. At least one Gibbs & Cox employee, William Garzke Jr., remembered that there had been numerous telephone conversations between the two men. “I am positive that the two of them knew each other and talked about their interests in ships,” he recalled. “It remained off the record for fear of favoritism.”23