In the August, 1939, number of the Proceedings of the Naval Institute, Lieutenant Franklin G. Percival, U. S. Navy (Retired), contributed an article titled “Fisher and His Warships.” The short summary of the career of Lord Fisher is sympathetic and accurate, but when the author wanders from historical record and indulges in speculative theories he becomes entangled in a network of errors. It is the object of this short paper to point out a few of these and to expose the fallacies that underlie them.
It should, at the outset, be appreciated that officers who have never held responsible administrative or executive commands are bound to be at a considerable disadvantage when criticizing the labors of those great sea-officers of the British Navy who, 20 to 25 years ago, were either in command of our fleets during the war, or held high office prior to that world-revolutionizing event. So greatly were politics mixed up with the creation of our new Navy, and so great was the conservatism of that service, that men who did not live in those times must be largely incapable of re-creating what for a better word I must call the “atmosphere” that surrounded all naval matters. Writers of today are bound to approach the history of those times with minds imbued with present-day knowledge; moreover, the greater part of the source of their information regarding that now dim past must, of necessity, be from the writings of post-war pundits, much of which is inaccurate and, in most cases, by no means free from personal bias.
A good example of modern-day criticism is to be found in a book written by Commander Frost on the Battle of Jutland; a work of considerable accuracy of detail which bears the stamp of much patient research. The deductions drawn by the author, however, are those which might well be expected from an inexperienced junior in 1935, and not from one who had borne the onus of high naval command in 1916.
To return to Lieutenant Percival’s contribution. If we strip the article of all padding, a gaunt skeleton is exposed of which the following are the major bones:
- The Battle of Jutland showed that the British ships failed to meet the test of battle.
- The battle cruisers should have had the same armor protection as the battleships.
- The Dreadnought should have had the tonnage of the Queen Elizabeth.
- Offensive power was relatively equal in importance to defensive protection.
- Battleships gained little by having a speed superior to their opponents.
- That Sir John Fisher, in spite of having held the appointments of Director of Naval Ordnance; Controller of the Navy; Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard; and Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, had no real knowledge of the requirements of men-of-war.
- The committee appointed to examine the design of the Dreadnought, which was selected from the cream of the scientific, engineering, ship construction, and naval communities of the country, performed its allotted duties in an incompetent manner.
Let us examine each of these assertions.
As regards (1), Lieutenant Percival opens the ball with the statement that it was his intention to seek an answer to the question “Why Fisher’s amazing abilities resulted in a warship design which failed to meet the test of battle?” It is easy to supply the answer to the query; namely, that those warships, taken as a whole, did not fail when they met the test of battle.
To avoid ambiguity, I propose to test the performance of the British vessels in battle by comparing them, class by class, with those of the German Navy.
First let us consider the battleship. None of our battleships, nor any one of those in the German Fleet, was subjected to a knock-out test. The longest battleship engagement was that between 4:40 P.M. and 6:20 p.m., when our 5th Battle Squadron of four battleships was engaged in a running fight with the leading ships, the Konig class, of the High Sea Fleet. As might be expected, the rear ships of our line had to stand the brunt of the attack, with the result that the Warspite, the last ship in the line, had her steering gear disabled. This was the only damage that prevented her continuing in the line of battle. Taking into consideration the concentration of fire and length of time that this action lasted, the result cannot be held to prove the assertion that the Warspite had been badly designed. Rather is it a cause for wonder that even greater damage had not been inflicted, especially when we remember that the stern, probably the most vulnerable part of a ship, was in the case of the Warspite exposed to gunfire, whereas all the German ships presented their bows, probably the part least liable to serious damage.
The only other battleship seriously damaged at the Battle of Jutland was the Marlborough, which was torpedoed by the Wiesbaden at 7:00 p.m., but remained in the line of battle until the following morning. That she was able to do so is good proof of the satisfactory nature of her design. The remainder of the battle fleet suffered no material damage, and therefore can afford no evidence on the point at issue. So far, then, as our battleships were concerned the charge falls to the ground.
I must here mention a fact that has often been overlooked, namely that the German armor-piercing shells were superior to ours in one particular, viz., that they penetrated armor better on oblique impact. Every country can boast superiority in some manufacture. Austria excelled in optical glass. In England our textiles were probably the best in the world. The Germans excelled in steel production, in fact, in the early part of the century they led the world in that industry. For some 10 years before the Great War we had been panting behind in the race, but our manufacturers had never been able to come abreast of their continental rivals in this matter.
