Until now, the captain of a deep-draft or major combatant ship has had a leg up on those of his contemporaries whose leadership qualities were being tested in major shore installation management or major weapons systems procurement. For, traditionally, the course to flag rank for unrestricted line officers usually has been through command of major combat elements afloat. Until now, that is.
The selection of officers to command deep-draft and major combatant ships has always been a matter of great import. It is, first of all, of critical concern to individual officers in their progression toward flag rank. And equally important to the Navy as a whole, it is necessary to select some of our best fitted officers to command major combat elements afloat.
This past year, a new and major consideration was added to the selection process, one which may have far-reaching consequences. The Aviation Board was convened as usual in December, and I was a member. But the instructions given this board were far from routine. And, while written specifically for the Aviation Board, these new directives will apply in a general way to the board which will be considering 1100 officers.
The Navy is in a period of change. The Chief of Naval Operations, in appraising the Navy of the 1970s, reached a number of conclusions which serve to chart a new course for the Navy. One that concerned the Board specifically was that major shore installation management and major weapons systems procurement require leadership qualities in equal measure to that for major command afloat. And, collaterally, they must receive a pro rata share of our top officers. Therefore, in recognition of the co-equal importance of these shore billets, selections would be made for three major command lists, each with equal stature with regard to future potential as flag officers.
Tradition has it that, for unrestricted line officers, the course to flag rank in the Navy is through command at sea. Since the founding of the Navy, this tradition has grown so deep as to be axiomatic. Although in the past there have been several attempts to modify this policy by nominally equating “major shore commands to ship commands,” as a practical matter (measured by the results of flag selection boards), shore commands have never equated to sea billets. Now the CNO concludes they must be so regarded.
There were a number of additional considerations of importance for the Board:
► The Board was instructed to ensure an adequate command opportunity for aviators specializing in antisubmarine warfare, and was asked to recommend ways to improve their command selection opportunity in the future.
► The Board was asked to identify candidates qualified for direct route to major sea commands by virtue of previous shipboard experience. Reaching into earlier year groups and bypassing the deep draft command would speed some exceptional young officers towards the top jobs.
With these new directions, the Board spent a considerable time prior to the normal screening process in discussing the reordering of future career patterns implicit in the work we were about to do. First and foremost, the Board was particularly sensitive to the change in the sacrosanct tradition of sea command as the main road to flag rank. There were questions in the minds of the Board members. What would happen in the future to that best fitted officer at the top of our selection whom we placed on the shore station list? How would it affect his chances for flag selection and, if selected for flag rank, how would it affect his future assignability for sea billets such as a carrier division commander? The shore list would be equal to the sea list in the minds of the Board. But, would the aviation community (particularly those in year groups directly affected) accept the lists at their face value? In other words, could actions taken by this Board in good faith result in harm to some officers four or five years hence?
The Board accepted completely the basic premise on which the new command policy was based. And, the Board recognized that the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy would accept responsibility for ensuring the necessary continuity in basic Navy policy to ensure fair consideration for those officers affected by the selection of this Board.
However, to assist in the long-term administration of this tradition-breaking policy, the Board prepared a letter addressed to the 1971 Flag Selection Board explaining explicitly the criteria by which this Board selected officers for the shore and sea lists. The Board also recommended to the Chief of Naval Personnel that a message be drafted which would explain to the Navy as a whole the changed relationship of shore and sea commands. And after the selection was completed, on 28 December, a Z-gram, CNO MSG 281424Z (Z-69), was published on this subject.
The basic reason for this change in our selection criteria is essentially the same thing which has caused a new level of specialization throughout the Navy officer corps. The increasing complexity of the modern weapons systems has required more specially educated, skilled, and experienced officers, both for their operation at sea and for the management of their procurement and support ashore. Any aviator who doubts this needs only to look at his own flight experience as compared to an earlier generation of naval aviators. In those earlier, and perhaps happier, days a well-rounded aviator could look back on operational experience in several basic types of aircraft. In reviewing the records before the Board today, it is an exceptional case when an officer has significant operation experience outside his basic field of VP, VS, HS, or attack carrier aviation. This one example of increasing specialization seems typical. More and more, officers are repeating tours in Systems Commands or OpNav ashore. It will be most difficult in the future to describe a classic career pattern for either 1100 or 1300 officers which leads to the top. Flag officers will probably be selected from many career patterns of varying degrees of specialization. While the sea command route still leads the flag list today, this route will most certainly not be the exclusive way to achieve flag rank in the near future.
