European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 25, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 4 the stars and stripes thursday May 25,1989 pressing ahead with car production a Crane Al the port of Cleveland left photo Lowers a japanese made Metal stamping press onto a huge trailer. The 100-ton press was sent to the Honda car Plant in Marysville Ohio. At right a trailer hauling the press is parked along the Road after causing traffic to Back up for More than an hour in Cleveland. Memphis to Honor victims of 1 865 Steamboat disaster Memphis Tenn. A the 1865 explosion of the paddle wheel Steamboat Sultana was a disaster to rival the sinking of the titanic. The dead Many of them emaciated from time spent in Confederate prison Camps totalled More than 1,500, but newspapers of the Day gave scant notice. The Hor ror was lost in the greater Gore of the civil War and the assassination of president Lincoln. Until now there had been no Marker Here for the Union soldiers who perished in the Muddy Mississippi. But on sunday a 6-foot Granite Marker will be unveiled in Memphis Elmwood cemetery As a reminder that the Sultana went Down in flames just seven Miles North of the City s downtown riverfront. Built for 300 passengers and a Crew of 76, the steamship was carrying More than 2,300 people plus 100 horses and mules when three of its four boiler exploded at 2 . On april 27,1865. Jerry Potter a Memphis lawyer who has researched the disaster for a dozen years and is writing a Book on it said Union officers May have overloaded the pad die Wheeler to inflate troop transport payments. There were two other steamboats that were trying to get a portion of the men. The Only explanation have been Able to uncover for Why the Sultana got them All is bribery Potter said. Potter and Hugh Berryman. A forensic pathologist at the University of Tennessee in Memphis estimated the death toll at 1,547, 44 More than the number of people lost when the Ocean liner titanic hit an iceberg and Sank in the North Atlantic in 1912. Other counts of the Sultana victims have put the total Between 1,400 and 1,450, but Berryman said those estimates failed to include one of three train loads of soldiers who boarded at Vicksburg miss. The Monument financed by three Memphis Resi dents will be the second of two major markers to the disaster. The other in Knoxville was put up in 1916 by Sultana survivors who raised Money for the Monu ment. Researching the disaster has been difficult because newspapers of the Day were still primarily concerned with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln two weeks earlier and with the end of the War. It was just lost to history because of the other events that were going on at the time Berryman said. The Mississippi has shifted ils course since the sul Tana went Down and the Steamboat s remains rest now under a soybean Field about a mile cast of the River in Arkansas Potter said. Excavating the boat could Cost hundreds of thou Sands of dollars and would produce Little of Commer Cial value since the wreck was salvaged two months after it burned he said. Berryman who wrote a paper on the Sultana last year for the journal of forensic sciences said survivors told of watching dozens of victims drown in Masse hands clasped together As they grappled for survival. Many of these victims had been through some of the roughest Battles in the War and those experiences paled in comparison to what they went through that night he said. Most of the victims had recently been freed from prison Camps in Alabama and were headed North to be released from the army. Many were crowded onto two decks directly Over the paddle Wheeler s four 18-foot boilers one of which had developed a leak that was hastily repaired. When one of the boilers blew setting off two others the upper decks collapsed forming a funnel that dumped dozens of victims into the fire Berryman said. The 263-foot boat made of Wood and covered with flammable paint was equipped with 76 life jackets. Many of the survivors also escaped by clinging to de Bris. One survivor floated to Shore on a dead mule. The army investigated the disaster and a Captain in charge of loading the troops at Vicksburg was found guilty of mishandling his duties. His conviction was overturned on Appeal however and he was honorable discharged. Software scarce for smart weapons officer says by the Cox news service Dayton Ohio America s smart Stealthy wonder weapons face a growing shortage of the computer instructions that make them work the air Force s development and acquisition chief said  we can process a million lines of computer code in the same time that we could process one line 25 years ago said Gen. Bernard p. Randolph head of the air Force systems come. But today we can produce Only 13 lines of code inthe same time that it took us to produce one line 25 years ago. The arithmetic does t add up folks. It says we be got a big  spoke Al the opening of the we Klong National aerospace electronics conference which Bills itself As the largest of ils kind in the nation. The con Ference s 70 exhibits and 400 technical papers focus on military systems that Are developed and acquired by the com Mand s aeronautical systems division at nearby Wright Patterson fab. The Scarcity of software is a result of Success the increasing demand for Ever smaller cheaper and More powerful computer chips used in wristwatches calculators and Home appliances. Computers and the software that makes them work have become essential components of new weapons. In 1980, the defense department spent $3 billion on software. In 1990. We re going to spend $30 billion on soft Ware Randolph said. The fact is the Industry right now is maxed out in its ability to handle the software  Bia bomber developed in the 1970s, had 500,000 lines of computer code the four Star general said. The bib Rede signed in the 1980s, had .5  More Complex is the b-2 stealth bomber a tailless flying Wing air plane that will depend on computerized flight controls to keep it from crashing. Do you know that the b-2 has 200 computers it s got More lines of code on Board than the space shuttle Randolph said. Not All of the growing demand for software is in the air. The advanced tac tical fighter being developed for use in the 1990s will use i million lines of code but Randolph said another 3 million will be needed to support it on the ground. The defense department does t have enough software experts to write Check and update the burgeoning software Randolph said. We simply Are Flat out of  software demand is growing by 25 percent per year but the number of soft Ware experts in the military is growing by Only four percent he said. We re Short at systems command right now. I be Only got about 300 officers who arc software experts and 400 civilians. And i be got about 300 programmers. That ought to Tell you right away that we be got some problems As examples of software related prob lems Randolph singled out the bulb s troubled electronic defense system the c-17 air lifter still in development but facing a software shortage for its computers and the increasingly expensive be Hind schedule modernization Effort for the nation s nuclear attack warning Cen Ter inside Colorado s Cheyenne Moun Tain. Randolph said he is working with the air Force Institute of technology at right Patterson to train More folic cars in computer programming. He has also launched a systems command Effort operation bold stroke to make All of us officers computer  More efforts arc needed he said especially at the stages where require ments arc set and systems designed. You be got to understand where you re going before you can get  Randolph also said More work i needed to improve productivity manage ment and to push software technology to to make the software business an Engi Neering discipline As opposed to an Art form