Next let us take the battle cruiser. It is not always appreciated that, in one particular, a change in an old-time practice had come about with battle cruiser design. Frigates never took part in battleship actions. In fact, it was a recognized point in naval warfare that a battleship never engaged a frigate unless the latter deliberately forced an encounter. This immunity vanished with the birth of the battle cruiser, since she was given the same caliber of armament as a battleship; yet she had perforce to be more lightly armored so as to be endowed with the requisite speed to carry out her duties. But on account of the similarity of armament she was at an equal disadvantage, so far as protective armor was concerned, whether she fought battleships or ships of her own class.
Let us see what were the reasons for fixing the balance between gun armament, speed, and defensive armor in the three original battle cruisers of the 1905 program. We had at that moment no first- class cruisers so speedy as those which the Germans had put into commission. We had been obliged to subsidize large transatlantic liners with a view to their equipment as cruisers, so as to have vessels of a speed superior to that of the German ships, a most unsatisfactory makeshift. This state of affairs had to be rectified, so a speed of 25 knots was fixed as the least that was desirable in our battle cruisers. The gun armament was based upon two considerations. First, extensive annual maneuvers had shown that it was necessary to have scouting vessels which were sufficiently well armed to force their way through screens of lighter vessels right up to the limit of gun range of the enemy’s battleships. It was essential that our larger scouts should be able to report the numbers and disposition of the enemy’s battle fleet; this they could not do without visual contact. Second, it was felt that vessels endowed with so great a tonnage and speed could, if adequately armed, reinforce the van and rear of the battle fleet in action. It was never visualized that they should, single-handed, engage the enemy’s heavily armored battleships, but they could well lend assistance if such enemy ships were already engaged.
The tonnage of these ships was limited to that to which the politicians would agree. It was useless to put forward a drastic increase. Had this been done, Parliament would have withheld its approval. A figure of some 20,000 tons was a considerable advance in the displacement of a battleship; this was therefore looked on as the safest that could be proposed. Moreover, tonnage was also circumscribed by docking facilities; in fact, one paragraph of the terms of reference to the Design Committee stated that the ships had to be capable of using the existing docking accommodation at Portsmouth, Devonport, Malta, and Gibraltar. The tonnage, speed, and armament having been fixed, the remainder of the available tonnage was devoted to armor protection.
In both British and German battle cruisers armor protection was rightly considered as being of less importance than speed and gun power.
Turning to the behavior of these ships in battle, we find that at the Dogger Bank action, when 5 of our battle cruisers chased 4 German vessels of a like class, the Lion, which led our line, was the only one of our ships to suffer important damage. One of her armor plates was displaced on the armor shelf and a large quantity of water entered the ship, with the result that she was prevented from steaming fast enough to remain in the line of battle. The enemy suffered more severely. The Blucher was sunk and the Seydlitz was so badly damaged that, had the engagement not ended prematurely owing to a mistaken signal, she must inevitably have been sunk in a very short time. So far, therefore, as this action is concerned the British design came out of the ordeal considerably better than the German.
It must here be remarked that the Seydlitz narrowly escaped disaster from a fire in one of her magazines. It was from this experience that the German Admiralty caused the magazine arrangements of all their large ships to be modified so as to prevent a recurrence of the danger. We were not accorded a similar experience, with the result that at Jutland the magazines of all our capital ships, both battleships and battle cruisers, were in a decidedly unsafe condition.
Now for the behavior of the battle cruisers at Jutland. In the fight we lost three and the Germans lost one. The Lutzow was sunk and the Seydlitz beached to prevent loss. The reason for the loss of the British cruisers was the explosion of a magazine in every case. It is impossible to say whether these explosions were due to a shell bursting in the turrets, or a shell bursting in the vicinity of the handing room. It is improbable that the magazine itself was penetrated. Had we been vouchsafed the same experience as that given to the Seydlitz at the Dogger Bank, it is highly probable that these ships would not have been lost. The ignition of propellant charges, which was the cause of the loss of our vessels, occurred also on board several of the German battle cruisers, notably the Derfflinger and Seydlitz. Gunnery Lieutenant Von Hase has written a most vivid description of the fight between our battleships and the German battle cruisers, 7.10 to 7.18 p.m. After recounting how the two after turrets of his ship, the Derfflinger, had been penetrated by shell and the charges set on fire “as far down as the handing room,” after which “huge flames mingled with yellow smoke were now soaring skywards from both after turrets, two ghastly funeral torches . . .”; he turns to the other ships:
The Lutzow was out of sight—the burning ship had vanished amidst haze and smoke. The Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann had been severely punished, the Seydlitz worst of all. In her case, loo, flames to the height of a house were shooting up from one turret. Every ship was on fire. The Seydlitz was heavily down by the bow.
