Good organization is a very desirable, but not an absolutely necessary, adjunct to successful administration. Organization of itself will accomplish nothing. Good administration will often produce successful results in spite of a bad organization.
Under the primitive conditions of the past there has been less necessity for a knowledge of the science of organization. Supply follows demand, and the practical necessity for this knowledge is attracting the attention of thinking men the world over. Administration as an art is very old. Organization as a science is very new. That which often passes for good organization is high class administration, through splendid personal equations, of what is, in fact, unscientific organization.—Modern Organization—Hine.
We have had in the navy many examples of successful administration, but when we analyze the conditions existing on board the modern ship, we are forced to the conclusion that we have nothing which can, with any propriety, be called an organization.
In a proper organization we find a grouping of personnel into units under appropriate leaders, and the establishment of lines of authority by which the head can control the personnel as a whole by dealing with appropriate subordinates. In the organization of our ships, we find an accidental grouping into units of various sizes, but when we attempt to trace the lines of authority through the various elements we are involved in hopeless confusion. The present organization cannot be diagrammed. An attempt to do so at once discloses the correctness of these statements.
We have attempted for a great many years to produce a "station bill" to cover the various requirements of ship life, and there has been a very general belief that in so doing we were effecting an organization. Making out station bills is not organization, and the necessity for them is the result of the fact that, having no organization in which the authority of leaders is established, and in which it is possible to hold these leaders responsible for the production of the required results, it becomes necessary to issue detailed instructions governing the conduct of every one on board under every possible circumstance.
The present organization is the result of evolution, but partially complete, from the organization of sailing ships—an organization admirably suited to the requirements of the day, in its final form, which it reached just previous to the Civil War. The change has been painfully slow, but we have progressed far enough to be able to see that we will have in the near future an organization from which the last vestige of the character imparted by the sailing ship will have disappeared. We are slowly progressing towards a solution which is not the result of design, but which is being forced upon us by the necessities of modern conditions, and we now have it within our power to say whether our organization shall be in accordance with correct principles, or whether we shall continue to do as we have done in the past, and allow it to take a form determined by a mixture of tradition and pure chance.
The organization of the sailing ship of war was a result of expediency, due to the fact that, in the beginning, several hundred years ago, the officers were not seamen, but fighting men.
The officers of the organization of our ships, as it existed at the beginning of the last century, were: (1) The commander, (2) the lieutenants, (3) the master, (4) the midshipman, and (5) the warrant officers. The order of rank was as shown here.
The lieutenants were all senior to the master, who was not in line of promotion, and were primarily charged with the duty of fighting the battery. They were watch officers, and practically all the regulations referring to them specified their duties in charge of the watch. It is not apparent that they had any duties or responsibilities in regard to the ship.
It might be inferred that the master was subordinate to the first lieutenant, for organization purposes, but this point is not clear. The master was charged with the care of the ship, and had as his assistants for this purpose four warrant officers, each in charge of a department.
The boatswain was in charge of the deck force and responsible for all parts of the ship manned by this force.
The gunner likewise was in complete control of the battery.
For general quarters the division officers—the lieutenants—assumed command of the battery.
With the retreat from drill the control passed back into the hands of the gunner. The carpenter and the sailmaker were, in the same manner, responsible for their departments.
The master was specifically charged with all the responsibilities which were, at a later date, assumed by the executive officer. He was, in reality, the master of the ship. He was the navigator; and it is probable that he maneuvered the ship in battle, under the orders of the commander.
During the hundred years that have elapsed since that time, the first lieutenant has become the executive officer. The master, his duties taken from him by the first lieutenant, became a subordinate officer in line of promotion, and finally disappeared. The first lieutenant of the present day and the ordnance officer have recently been added.
With the establishment of the bureau system, ship's department's corresponding to the bureaus in Washington, were established. The gun division gradually appeared as an administrative unit.
During all these changes, many of the old forms have been adhered to, and paragraphs in the Regulations, referring to the duties of officers, have persisted many years after the status of these officers had been completely changed.
