NEW ICEBREAKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 3, 4 July 1938, Page 8

NEW ICEBREAKERS

BUILDING BY SOVIET

The construction of two of the largest ice-breakers in the world — named Joseph Stalin and the Lazar Kaganovitch—is nearing completion in Leningrad shipyards, says the "New York Times." After tests of the engines, winches, pumps, and other mechanical parts, the ice-breakers will make brief sea tests and then go to the relief of icebound Soviet ships in the Arctic Ocean. >

Those ships include half of the Soviet Union's large fleet of Arctic freighters, carrying coal and other necessities for Arctic stations and virtually all of the Soviet ice-breakers. Many passengers, including women and children, are marooned on them.

The mismanagement causing these difficulties were excoriated by the Government recently, with accusations of wrecking and a demand that the Northern Sea Route Administration should swiftly straighten out its work. This caused reports that Professor Otto Schmidt, head of the administration, was in disgrace. Professor Schmidt, however, introduced the Papanin group of icefloe scientists when they addressed a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, and he recently also appeared at the opera.

The new ice-breakers are equipped with catapults for launching planes, which will collaborate in relief of the stranded ships and the regular work of guiding freighters through the North-East Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. ' '