It is true that these ships were then under the fire of our battleships, and not that of our battle cruisers. This however only affected the volume of fire to which they were subjected. The caliber of the guns would in both cases have been the same. The defensive armor of these ships does not appear to have been any more effective than that of our battle cruisers in keeping out heavy caliber shell. Summing up, our battle cruisers came out of their trying ordeal quite as well as did the German ships of the same class.
As regards our armored cruisers, one remark only is necessary. They should never have been attached to the Grand Fleet. They were invaluable on foreign stations, yet quite useless when attached to a battle fleet; their speed was insufficient and their armament was only fit to engage vessels of a similar class.
The light cruisers did well. We lost none, but the Germans lost 3 from various causes.
It will be seen from the above analysis that Lieutenant Percival’s opening contention falls to the ground, as also must his assertion that
Sir John Fisher’s strongly biased views on naval design probably originated in his one-sided experience at the bombardment of Alexandria. . . . Under such circumstances Fisher would naturally conclude that volume of fire sufficed for offense and defense, that activity and gallantry offset a great disparity in protection and that the importance of armor had been greatly exaggerated.
Sir John Fisher was a man who never minced matters when he expressed an opinion, and he expressed a good many, but never any resembling the above. I was intimately associated with Sir John in the Mediterranean, at Portsmouth, at the Admiralty, and as Director of Naval Ordnance, and I can safely say that he never held those views nor any that were in any way similar to them. Lieutenant Percival has failed utterly to grasp the extraordinary and outstanding ability of Sir John Fisher, his grasp of naval matters, and his wonderful capacity of forming a balanced judgment. No one who had ever worked with Fisher would accuse him of confusing the teachings of the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 with the requirements of naval warfare in 1904.
Later on, the design of the Renown, launched in 1895, is called in question. The Renown was an improved Barfleur, intended for the duties of flagship on a distant station. She was a cross between a cruiser and a battleship, an early experimental groping after the design of a battle cruiser. She was never intended to work with a battle fleet. Speed was in her case more important than armor, since it was expected that her only opponents would be first-class cruisers of medium gun armament. It is true that when war with France threatened, Fisher determined to take the Renown over to Gibraltar to join our battle fleets; but I am certain that this intention was prompted by his desire to be present in the main theater of war, and a knowledge that the northwest coast of America would see no fighting, rather than a belief that the Renown was, in reality, well fitted for the line of battle.
After a brief summary of Fisher’s career up to his command of the Mediterranean Fleet, we come to a discussion of Fisher and the tactical board. Let me clear the atmosphere a little. Naval tactics in 1900 were in a state of chaotic flux. We must remember that the accepted battle range was only 3,000 yards; but the torpedo was growing in range and efficiency. There was, at that time, no authoritative decision as to the formation of a fleet for cruising or fighting. It seemed to many officers obvious that, with the wonderful mobility accorded by steam, there should be some means of subdividing a fleet in action that would enable some tactical advantage to be obtained. The single line of battle of sailing ship days appeared to be archaic because sail propulsion was obsolete, and because this formation threw away the inestimable advantage of the mobility accorded by steam propulsion. However, the old formation of line of battle carried the day for two reasons:
First, it was the only formation which ensured the maximum arc of uninterrupted fire to all the ships of a fleet; second, battle range was rapidly increasing, so that the distance apart of the two fleets was becoming so great that subdivision and attempts at envelopment became impossible. The tactics of Nelson at St. Vincent and at Trafalgar could never again be imitated. As late as 1900 very few officers held to the single line ahead formation. I know this because in that year I took part in the War Course held at Greenwich. I frequently took one side of the tactical board and challenged all comers to find any formation superior to that of line ahead. Many tried, but no one succeeded. It cannot be disputed that from the point of view of determining the fighting formation of a fleet, the tactical board was invaluable. Another matter which could be determined by the tactical board was the best cruising formation of the battle fleet and its protecting craft. Still another of its uses was to determine the most satisfactory disposition of the armament of the ships and to bring out the relative advantages or varying excesses of speed of one fleet over another. Further, its use did indirectly bring out the virtue of armor. The use of the tactical board established the axiom that even a small excess of speed enabled the faster fleet to choose the range at which an action would be fought. In other words it showed that the excess speed of only a couple of knots enables a fleet to choose a gun range suitable both to its gun armament and armor. These are points overlooked by Lieutenant Percival, or he would not have made the assertion that the only quality Fisher could demonstrate by the tactical board was speed.
