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ROTHCO
"I'LL BE GLAD WHEN THEY GIVE YOU A PROPER UNIFORM.. .WE'LL KNOW IF WE RAISED OUR BOY TO BE A SOLDIER, SAILOR, TINKER, TAILOR...."
For Canadian naval officers, it was a troubling dilemma. Should they, believing unification was degrading the service, resign as a matter of principle? Or should they stay on in the new rifleman-green uniform and try to preserve the spirit and centuries-old traditions they had inherited from the Royal Navy?
In the November 1980 issue of the Proceedings, Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, U. S. Navy (Retired) was quoted by Lieutenant Commander David M. Lee, U. S. Navy. Commander Lee commented upon Admiral Stockdale’s article in the September Proceedings on the subject of moral leadership as Admiral Stockdale had perceived it during his time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and, later in civilian life, as a college president in the United States.
In the early 1960s, we of the Royal Canadian Navy experienced an analogous need for moral leadership when the unification of the Canadian Armed Forces was set in motion; the navy, army, and air force would henceforth be one, with a common uniform. Our admirals were faced with a dilemma. Should they resign on a matter of principle, or should they remain and preserve what they could of their service’s centuries-old traditions as a fighting navy?
I entered the Royal Canadian Navy in September 1939 as an 18-year-old midshipman. In 1940,1 joined an armed merchant cruiser of the Royal Navy, HMS Alaunia. Captain Hugh Woodward, Royal Navy, of the Alaunia, was a fearsome man who habitually invited midshipmen to breakfast with him. On one such morning, Captain Woodward asked me, “Snot- tie, under what circumstances should an officer resign his commission?”
“Never, sir,” I said, “or rather, well, perhaps, if his conduct has brought disgrace upon the service.” “If his conduct has brought disgrace upon the service, a court-martial will take whatever action is necessary,” he replied. “No,” the captain continued, “the only time you should resign is either when you have been ordered to do something which is morally repugnant to you or when you think your resignation will call public attention to something which is degrading the service.”
Thus it was that in a half-gale in the middle of the Atlantic and with the war going against us, I learned a truth which I was not to reexamine for more than 20 years.
In 1963, Mr. Paul Hellyer, the Minister of National Defence, was seeking unification of the armed forces. All services would wear a common uniform. The navy, army, and air force would henceforth be known as the sea element, the land element, and the air element. Sailors, who had proudly worn the name of the ship on their cap tallies for more than half a century, would wear the common peaked cap over the common green uniform. Regiments with more than a century of service to Canada would be disbanded and redistributed. Nomenclature for rank would be taken mainly from the army. We pictured a visitor to our aircraft carrier asking to be taken to the brigadier’s cabin. A shudder of revulsion ran
through the ranks.
I served my last five years in the Royal Canadian Navy in Operational Research in Naval Headquarters, Ottawa, amid a sorry scene of rumor and counterrumor, of argument and counterargument, of grouping and regrouping. I was a passed-over lieutenant commander due to retire in the normal course of regulations. Nothing of unification affected my future, which was already confirmed as a full-time lecturer at the University of Ottawa. But officers who were in mid-career had to make a difficult choice. Should they, believing unification was degrading the service, resign as a matter of principle and attract public attention? Or should naval officers stay on in the new rifleman-green uniform of the sea element and preserve the spirit and centuries-old traditions we inherited from the Royal Navy? Captain Woodward’s words haunted me during these years.
In 1963, the Flag Officer Atlantic Coast was Rear Admiral Jeffry V. Brock. He could not agree with unification, and either resigned, retired, or was fired by Mr. Hellyer—we were not sure which. He was succeeded by Rear Admiral W. M. Landymore. Admiral Landymore had been assured by Mr. Hellyer that unification would not destroy the identity of the navy. Evidently, the minister had changed his mind. Admiral Landymore’s official views on unification, after consultation with the officers and men of his command, were edited before being presented to the House of Commons Defence Committee; the minister wanted a “more positive approach.” The admiral protested publicly and was fired for insubordination. He then stated that in the 30-odd years he had been in the service, his professional integrity and loyalty to Canada had never been doubted. All hands agreed; the firing order was rescinded. Further discussions with the minister followed. After one such meeting in Ottawa, this Flag Officer Atlantic Coast came out of the minister’s office and saw the Flag Officer Pacific Coast waiting in the anteroom.
“Hello, Mickey,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“Hello, Bill, I’ve just come up to resign.”