The word "department," at present used in the Regulations, is nowhere defined, and is an illustration of the existing confusion. By the last edition of the Navy Regulations, the boatswain is still required to report his "department" to the executive officer.
The gunner is still required, in the care and preservation and use of ordnance material, to comply with the "Ordnance Instructions," a publication which has been out of print for over thirty years.
The height of absurdity is not reached, however, until the sailmaker's mate, the sole survivor of his race, reports in solemn compliance with Regulations for the Government of the Navy of the United States, 1909, that his "department" is secure.
The master-at-arms, an official forced by necessity, owing to the character of the crews with which our ships were manned, has been retained through all these years, with undiminished powers over the conduct of the crew, until we have the horrible spectacle, in a military organization, of a coal passer, rated by virtue of brawn, exercising supervision over the conduct of chief petty officers of years of service and military training.
The present condition is a curious mixture of the old and the new. The situation, complex as it was, has been, during the past few years, still further confused by the superposition of a gunnery organization.
Since the revival of gunnery training there has been a tendency to treat proficiency in gunnery as an extra accomplishment, rather than a primary qualification. By means of extra ratings, and details carrying extra pay, a separate class of gunnery petty officers has been established; while the old ratings have been retained, with very much the same qualifications required in former days.
The statement that the gun division, at present, constitutes an administrative unit is but partially true. The division officer commands his division only at certain times and under certain conditions. He controls it for general quarters and fire and collision quarters, and the failure of the general station bill for these purposes having been complete, the usual custom is to require the division officers to make details for these duties; but even then we find very often a condition which requires the division officers to adhere to dispositions already made for them. There is no attempt made to effect an organization of the division. Stations are assigned to men individually, and there is usually no attempt at grouping them in such a way that men work under the same petty officers.
We usually find, in ship organizations, a recognition of the authority and responsibility of the division officer, but we also find that, for the greater part of the time, the division is performing duty under the orders of persons over whom the division officer himself has no control.
Under the present conditions, with the present chaotic mixture of ratings, proper organization of the division is impracticable. Complement sheets are made out without regard to any form of organization, and the formation of the men of a division into squads cannot be effected, in the absence of the proper number of petty officers of appropriate ratings. While the division officer has been given a partial control of his division for the purposes stated above, there are other forces, with the weight of hundreds of years of tradition behind them, which act to make the establishment of the division as a real administrative unit, under the command of the division officer, an impossibility.
Generally speaking, the tendency is for the division to break up into a number of gangs, each gang forming around some petty officer with a title implying restricted usefulness as a nucleus.
The boatswain usually looks upon the boatswain's mates as his direct representatives. The gunner has similar views in regard to gunner's mates. The master-at-arms usually has direct control of mess cooks and compartment cleaners; and for purposes of exercising supervision over the conduct of the crew, he has control of all men of the divisions, and is entirely independent of the division officers.
The principal fault of our present organization is not that it is in violent opposition to all correct principles of organization, but that it fails to take advantage of the opportunity of training our officers and petty officers, by daily association, in the exercise of that initiative which they will be forced to exercise when thrown on their own resources by the accidents of battle.
Before proceeding to a discussion of the form of organization recommended, the status of the principal elements of the personnel which enter into it will be briefly discussed.
THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
The present position of the executive officer is the result of development from the first lieutenant of former days. The law does not require that he shall be the senior line officer on board, and it is probable that, while he inherited from the master his responsibilities in regard to the ship, it was the intent of the law that, in regard to personnel, he should be the aid to the captain, with very much the same status as the regimental adjutant, who is not necessarily senior to the company commanders or the chief of staff, who is not necessarily senior to the captains.
Whatever the intent of the original law, we find him, at the end of the sailing ship days, the senior line officer on board, and the actual executive head of the only line department on board, the deck department. When another line branch was established, the head of this branch was made, not co-ordinate with the head of the deck branch, but subordinate to him. From the standpoint of correct organization this produced a situation which was radically and indefensibly wrong.
