EVERYONE will agree that the training of a destroyer’s engineer force in practical engineering battle casualties is essential. More than this, it is required by the spirit of our regulations if not by the letter. But is it given the attention, the thought, the actual time which it merits? Is it not instead rather looked upon as a necessary evil to be avoided as conveniently as possible? In many instances does it not exist in the minds of engineer officers only hazily in the limbo of things which one is always going to do sometime? Do commanding officers, having their attention fully occupied with gunnery, torpedoes, and the tactics of search, scouting, and destroyer employment, in addition to normal routine, often think of it unless their engineers bring it to their attention? Does not the employment schedule always interfere with such practical training underway?
On consideration, why should especial emphasis be placed upon drill in actually handling engineering battle casualties? Because, first, with most of our destroyer installations, a well-drilled engineer crew can keep its ship in line of battle in spite of bad casualties, or at the worst can prevent her from drifting helplessly into her mates or into the enemy gunfire—barring complete wreckage to all boilers or to all turbines; and second, because the engineer officer being usually the third in command and experience will doubtlessly find that his battle station will eventually, if not in the beginning of battle, be other than below.
That it is entirely practicable to have a reliable destroyer engineer crew handle its plant without the immediate supervision of its chief is proved daily at sea in the absence of commissioned or warrant engineer watch officers below. If war were declared tomorrow and it became necessary to man our entire destroyer force, the experienced officer personnel would be scant, and the engineer officer would probably find himself aloft helping to fight the ship in battle. If the engineer personnel of all of our destroyers in active commission are perfectly indoctrinated and competent in the actual handling of battle casualties the destroyer arm has taken a long step toward attainment of true battle efficiency.
Of the various accounts and stories of the Battle of Jutland, one which appeals greatly to the imagination is that describing the “burning torches and funeral pyres drifting past in the night.” The passage in quotation marks is an inexact quotation from a German account of what the Germans did to British destroyers that fouled their battle line during the night retreat—probably worth less than most accounts, but still very expressive of what it means to a destroyer to have shells come tearing through fire-rooms, oil tanks, or engine rooms. Also there are records of that battle which show that badly plugged destroyers limped off to safety. We have the case of our own Shaw which steamed, stern-to, a long way to port after a nasty collision.
The destroyer engineer; even though he have a sluggish imagination, if he sit in the quiet of his stateroom at night and ponder these things, a bit will unquestionably wonder what he should do if a shell burst his starboard main steam line in the forward fire-room. Well, what should he do? And suppose, to make matters worse, a certain section of his engine-room auxiliary steam line had gone also. What do? The more he sits and thinks of the harrowing casualties that could happen to cause not only death to his engineers but reduction in speed, or complete and entire breakdown and helplessness, the more he realizes the necessity for a smart “black-gang” who know, every man jack of them, from chief petty officer to fireman third class, the answer to every casualty that can be met. He begins to write down every casualty to boilers, steam and water lines that he can think of. Opposite he puts down the answer, for has he not made 28 plus knots on two kettles, and once because the port Kingsbury thrust threatened to strip his h.p. engine, didn’t he make 20 knots on the starboard screw with ennui and precision and keep the ship in formation? But what is the answer when both main steam lines are gone yet there still remain some boilers with steam and the necessary auxiliaries? He is not sure. So he goes down to the engine room and right enough he finds that by closing this and opening that he can make all the speed that the auxiliary steam line will permit. How much speed would that be? He doesn’t know, and he cannot find out except by actual trial.
It is an interesting subject. He finds that there are certain hook-ups, the significance of which he had never really grasped; that there are certain lines whose value in battle he had never fully realized; that there is the subject of communication between fire-rooms, between engine rooms; between engine rooms, firerooms, and bridge. What probably happens when a shell blows the hell out of the forward fireroom? How are the after fireroom and the engine rooms to know exactly? All very interesting, what?
The net result of such pondering should be a list of every conceivable battle casualty that could happen with the appropriate remedies such as they are. Means of communication are of greatest importance—and where communication probably will break down. The symptoms such as steam pressure falling, and so forth, should be studied. In doing all of this it is well not to be cursed with a too vivid imagination for there are, alas, so very many casualties which cannot be answered at all.
With his battle casualty scheme thoroughly worked out, the engineer then takes his black-gang into his confidence and begins to find out how extraordinarily ignorant of the fireroom leads the engine room people are, and how very little the fireroom people know about the engine room. They know enough for every day work, to be sure, but the nicest points of the game they’ve missed, for each gang is wrapped up in itself primarily. When all the casualties have been discussed—and it is remarkable the interest that will be awakened—drills are held at anchor. Then the interest gradually subsides. Make-believe does very well for a time, but in the long run no more benefit accrues from make-believe drill in engineering casualties than from make-believe target practice.
So the engineer goes to the skipper and if the skipper be wise something like this will happen. Whenever on independent duty and time permits, engineering casualties are held while underway. The engineer force are all on their battle stations. All clocks and watches are checked and set together. The engineer officer goes below and springs his casualties. Where possible, without any spoken word, a valve is closed and the “symptoms” begin to speak for themselves. Action becomes imperative. Boilers are cut in and out. Every hook-up is actually used. Time studies of casualties and communications are as beneficial here as in gunnery, and the time of the casualty, time of notification to bridge, and the time of “ready to go ahead” are taken. It is discovered that the ship can make 12 knots, or whatever it may be, by taking steam only through the auxiliary steam line to the port engine and so forth. It is all very interesting and everybody has had a good time, even the quartermaster who reports gravely to the officer-of-the-deck that the after fireroom is on fire and has to be abandoned, all except the engineer officer, who when it is over begins to wonder what effect his little game will have on “form H” and the engineering competition.
Aye there’s the rub. It costs him much laborious and tedious work to figure out his conditions and his speeds, and when it is over he has averaged much too little speed for the gallons of oil burned. Though he has contributed in no mean way to training his department for battle efficiency, his ship, if such exercises are indulged in too frequently, will have a lower multiple than her sisters, other factors being equal.
The world is divided into two types of people. There’s “them that do and them that don’t.” Ships are the same way. But the above scheme as outlined is practicable. It was carried out under a recent squadron commander on the Asiatic station. It should be required by all squadron commanders not only of destroyers, but of other classes of unarmored vessels. It is required of commanding officers by the spirit of our regulations, yet how often is it honestly tackled in the way it should be? Having been away from the service afloat for the past two years the writer can only say that it was not being done in his time.
Would it not be feasible to embody in the rules for engineering performances, certain allowances for engineering battle casualty drills and then, to clinch the matter, require all vessels upon completion of their annual full power trials to go through all conceivable battle casualties that can actually be handled, and receive a merit therefor? Such a scheme would tend to produce highest caliber engine and fireroom crews. In destroyer captains at least, it would breed greater confidence in both ordinary service and battle conditions, and it would permit them without qualms to assign engineer officers on the top side in battle where our personnel situation will probably in any case require them. Last but not least, there will be fewer “burning torches and funeral pyres” cluttering up no man’s land between the battle lines.