There are other factors which inevitably lead us towards this new concept of major command. One is the growing importance of our shore stations and the mounting concern of the Fleet and type commanders with the management of these Fleet support bases. In the case of air stations, several recent changes have added to the management burden. First of all, the basic air weapons systems being supported are getting tougher to handle. Second, the implementation of the resources management system has moved the total management burden from the Air Systems Command to the station commander. In the past, the Air Systems Command headquarters maintained a highly skilled staff in Washington to handle the Operations and Maintenance budget, civilian and military personnel administration, shore electronics, automatic data processing, as well as technical support for weapons systems. All these now are problems for the station commander. Another load on the air station commander today arises from the recently intensified social pressures resulting from environmental pollution, civil strife, and the drug culture. While these same problems exist on board ship, the position of an air station in the midst of a civilian community adds greatly to the problem.
Thus, in some ways, a major air station is a more difficult assignment than an aircraft carrier. Basically, the same qualities which characterize a fine carrier skipper are required to run a major Fleet air station. And just as prospective carrier skippers need some time at sea in shipboard billets before taking the helm, so the shore station manager needs some firsthand experience in the business before taking charge. It may well be that until the time that captains with adequate prior management experience are available, prospective shore station commanders will be sent to a “warm-up” shore command paralleling the “deep draft” tour.
While the vital importance of sea commands has not diminished in this time period, the number of opportunities to command aviation ships has been severely cut. On one side, force levels have been reduced and on the other, tour lengths have been increased. The result is a meager sea command opportunity for each year group, and is another reason why a means must be found to broaden the base of major commands to provide an adequate testing ground for prospective flag officers.
As a result of a recommendation from the Board, 12 air stations were added to the present list currently designated as major commands. The two actions, first equating major shore commands to major sea commands and increasing the number of major shore commands, have significantly broadened the base for major command experience. Air stations now designated major command are:
East Coast |
| New Additions |
Cecil Field | Oceana | Bermuda |
Jacksonville | Patuxent River | Brunswick |
Key West | Pensacola | Meridian |
Mayport | Quonset Point | Rota |
Memphis | Roosevelt Roads | Sigonella |
Norfolk |
| Whiting Field |
West Coast |
| New Additions |
Alameda | Lemoore | Adak |
Atsugi | Miramar | Agana |
Barber’s Point | Moffett | Chase Field |
Corpus Christi | North Island | Fallon |
Cubi Point | Whidbey | Imperial Beach |
|
| Kingsville |
Also added to the list of shore commands to which “aviation major command selectees” may be assigned are several large facilities designated “miscellaneous commands.” While not air stations, and in some cases not specifically avaition-oriented [sic], these commands have equal status. Among these are:
* CruTraCom | * NavSchlCom T.I./Mare Island |
* ServSchlCom GLakes | * NavDevTraCen SDiego |
NATTC Memphis | * FltASWSch SDiego |
NATTC Glynco | * OceanSysPac/Lant |
* Indicates 1000-designated billet (either 1100 or 1300) to be shared with surface captains.
Since every program has to have a starting point, the initial selections for shore station commands were made on a somewhat arbitrary basis with regard to previous experience. While the trend of specialization in the future may well lead to the development of early experience ashore, the current group of officers now being considered and whose performance record put them at the top, is singularly short in shore management experience. In the future, officers’ career patterns may well take a turn either towards the sea or shore earlier in their career. Certain air stations, such as Moffett and Brunswick, may acquire the status of patrol (VP) bases. VP-oriented officers might serve ashore in air station billets in a rotation with their squadron assignments. Commanding such a station would be the natural culmination of that career pattern. Helo (HS) specialists might center around an air station such as Imperial Beach. Similarly, the “Tailhook” community would focus on Oceana or Lemoore.