Without in any way making the executive officer responsible for the efficiency of the engineer's department, he was given a very considerable power over it. Executive officers were human, and many of them, with the best intentions in the world, were guilty of interfering in many ways with the efficient working of the engineer's department, due to the fact that they were unable to consider it from the viewpoint of an officer responsible for its efficiency. This fact was responsible for a large part of the friction which formerly existed between the two departments, and which was not entirely removed by the amalgamation of the two corps.
In labelling the new department a staff department, an additional error was committed which demonstrated a lack of clear perception of the real meaning and function of a staff corps.
It is not suggested that there did not exist, at the time, the necessity for an aid to the captain. It is merely stated that if an aid to the captain were established, his view-point should have been the same as that of the captain himself, and he should have been put in a position from which he could consider the efficiency of all branches of the personnel from the same point of view.
We are to-day guilty of many things which indicate a sense of faulty perspective. We have had, in the recent past, gunboats with battleship complements.
The importance of a command always has been, and always will be, properly determined by the number of men commanded. We find men commanding the enormous ships of to-day with the same ease and confidence with which men of former days commanded the pigmy ships of their day. The number of men who can be personally controlled by one leader, however, has not increased since the beginning of recorded history; and when the size of crews is increased, effective control can be exercised only by establishing a subdivision by which the commander is brought into personal contact with the same number of subordinates as before.
It is just as illogical to establish an executive officer, with all the powers of the office, on a third-class gunboat, as it would be to appoint a company adjutant to promulgate the orders of the company commander. A third-class gunboat is little more than a company commander's command, and it is not too much to require of the commander thereof, to expect him to deal directly with the heads of the several administrative branches.
Whatever may have been the conditions at the time the executive officer was established, we have now arrived at a point, in the development of the modern battleship, where an aid to the captain is required, and where organization of the units subordinate to that aid is imperative.
The Regulations have recently been amended with a view to establishing this condition in regard .to the duties of the executive officer. The executive officer is now established as the direct representative of the captain in maintaining the military and general efficiency of the ship in all departments. He is still, however, by being surrounded by a mass of detail connected With the administration of one of the ship's departments, prevented from preserving a proper sense of perspective towards the other departments.
It is a recognized principle; among students of organization, that the proper number of co-ordinate units which can be handled by one head is about four; the maximum number, about seven. If there are less than four, there is a temptation for the head to interfere in the administrative details which are proper for the subordinate to handle. If there are more than seven, it becomes impossible for the head to exercise even the necessary general supervision over the work of his subordinates.
At one time on board one ship of the fleet there were eighteen different heads, of a variety of units, who reported direct to the executive officer. And at the same time, on board this vessel there were three officers of the rank of lieutenant-commander who were not employed in any manner as part of the administrative organization.
FIRST LIEUTENANT AND ORDNANCE OFFICER.
These officers must be considered together. Their status is confusing and conflicting. They were both added to the organization as it existed, without in any manner establishing a place for them. They have certain general duties to perform and have, at various times and under certain conditions, authority to issue orders; but they cannot be said to command anybody or anything aboard ship.
They are both concerned primarily with materiel; and, in order to perform their duties, they are dependent on the personnel of the gun divisions, without in any sense controlling this personnel, the division officers reporting direct to the executive-officer.
The absurdity of the situation, in regard to these two officers, would be readily apparent if the same principle were applied to the engineer's department. Imagine for instance that there were no senior engineer officer, but that the division officers, commanding the engineer's divisions, reported direct to the executive officer. Then imagine two officers, co-ordinate in rank, each with authority to issue orders to subordinates; one responsible for the maintenance and operation of the motive machinery installed by the Bureau of Steam Engineering; the other responsible for the care and preservation of the compartments in which the machinery is placed, and of the machinery installed in these compartments by the Bureau of Construction and Repair. The resultant situation would not be different from the situation existing on deck, where a working- arrangement is possible only when the three people concerned are pleasing to each other.
