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could pull herself off the beach. When the winches began to turn, the anchor failed to grasp the bottom of the lake, but continued to pull itself to the vessel. On board were about 200 dignitaries, including two rear admirals. It took the big tug, the John Roen IV, one of the most powerful tugs on the lakes, to pull her off. Taunts of the "Islanders" did not make the stranded company on board any happier! In 1953, Robert A. Ackerman replaced Mr. Gerhauser who had become president in 1928. In 1957 Edmund Q. Sylvester, who had gained financial control of the firm several years earlier, succeeded Mr. Ackerman. In 1962, upon Mr. Ackerman's resignation, William H. Jory, former senior vice-president of the Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Baltimore, Maryland, was made president. In 1961, under Mr. Jory and William F. Rapprich, manager of the Cleveland-Cliffs Steamship Company, an experiment at the Lorain yard proved successful. An obsolete ocean tanker, the Chiwawa, was cut in half. A mid-body was built by the Schlieker-Werft Company in Hamburg, Germany, and towed across the Atlantic, up the St. Lawrence Seaway, to Lorain. There the two ends of the older vessel were joined to either end of the mid-body and the "new" ship christened the Walter A. Sterling. Cleveland-Cliffs saved nearly $1 million in this operation. Protective federal laws governing shipbuilding soon closed this loophole, but not before the M. A. Hanna Company had "jumbo-ized" the Paul H. Carnahan, also at Lorain. The most recent acquisitions of American Ship Building were the purchase of the Sportsman's Dry Submarine Company of Los Angeles, California, in 1962, and the floating dry dock and properties at Ashtabula, Ohio, of the Great Lakes Engineering Company, in 1961. With the latter acquisition American Ship Building is the only major shipbuilding company on the south shore of Lake Erie. It would be an almost impossible task to list the ships built in the Ohio yards of American Ship Building Company in this paper. The Lorain yard numbers began with #300 (William Castle Rhodes). One hundred hulls were built in this series, then in 1912 the series jumped to #700 (tank barge S. O. Co. No. 90). By 1958, the yard numbers had reached #873 (Wood County). The Cleveland yard numbers began at #400 (William P. Palmer) and by 1923 had reached #496 (Charles M. Schwab). From that point until 1945, the numbers became somewhat confused, but an additional twenty-five vessels were launched. 106