Aerial Alert at Sea

Alert for aerial attack, men raced across the deck of the carrier "Independence" one day last week—in a game of touch football. A grimmer task lay ahead for them but for the moment at least those whose job it was to guard the nation found time for play.

With four acres of deck space, the 4,142 men of the "Independence" have plenty of room for games. Last week, as the carrier steamed south on the orders of President Kennedy to join other units of the Atlantic Fleet in this country's firm answer to the Soviet buildup in Cuba, they played volleyball, fished off the sponson deck for jacks or, like this sailor, drove plastic golf balls down long steel fairways.

TWO PHOTOS

STUART SMITH