Generally speaking, the most glaring of our faults in organization are due to an attempt to organize around materiel; to establish lines of authority based upon bureau cognizance rather than upon the necessities of ship administration; and to preserve an unbroken control of bureau materiel, with a resultant mixed control of personnel.
It is the established policy of the Department to order a lieutenant-commander to duty as ordnance officer. Even if a place could be found in the organization for two lieutenant-commanders in the deck department, it must have been evident long since that the lieutenant-commander list cannot stand the strain. It is intended that the four senior officers aboard ship shall be lieutenant-commanders. Of nineteen ships attached to the Atlantic fleet on December 1, 1912:
One had four lieutenant-commanders.
Six had three lieutenant-commanders.
Five had two lieutenant-commanders.
Five had one lieutenant-commander.
Two had no lieutenant-commander.
Lieutenant-commanders ordered as executive officers are excluded from the above.
From the above it must be evident that it is impracticable to provide lieutenant-commanders for all details as "heads of departments," as established at present. From an examination of the situation it would seem to be inadvisable to attempt to do so. The proper basis for establishing a proper command for an officer is, as has been pointed out before, the number of men commanded.
Excluding the navigator, who is an officer with few administrative duties but with large responsibilities, there are two line commands proper for a lieutenant-commander on board ship. One is already established; the senior engineer officer commands the engineer's force, a battalion of about 250 men. The other branch, consisting of about 450 men usually designated by the meaningless term "deck force," is a battalion without a commanding officer. It would be entirely logical, and entirely in accordance with correct organization, to utilize the services of the senior lieutenant-commander available for this command.
By a readjustment of the unequal distribution of lieutenant-commanders, as shown above, it would be possible to provide each ship in the fleet with a lieutenant-commander who, according to the practice of five years ago, would have had sufficient rank to be executive officer; and who, according to the practice of to-day, would certainly have rank and experience enough for the command proposed for him.
There are few, if any, first lieutenants to-day who are satisfied with their jobs, which is very conclusive evidence that there must be something the matter with the job. There are few, if any, senior engineer officers who are not satisfied with their jobs, which would seem to indicate that there is nothing the matter with the job. The remedy for the existing state of affairs would seem to be to establish the senior lieutenant-commander available as the head of the "gunnery department," with a status similar to that of the senior engineer officer in regard to the engineering department.
The one primary duty of every officer on board should be in connection with preparation for battle. All other duties are secondary to this, and if it is logical to establish a form of organization which provides for this in the engineer's department, it is logical to provide a similar organization in the other branch of the line. We have in the past been unduly sensitive in regard to care and preservation of ships, and entirely too much importance has been given to this question in our regulations. It is now apparent that the life of our hulls is much longer than the life of the ship as an effective fighting unit.
Aside from the confusing situation produced, it is entirely illogical to take the senior officer on board, after the executive officer, and fail to utilize his training and experience in connection with battle training—which is precisely what we do when we establish a first lieutenant and make him responsible primarily for the condition of paint work. If the name "engineering department" is an appropriate designation for the department primarily responsible for the efficiency of the motive machinery, it is submitted that the name "gunnery department" is equally appropriate for that branch of the personnel primarily responsible for the effectiveness of the offensive power of the ship.
As to the proper employment of the present ordnance officer— who is at present, on board the majority of ships, a lieutenant well below the rank appropriate for a head of a department—it would seem to be proper to make him the assistant to the head of the department for the purpose, primarily, of relieving him of the details in connection with responsibility for materiel, and of assisting him in the routine administration of his department.
There is no reason whatever for requiring a separate officer as a representative of each of the materiel bureaus. There is, on the contrary, very considerable conflict and confusion resultant from this practice, and a general tendency to produce an organization built around bureau cognizance.
The establishment of a general storekeeper responsible for all Title Y stores, and all Title B stores not issued for use, has been entirely satisfactory. The establishment, in a ship's administrative department, of responsibility for all stores issued for use, and all bureau allotments, in the hands of one officer, will be equally satisfactory, and this duty is appropriate to the assistant to the head of the gunnery department.
