The problem of naval damage control is universal, fundamental, and susceptible of continuous attack in its theoretical and practical aspects. There are few if any functions afloat which would not depend in action upon efficient damage control for continuance; correspondingly, there are few peace-time activities in any ship’s department which cannot be profitably correlated with the damage control scheme.
So general a problem has stimulated many ingenious solutions of its individual requirements, and scarcely a ship in the Fleet is without its “wrinkles.” That most such “wrinkles” spring from inventive thinking rather than large-scale practical experiment with material does not do them discredit. That most officers and petty officers confronted by damage control are technically unfamiliar with much of the subject is unfortunate. If there are schools and courses for gunnery, engineering, communications, and the like, why not for damage control?
On first consideration, a damage control school appears superfluous. Almost every bureau or staff in the Navy is damage- control conscious. Conversely, each approaches the matter within the bounds of its own field, and, while there is little want of officers and men who know many of the requirements within their own specialty, there are few who have practical and theoretical knowledge of the entire field. A school, besides serving as a focus for all available information and thought on the matter, would send out personnel with a comprehensive training and outlook based upon the application of experimental methods to standard doctrines, under widely varied conditions.
The missions of a damage control school should be:
(1) To administer basic training in practical techniques to a large number of officers and enlisted men; (2) to permit advanced training and study for a few selected officers; (3) to make possible advanced specialization by apt enlisted personnel; (4) to collect, evaluate, and disseminate all available information on the subject; and, (5) to conduct such correspondence courses as might be necessary or appropriate.
Since the first concern of a damage control school should be to impart widespread basic instruction of a practical nature to both officers and enlisted men, the primary studies or academic subjects should be those which are encountered by damage- control officers, first lieutenants, and C&R personnel afloat. Accordingly, the basic course of the school—with appropriate modifications based on experience—might comprise the following subjects: Damage control organization afloat, a subcourse designed to standardize plans, systems, bills, and doctrine in individual ships; stability and counter-flooding, practical instruction in the all-important technique of preserving stability despite casualties which might cause major redistributions of buoyancy; watertight integrity; defense against chemical attack, a subject whose work might well be co-ordinated with, or entirely absorbed by that now carried on at Edgewood Arsenal; fire fighting and prevention, comprising actual experiments in controlling the various types of fires which can be anticipated in action, as well as in the doctrines of efficient fire prevention aboard ship; and interior communications, particularly as the subject bears upon reports of damage, and the communication net necessary for rapid dispatch of repair and fire parties to the scene of casualty.
Instruction in the foregoing six subjects must lay heavy emphasis upon practical technique. Counterflooding can be taught, for example, with accurately-scaled and compartmented hull sections and models. Fire fighting should afford every student an opportunity to see and check every type of blaze that he might meet in battle, from flaming paintwork to powder. Defense against chemical attack should include active and passive measures, as well as actual decontamination of compartments or ships upperworks. To carry out such a progress, a free supply of instructional material must be available in the form of models, actual sample compartments built into the school’s plant for simulation of casualties, and, if possible, an experimental ship of sufficient age so that material casualties might be inflicted upon it without loss to the Navy.
For the basic instruction of officers and enlisted men, the foregoing courses and plant should suffice. Advanced specialists need not work at the school, but rather under its direction, wherever most profitable opportunities existed in shipyards, commercial plants, at the Navy Department, or as the nature of the special work demanded. As an adjunct to the work of all, whether advanced or basic students, the school should provide a complete collection of literature dealing with damage control, construction and repair, and actual battle experience from which lessons could be drawn. A library is the proper heart of every school.
Personnel selected for the damage control school should include officers principally in the ranks of lieutenant, lieutenant (j.g.), chief carpenter, and carpenter, so that, in time, every prospective first lieutenant or damage-control officer might have completed the basic course. Petty officer students should naturally be chosen from the artificer branch, particularly ship- fitters, carpenters’ mates, and designated engineering ratings. Fire controlmen and gunner’s mates could learn the all-important technique of limiting damage to fire control instruments and circuits, and of maintaining all ordnance material in action. Perhaps a few hospital corpsmen and pharmacists’ mates could attend, since their duties often require them at the same points as repair or fire parties. To stimulate morale of enlisted graduates of the school, a “qualified damage-controlman” badge might be issued to all men completing appropriate requirements, just as divers, gun captains, range-finder operators, etc., are so distinguished.
Location of the school is not a question of marked importance, so long as it is accessible by water and ordinary land transportation facilities. Perhaps, for convenience, it could be established at some point on the Potomac River, where it would be close to the Bureau of Ships, the Carderock Model Basin, the Naval Research Laboratory, the Potomac River ordnance activities, and the Engineering Experimental Station at Annapolis (not to mention the Postgraduate School and the various naval libraries and collections in Washington and Annapolis). Proximity to the great eastern shipyards would be another factor of importance.
Administrative details can readily be settled, and in view of the undoubted importance to the fleet of damage control, the subject seems worthy of formal instruction. If a single combatant vessel be saved to the Navy thereby, the school will have served its purpose.