After many hours of discussion of the new command policy and its implications, we of the current Aviation Major Command Board set ourselves to the task of screening candidates from four year groups, 1947 through 1950. This process, conducted in many ways like a promotion selection board, was explained very completely in the Proceedings of November 1967. This article, written by Rear Admiral Malcolm W. Cagle, U. S. Navy, covers the “how” portion so well that I find nothing to add.
After the Board had determined, in its judgment, those officers best suited on the basis of past performance and future potential for service in billets of highest responsibility, we divided the group into two lists of equal stature, sea command and shore command, each list being headed by officers whom the Board considered to be potential flag officers.
Then, as further specifically directed, the Board once again reviewed both lists to nominate those officers best qualified to manage certain selected major weapons systems procurement efforts. These programs—F-14; S-3; VAST, Harpoon, and SpeCom—could be headed by a 1310 officer. Should a replacement be required for one of these specified program managers, one of the major command selectees designated as qualified for program management would be assigned. Otherwise, those designated officers would be assigned to a sea or shore command as indicated on the list.
In carrying out further instructions, the Board rescreened major command selectees and identified those whom they considered qualified for direct assignment to major sea command without prior assignment to a deep draft. Those officers who had already served their deep-draft tour were obviously not screened. In making this designation, the Board once again devised its own criteria. Without being specific, the Board’s general philosophy was that, while experience in conning the ship was a major factor, the requirement for shipboard experience was considerably broader. While not unanimous, it is the consensus of the Board that it would be a disservice both to the officer concerned and to the Navy to assign a carrier command to an officer who had not had broad shipboard experience.
The Board was not specifically directed to make a similar judgment on the qualifications for major shore command. However, it was generally recognized by the Board and within the Bureau that it might well serve the interests of the Navy to detail a prospective major shore command captain to a small station command first for exactly the same reasons as the deep-draft command.
After some very hard work, the Board reported its selections to the Chief of Naval Personnel. Many officers with the very finest records will find themselves on the shore station list. After seeking the toughest operational assignments and coming out on top, it is an unpleasant shock for an aviator to lose the Fleet command just as it seems in hand, and the most persuasive rationale will be inadequate to that disappointment. However, having the resiliency and strength to adapt to great change is a measure of the men who serve the Navy.
There are compensations. The shore commands are tough, important, and interesting. They will adequately test the potential flag officer and provide him a practical education in resource management. Upgrading the prestige of shore commands will attract some of our best young officers to management specialties and to assignments in these commands. It will open up new paths to flag rank and develop the weapons-support specialties the Navy needs.
Perhaps most important in these times of great change is a means of restoring stability to the selection process. As in the past, performance will stand as the basic criteria for advancement. But rewarding more specialized careers as co-equal to the classic “command at sea” will allow the necessary flexibility to promote officers of whatever skills the new Navy will require.
Finally, we must face up squarely to that nagging question of the future prospects of the officers selected by this Board. Will the officer who finds himself on the carrier list have some final advantage over his equally gifted counterpart on the shore list? I trust he will not. The best people have a way of moving up. And our best people grace both lists. The CNO and the Secretary of the Navy are dedicated to the success of the new policy. Senior aviators with whom I have discussed this matter all agree that it must work. Those most personally affected, the newly-selected captains, will perhaps be the hardest to convince. Those who may be skeptical as to the equal stature of the lists can best be convinced by their own appraisal of the men selected. If the Board did its job as well as I think it did, there can be no doubt that Admiral Zumwalt’s directive of a pro rata share of talent on both lists is now a fact.
__________
Rear Admiral Morrison graduated from the Naval Academy in 1941, reporting to his first assignment in the USS Pruitt (DD-347), an old four-stack destroyer at Pearl Harbor. Shortly after the beginning of World War II, he turned to aviation as a specialty, earning his wings in 1943, serving in combat in the USS Lexington (CV-16). His assignments ashore were primarily in the research field in nuclear weapons and space technology. Later sea assignments included command of the fleet oiler Guadalupe (AO-32) and the attack carrier Bon Homme Richard (CV-31). While commanding the carrier, he conducted a tour of the Indian Ocean and later operated in the Gulf of Tonkin at the beginning of the Vietnamese War. In his last sea assignment, he commanded a carrier division in the Seventh Fleet. His present assignment is Director, Electronic Warfare and Tactical Direction Systems Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.