The establishment of the responsibility of this officer, as outlined above, would virtually make him the inspecting officer of the part of the ship cared for by the gunnery department. He should have no authority independent of the head of departments, and should not have the authority to issue orders to men not placed under his orders for administrative purposes, except when carrying out the orders of his immediate superior.
THE SENIOR ENGINEER OFFICER.
The senior engineer officer is the only line officer whose status as "head of department" is fixed. He commands the engineer's department, and is responsible for the activities of the men under his orders in all that they do, except when they are specifically detailed for duty with another department.
This condition has been forced by necessity, rather than being the result of design. The engineer's force, when established as an integral part of the complement, had no traditions to upset. An organization suited to the requirements was developed, and no material changes in the form of the organization have been found necessary.
In view of the necessity of maintaining the efficiency of the personnel and materiel at all times, the control of the senior engineer officer over his men at all times was imperative. Any system similar to that at present established on deck, where the crew becomes active in gunnery exercises periodically, would have broken down completely.
Much can be learned by a study of conditions existing in the engineer's department.
THE NAVIGATOR.
The navigator has, at present, no status in the organization. His duties are primarily of an advisory character, and he is the only officer on board who has responsibility independent of the executive officer, reporting direct to the captain in matters of navigation. For administrative purposes he is subordinate to the executive officer.
He should be made responsible for the training of all men required for ship-handling purposes; and in order to make this practicable, he should control all men required for helmsmen, signalmen, and the transmission of radio messages. At present he does not control anybody. His own immediate subordinates are usually placed under the command of some other officer.
THE DIVISION OFFICER.
To establish and maintain discipline there must be personal contact between the superior and the inferior, and as one man can influence only a limited number of his fellow men, it follows that the size of the units that compose a fighting mass must have some relation to the numbers of inferiors of average attainments that can be influenced by one superior.—Precis of Modern Tactics.—PRATT.
One of the main props of this edifice, built up of obedience and confidence, is the Company Chief. On him falls the labor of training and instructing the soldiers.—BOGUSLAWSKI.
The most efficient armies are those in which the Captains are given the greatest latitude in the methods of instructing and providing for their companies, and held to the most rigid accountability for their good condition and military efficiency.—WAGNER.
The position of the division officer of our organization, in relation to the men of his division, should be precisely the same as that indicated in the above quotations, between a company commander and his men.
The division should be the basic unit of our organization. This condition does not exist to-day. The division has forced itself to the front, as the only real unit which we have; and, we have made fitful attempts to recognize the responsibility of the division officer. We have, however, failed absolutely to make it possible for the division officer to exercise that complete control over his men which should be the foundation of our discipline. We have failed to remove the forces, strong in the traditions of a hundred years, which attack the division from the flank and destroy it as an effective and cohesive unit.
Strongest among these forces is that of the boatswain. This officer, who at one time was in unquestioned control of the deck force, has carried along through all these years the traditional conception of his duties, and we find him to-day exercising, independent of the division officer, the same control over that part of the personnel which forms around the boatswain's mate as a nucleus, which he exercised before the division was established as an administrative unit.
He works from stem to stern, supervising the work at the forward division with the anchor gear, the after division with the towing gear, and amidships he takes complete charge of the hoisting of boats.
In mooring ship alongside a dock, he assumes the power of issuing orders to the men of divisions direct—often regardless of the presence of the division officer.
There is no attempt to suggest that this officer is not as a rule a most useful, energetic, and forceful person. It is suggested, however, that there is no place for him in a modern organization, and that his presence on board is destructive to the initiative of the division commander.
The fact that there is often found so little proficiency in seamanship, on the part of our junior officers and most of our enlisted men, is due largely to the fact that we have specialized in knowledge, and concentrated that knowledge in the person of the boatswain and his gang.
What is usually known as a division is that part of the organization which works on deck under the boatswain; the remaining members retiring within a turret, or some other secluded spot, and serving as strikers to one of the specialists who make up the nominal strength of a division.