Later on attention is called to Sir John Fisher’s change of view as to the best armament for a battleship, from (1) the smallest large gun and the largest small gun; to (2) that of the largest large gun and the smallest small gun. The reason for the change was the advent of longer battle range. At 3000 yards (1) held good, but at 10,000 yards the advantage lay with (2).
Let us now turn to the Dreadnought Design Committee. Lieutenant Percival is wrong in the assumption that the original design of the Dreadnought was one of twelve 12-inch guns in 3 twin superimposed turrets. The original design was that eventually adopted. Only one modification was introduced, namely, instead of the forward distribution of one turret on the center line and one on each beam being repeated aft, the two beam turrets were abolished and replaced by a single center line turret, making two center line turrets aft. This was due to a suggestion made by Prince Louis of Battenberg, who advanced the old plea that, presumably, the number of British battleships engaged in an action would be greater than that of the opposing fleet, therefore it would be improbable that they would be called on to fight a stern fire action. Incidentally it is interesting to note, as an example of the difficulty of framing forecasts, that the only serious action in which any of our battleships were engaged at Jutland was the stern-fire action fought by the 5th Battle Squadron when running north from 4.45 to 6.15 to join the remainder of the Grand Fleet.
As I worked with Sir John on the design of the Dreadnought at Portsmouth, was his naval assistant when he went to the Admiralty, and was a member (alas, I believe the sole surviving member) of the Design Committee, I can speak with certainty on the subject of the institution and work of that body. Sir John Fisher knew that so novel a design for so large a vessel would meet with virulent opposition. He therefore arranged with Lord Selborne, the First Lord, to appoint a committee of unimpeachable standing in the engineering, shipbuilding, and naval worlds to examine the proposals and place them authoritatively before Parliament and the country. He persuaded his old friend Lord Kelvin to be president of the committee. His lordship accepted; but, being well advanced in years, he did not feel able to lace long meetings. It was therefore arranged for Sir John Fisher to take the chair, and for Professor John Biles to report the result of each meeting to Lord Kelvin, and obtain his opinion and concurrence in the conclusions arrived at.
Eight alternative battleship and 5 cruiser designs were prepared for the committee to discuss. These included armaments of triple gun turrets and of superimposed turrets, as well as modification in the distribution of 2 gun turrets. All these I discussed with Sir John, and I am sure he discussed them with others also, before the committee met. We were in complete agreement that, so far as the battleship was concerned, the Dreadnought was the only one that was at the moment practicable. It must be remembered that it was a condition of Sir John’s program that the Dreadnought had to be built in one year. There was no time to start the design of triple gun turrets the manufacture of which could not have been completed under 3 years. Superimposed turrets were considered inadvisable from the fact that a single shell might put both turrets out of action. Moreover, to complete the Dreadnought within the year, the turrets under construction for the Lord Nelson and the Agamemnon had to be taken, armor and all, without any modification.
Sir John proved to be a skillful chairman. The committee approved the broad design after considerable discussion on turbines, armor, armament, and maneuvering capacity. The question of tonnage was overshadowed by political considerations and the practical limitations imposed by the existing docking facilities. The Cabinet and House of Commons were averse to increase in the size of warships and “A race in armaments was an ever present bogey.” Hence 20,000 tons or thereabouts was the maximum that it was practicable to put forward for approval. It was proposed to abolish the secondary gun battery and install only a 12-pounder anti-torpedo one in its place. The 12- pounder, at that time, was considered amply heavy enough to repel any torpedo craft which up to then had been constructed. In fact, the majority of ships had only 6- pounder guns mounted for this class of defense. The abolition of the secondary battery led to the abolition of side armor above the main deck. The hull plating was expected to act as a bursting screen and the armored deck to provide for the main defense below water. After the experimental cruise I pointed out in my report the danger of this omission from the point of stability when fighting in a seaway. Side armor was afterwards reverted to in the later dreadnoughts.
