“The Ocean is no Place for Amateurs.”
Like a typhoon the recent storm of inquiry and publicity has spent itself upon the Navy and has laid it naked before the country. As a result of this naval airing, opinions have doubtless been formed concerning the character and well-being of the Navy.
A conception of the true state of affairs will be derived not from a casual glance at a newspaper, but from the liberal exercise of one’s reasoning faculties, based upon mature study and upon an unprejudiced delineation of the right and wrong of things.
In this day of newspaper syndicates—with interests not solely connected with news—it is well that the citizen should stop and think. The old Roman senator’s answer to “Who is man?” is particularly apropos of this day and age: “Man,” he said, “is one who thinks.”
To the citizen who thinks, it should be noted that to achieve the hitherto impossible in many fields of endeavor constituted a large part of the American Navy’s log for 1925. His navy is an ambitious navy. It is typically American. The spirit to achieve is general throughout the service; on the sea, over the sea, and beneath the sea, and also in laboratory, navy yard, drafting room, and office. We little realize what is really accomplished in the aggregate- As a huge laboratory for the development of science and engineering in all its fields, the American Navy holds a preeminent position. The price we are obliged to pay from time to time is the unforeseen sacrifice in men and money. Our modern implements are potentially dangerous. To develop them to their maximum possible use leads us into unexplored fields and entails risks—risks which the naval personnel recognizes and accepts as part of the job.
The thinking citizen must also realize that the naval personnel constitutes a very strong organization in itself. Loyalty and integrity of purpose are undisputed qualities. During the past storm of controversy, the naval personnel has been charged before the people with negligence, corruption, and so forth. It has withstood the severest and most far-reaching public trial in history, and withal, a corpus delicti was not established. The verdict handed down by its jurors was—“not guilty.”
It has been a trying year, and a sad year. We have lost beloved shipmates, classmates, and friends. We have witnessed the attempts made to divide the Navy against itself, to belittle the experience,, ability, and even the integrity of those of high command and responsibility. We have witnessed an attempted dramatization of our national defense. In all, it was a storm that wreaked its fury upon the very bulkheads of the Navy, the loyalty and integrity of its personnel. Fortunately for our air arm, fortunately for the Navy, the bulkheads were strong.
Having weathered the past storm fairly successfully, where are we now? What is our position? What course shall we take or be forced to take?
In the first place, in view of our casualties, shall we slow down and accept a policy of “safety first,” or shall we still accept old Moltke’s motto—“First weigh, then venture”? There is but one answer in the mind of the navy personnel—“Proceed.”
After the smoke of the aerial bombardment of 1925 has cleared away, there is left to us and to posterity some dozens of volumes of evidence, not to mention the various and diversified opinions of courts, boards, committees, and the written word of both enlightened and unenlightened individuals. We find in our brain wreckage after the storm, as we enter the year 1926, a few generally accepted conclusions:
- That our firesides are not in immediate danger from an enemy air raid.
- That naval aviation has not been totally without merit.
- That retrogression has not set in.
- That we still need a fleet composed of aircraft, surface craft, and sub-surface craft.
- That discipline, loyalty, knowledge, and common sense are indispensable to our Navy.
- That we really ought to stop talking and concentrate upon more productive labors.
Notwithstanding the above, the air around Washington is still charged with a latent and perplexing ether—call it nerves. There is not much tangible consensus of opinion as to what action is really vital or necessary. But the nervous ones are clamoring for some opiate, good or bad, to alleviate the tension. In this overcharged atmosphere the true and serious question is not what is the Navy going to do for aviation, but rather what is aviation in the hands of an overwrought Congress about to do to the Navy.
No less than two public tribunals have attempted to diagnose the ailments of naval aviation and to prescribe medicine in the form of new legislation, to be taken by the Navy to develop properly this organ. There is considerable conflict in the prescriptions suggested. A positive and consistent diagnosis is not available. The question that now comes to mind is, what would be the pathological reaction of the Navy as well as its important organ, aviation, if, in a dash of overwrought nerves, the body, navy, were obliged to swallow the concocted legislative pills of any one board or both. If such a thing were probable (we trust that it is not), it might readily become a case of an overdeveloped organ killing the body from which it derives nourishment. In other words, a tumor.
The doctors have, in their wiser moments, prescribed certain exercises which the Navy may have overlooked, regarding aviation development. Assuming that administrative exercise is much more healthy and less objectionable in the long run than legislative medicine, would it not be the better and safer course to let the Navy carry out the program of calisthenics suggested, together with others which will doubtless be forthcoming from the Navy itself?
In this day of expert advisers, and naval diagnosticians, it is not out of place to call particular attention to a class of naval men who, though not readily discernible at first glance, nevertheless do exist. For the sake of a name, we will rate them under the title of “Qualified Naval Officers.” To this class of men, such words and phrases as loyalty up, loyalty down, loyal initiative, discipline, esprit de corps, unity of command, mission and decision, authority and responsibility, coordinated action, the good of the service, aviation for the fleet, the fleet for aviation, submarines for the fleet, the fleet for submarines, and so forth, all have a distinct, and sacred meaning throughout their naval life. They are men who stand not alone by virtue of rank, but in the hearts and minds of their contemporaries, by virtue of what they know and do. Knowledge and common sense constitute their compass. They possess no overdeveloped complex or ambition. They are not self-sufficient. They admit the inability to see through a submarine periscope or an airplane bomb sight from the bridge of a battleship, and contrariwise, the inability of any one to see through a conning tower peephole from an airplane or submarine. They worship at the shrines of knowledge and sincerity of purpose. They perform a full day’s work. They go abroad from their appointed job in order to keep abreast of the times in naval developments. They study the Navy as a coach does a football team. As particularly evidenced during the past year, the percentage of the qualified naval officer as described above, is as large in the air and staff arms of our Navy as it is in the line. Fortunately, or unfortunately, these men are not particularly skilled in witness stand tactics. They are toilers of the sea, not sea lawyers.
The country in the past, particularly in time of war, has pinned its faith on these men and that faith has been justified. If, despite the clamorings of the Navy’s busybodies, the country can see fit to continue that faith, and permit the Navy to work out its aerial salvation, in its appointed and duly constituted way, the Navy and naval aviation together as one will continue efficient, useful, strong, and productive of results. If, on the other hand, there is legislated into being a corps or a class of superimposed individuals, then the day and the usefulness of the so-called qualified naval officer is past.
Let us weigh, then venture, over the sea, on the sea, and under the sea, together.