“I just have.”
And that was the nub of the whole matter. Each admiral made his lonely decision. There was no “palace revolution.”
One emotion-laden day, Admiral Landymore hauled down his flag, and he and his lady were driven slowly through the dockyard for the last time. Sailors and civilian workers thronged the route. HMC ships alongside flew the signal “BZ (well done) Landymore.” The ships' companies lined the rails. That day the admiral could have had all hands follow him out. That was unthinkable; it would not be to the good of the service.
The Chief of the Naval Staff retired. He was not replaced; there would not be another Chief of the Navy. The admiral to whom I reported retired. The admiral attached to the Canadian Embassy in Washington retired. The admiral appointed Chief of Personnel took early retirement. So did the admiral who had been the Chief of the Naval Technical Services. The admiral who was appointed second-incommand to the general running Mobile Command (the old army) resigned; it would be ridiculous for him to attempt to assess the fighting ability of a tank squadron or an infantry regiment.
Retired? Resigned? It was not clear. “Elected early retirement” was a useful euphemism employed by the minister’s office.
And how much public attention would these resignations attract? Never, in Canada, had there been a climate of public opinion which enthusiastically and efficiently supported the military profession. And, except in times of war, Ministers of National Defence had always held junior rank in the cabinet. Nevertheless, admirals did resign, some at a reduced pension—a penalty clause for leaving early.
But all the admirals today are of preunification origin. Nothing vital to the spirit of a good fighting force has been lost. And under them are the like- minded commodores, and under them are the like- minded captains, and so on. I have met several chief petty officers (in their green uniforms) over the past three years. In spirit, they are not much different from those I was drilled by forty years ago. If I know our chief petty officers, the men under them feel much the same way.
Two years ago, I met and talked with a leading seaman for an hour or so when I ventured an opinion. “How do you like your uniform? Seems comfortable, practical, good material.” He was young enough to have never worn anything else.
He startled me with a new and pragmatic point of view. “It’s OK, I guess. My Dad—he’s a retired chief—says I look like a bloody bus driver. But I’ll tell you one thing about this here uniform. It don’t put no girl on your lap in a foreign port. And sailors from other navies ask me what I am. I have to explain that I’m a sailor.”
When Defense Minister Paul Hellyer reviewed a parade in front of Parliament in the late 1960s, it was still possible to tell one serviceman from another by the color of his uniform.
So much for the real yet intangible; the tangible is encouraging. Canadian sailors wear an anchor on their lapel (a first step?). But the sea cadets across Canada and the naval bands of the maritime commands—East Coast and West Coast—again wear the square-rig and fore-and-aft rig that identifies a sailor of any country. Canadian soldiers again wear the regimental badges they wore more than a hundred years ago. Naval officers and regimental officers again wear the colorful evening mess-kits of the centuries before the drab-green years of 1965 to 1980. Regiments of the Guards are paraded on the lawns in front of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa in their scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats. The passage of time tends toward irony; sailors and soldiers now parade, legally, in their traditional uniforms in front of the Parliament that 15 years ago, legally, banned these uniforms.
The unification of the Canadian Armed Forces is a provable mistake. Nearly three decades ago, such a move had been considered in the United States and discarded as impracticable. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Louis Mountbatten, Royal Navy, the First Sea Lord, said it was madness to unify below command level, and on no account should men and women lose their identity. For 15 years, Canadian servicemen have had to live in a very unsettling climate with a strange sense of disorientation. Furthermore, economy has not been promoted by unification. It efficiency has been increased, it has been due to a dogged sense of duty and to the tradition of the service to the navy and to Canada on the part of those officers and men who never lost sight of their origins.
Admiral Stockdale, U. S. Navy, and Captain Woodward, Royal Navy, an ocean and a generation apart, would have had much in common had they discussed the conditions under which an officer should resign his commission. The officers who left the Royal Canadian Navy and those who stayed, I knew them all. Some left because they had to; others stayed to preserve what they could. I made no moral judgments then, and I make none today. I think both were right. They were men of conscience.
Lieutenant Commander Lawrence served for 26 years in the Royal Canadian Navy. He has published six textbooks and one history/memoir book. A Bloody War. The last one was on the bestseller list and awarded Best Nonfiction of 1979 by the Canadian Authors Association and Best Nonfiction of 1980 by the Canadian Publishers Association. He is an occasional lecturer of naval history at Royal Roads Military College and English literature at the University of Victoria.