It is all very well for the author of the article in question to point out that the Queen Elizabeth was more ideally armored than the Dreadnought, but the former with a 50 per cent increase in tonnage was the result of a gradually increasing displacement of battleships during the eight years following the Dreadnought design. A proposal in 1904 to build a battleship of the tonnage of the Queen Elizabeth would have created an avalanche of criticism and wrecked any building scheme.
I think probably Lieutenant Percival would on second thought wish to modify his statement that the members of the Design Committee had drawn their sole experience from “fighting natives ashore,” and “had developed an unfortunate idea that they could win without exerting themselves and that they could damage others without being damaged in return; all they needed was speed to catch the enemy and big guns to sink him.” If he had made himself acquainted with the technical and scientific qualities of the men who composed the committee he would probably have written with more restraint and greater accuracy.
I fear to trespass too much on the space at my disposal by following Lieutenant Percival through his remarks about light cruisers and destroyers. In all these he fails to appreciate the political position on the European continent which governed our strategy and the extent to which our strategy at that moment governed design. Sir John Fisher’s destroyers, that is those designed in 1904, were not present at the Battle of Jutland. The armament of the later destroyers was amply vindicated by the manner in which the attacks of the German flotilla at Jutland were frustrated; and, as a matter of fact, our destroyers had more torpedoes available for service during the night of May 31, 1916, than had the German flotilla.
Now let me correct one erroneous idea that pervades Lieutenant Percival’s review, namely that Fisher was the prime mover in the design of warships between 1906 and 1910. The Controller (Third Sea Lord) was primarily responsible for design and had in this matter the assistance of the Director of Naval Construction and the Engineer in Chief. Fisher, as First Sea Lord, was of course consulted, as were also the other Sea Lords, but he was far too busy to superintend details of ship construction. He had introduced the Dreadnought design. It was for others to elaborate and improve it. Naturally, each year the tonnage of our capital ships increased and improvements in armor and other additions could thereby be introduced. I may further remark that it was not Sir John Jellicoe who introduced the 13.5-inch gun. He was at sea at the time that the introduction was approved. As Director of Naval Ordnance I put the proposal direct to Fisher, since he was my immediate chief in such matters. I had two reasons for making this proposal. First, to improve the accuracy of hitting at long ranges, and, second, because I was fully in accord with Fisher’s dictum of “Hit hard and keep on hitting.” A reduction in muzzle velocity ensured greater steadiness on the part of the projectile and therefore greater accuracy. Such a reduction was sound in the case of a 13.5-inch projectile since it would, owing to its greater weight, still have a higher remaining velocity at battle ranges than the 12-inch 50-caliber gun. At the same time, a 13.5-inch projectile provided a larger bursting charge; both these gains therefore helped the projectile to hit better and hit harder.
It took all Sir John Fisher’s weight to carry the matter through, as the Cabinet was greatly averse to an increase in the tonnage of our battleships, but he and Mr. McKenna gained the day. So it was these two who deserve all the credit.
I need not pursue further several extravagant statements, of which I will quote one example.
Fisher’s initial false conceptions resulted in unsound warships which were unsuited to the offensive, his tactics were dead wrong and his war plans could not be executed.
Lieutenant Percival when making his sweeping condemnation had no true knowledge of the difficulties Sir John Fisher encountered during 1904-10 in increasing the tonnage of our ships over that of the Dreadnought, and how finance limited improvement in armament, defense, and speed—nor of the conflict in naval opinion current during those years not only in England but in all the navies of the world. He fails to recognize that, year by year, there was but little to choose between the comparative designs in ships of the navies of the major countries except that we were always to the fore on account of Sir John’s clever start. Nor does he mention the advantage that the Germans had in being able to design battleships for work in the North Sea only, while our ships had to be habitable for their crews day by day and night after night during long commissions in the Mediterranean and even the China Seas.
There is an undercurrent throughout his paper which shows a want of appreciation of the tactics at Jutland. This I have also noticed in other quarters. I am therefore tempted to devote a short space to two matters concerning that battle.
(1) Let me emphasize that had Sir John Jellicoe turned at 6.25 p.m., when he first sighted the German Fleet, and chased them, he could never have caught them up and forced a battle, and the same is true of the second contact at 7.10. Roughly speaking, the mean speed of the Grand Fleet was less than that of the Konig class, was equal to that of the Kaisers, and superior to that of the old pre-war battleships. Admiral Scheer up to 6.20 p.m. was chasing a small squadron with a large fleet; he therefore rightly chased at the maximum speed of his fastest ships. This strung out his line and was tactically sound, as he had no inkling that the Grand Fleet was at sea. This brought his fastest ships nearest to the Grand Fleet and his slow ships some miles further off. On making contact with the Grand Fleet he turned all his division “together.” The Konigs being superior to our ships in speed therefore steamed out of sight. The Kaisers were out of sight and having a speed equal to that of the Grand Fleet remained out of sight. The difference of speed between the German predreadnoughts and the mean speed of the Grand Fleet would not have permitted the latter to close them sufficiently to force an action in the two hours that remained before darkness set in. It is therefore an incontrovertible fact that by no means at his disposal could Sir John Jellicoe have forced a daylight action in the short space of time at his disposal. Had the first contact been made at noon, and had the action followed the same course as on May 31, then contact with the predreadnoughts would have been effected at 2.30 p.m., and Admiral Scheer would have been obliged either to desert those ships or fight a general action.
The second point to which I wish to draw attention is that if the whole of the High Sea Fleet had been sunk at the Battle of Jutland the strategical position in the North Sea would not have been altered. . Let us see why.
If the High Sea Fleet had been sunk it is only reasonable to assume that we should have lost an equal number of ships. Probably we should have lost a greater number on account of the vulnerability of our magazines. Let us however suppose the numbers to have been equal. There were 26 dreadnought battleships of the Grand Fleet in an efficient fighting condition at 6:00 p.m. The High Sea Fleet had 16 similar ships and 8 predreadnought battleships. We will assume that these 8 would have sunk one British dreadnought. After the action there would have been 9 British dreadnoughts left, all in a more or less battered condition. It was known that there were 4 powerful dreadnoughts in Kiel or the Elbe, either completed or in different stages of completion, their exact state being unknown. We should therefore have been obliged to keep at least 8 dreadnoughts in the Forth, to meet the 4 German ships should they come out.
The losses in destroyers would also probably have been equal, therefore all those remaining after the battle would have been required to stay vis-a-vis to the German vessels. The command of the sea would have remained with us, but this could only have been held by maintaining a vigilant watch over the enemy’s movements. Strategically, therefore, the condition of the North Sea would not have been altered, though we should undoubtedly have improved our prestige.
Sir John Jellicoe on taking over the command of the Grand Fleet would have been perfectly justified in notifying the Commander in Chief of the High Sea Fleet that he held command of the surface waters of the North Sea, and that if the Admiral wished to wrest it from him he must come out and fight at a time and place that suited Sir John Jellicoe. If the High Sea Fleet cared to dodge out late in the evening and make back into harbor at dark it would not in any way affect the command of the sea and it might do so as often as it pleased; but Sir John would only fight in daylight, and most certainly not at a place close off the enemy’s harbors or mine fields. Moreover, he would fight no night action, as such an action could only be a gamble. Such a statement would have emphasized the intimate connection between strategy and tactics in the North Sea. Public opinion, fed on the rich food provided by the Napoleonic sea fights, whose rarity in a war extending over 20 years is hardly realized by the majority, would not have stood so sensible a program, and therefore our Commander in Chief had to fight an inconclusive action late in the afternoon in a most disadvantageous place.
One last word. Let me recommend to the officers of all Navies one problem of intense complexity and interest, namely to plot and think out what would, in all probability, have been the result had the leading ships of the High Sea Fleet sighted the fifth ship from the head of Sir John Jellicoe’s column just before midnight on May 31, 1916, taking full count of the impossibility of the Admiral knowing what ships were attacking or exactly what was happening. I know of no problem that has so many possible solutions, and its study cannot fail to be of benefit to officers of any rank in any Navy.