Next after the boatswain, the most destructive influence is that of the master-at-arms. Independent of control by the division officer—independent in fact of any effective control—he exercises supervision over the conduct of the men of the division at all times.
A division officer commands his division at general quarters. He cannot be said to command it at any other time, and in failing to establish a condition by which his command is complete we fail to take advantage of the opportunities of daily life to educate our officers to exercise command, and to establish that relation between the division commander and his men which is the keynote of effective -discipline.
The development of naval gunnery which began shortly 'after the Spanish War, and which has continued up to the recent past, was the triumph of the division officer. The remarkable improvement was made possible by a system which stimulated the interest of the division officer, established his responsibility for results, and left him absolutely free to develop methods for producing results.
In order to accomplish this result, it was necessary to disrupt our organization. Nothing was allowed to interfere with the division officer and the division officer having no part in anything except gunnery training, other things suffered. The forces responsible for discipline and ship cleaning, for the time being were held in restraint, with the result that there was during the progress of gunnery a marked deterioration in every other field. We have of late been attempting to regain what was lost, and in doing so it is a question as to whether or not we have stopped progress in gunnery.
We shall never be able to proceed on a rational line of improvement, until we have established an organization in which the interest of the division officer is enlisted in the development of the division in all the elements which go to make up its efficiency as a whole.
Whatever the immediate effect produced by the removal of elements upon which we have become accustomed to depend, it is imperative, if we are to establish the division officer in command of his division, that we remove the forces which interfere with establishing of that condition.
In establishing the division as an administrative unit, we should try to get a clearer conception than we have at present. as to what a division is. The word has been used indiscriminately to describe any kind of unit. We have divisions varying from 8 men to 250 men.
A division should be recognized as a unit having an average strength of about 70 men, proper for the command of a lieutenant, and composed of men who naturally group themselves together, because of a similarity of duties. The test of the grouping into any unit should be the purpose for which the men are put on board. Men placed on board to man guns naturally form gun divisions. Men placed on board to man fire-rooms naturally form fire-room divisions. Here the administrative unit is the same as the battle unit. Men placed on board for the performance of duties not specifically connected with battle cannot be grouped by battle stations, because they will gravitate back into units commanded by the officers and petty officers who supervise their daily work.
The powder division, a monstrosity of organization, represents an unscientific attempt to group men in no way connected by a similarity of duties into a battle unit. The powder division is an organization in name only, and we usually find the men composing it acting in self-formed units under the officers responsible for the work for which they were put on board ship.
The ideal condition, of course, would be to establish complete control by the gun-division officers over all men upon whom they depend in battle. This condition is impossible without a large increase of complements. Any attempts to put servants, landsmen and yeomen in gun divisions would fail, because they would not stay there, and we would have a large number of men under no control. Men put on board ship for special purposes can be handled effectively, from the administrative standpoint, only by organizing them into units the character of which is established by a similarity of duties.
It is necessary to utilize these men in battle, and in order to do this, they must be detailed for the purpose; although an attempt should be made to preserve, as far as possible, the integrity of administrative units, in order that men accustomed to each other, by daily association, may work together at battle stations.
WARRANT OFFICERS.
In attempting to establish the status of warrant officers in the modern organization, we have to overcome the forces of tradition. The present regulations in regard to warrant officers have been handed down from a, time when they were the actual heads of the only departments which existed aboard ship.
With the establishing of the division as the administrative unit, and the insistence on the qualification of the enlisted men for the primary duties for which they are put on board, we shall arrive at a condition where we can depend upon the division to handle practically all the work on board, and the necessity for the various groups of specialists will largely disappear. It is doubtful if a place can be found .for the boatswain in an organization founded on the division as the basic unit.
The remaining warrant officers, the gunner, the electrical gunner, and the carpenter are easily placed in charge of the small groups of artificers who will be necessary to undertake repairs beyond the capacity of the gun divisions, and as assistants to the materiel officer in accounting for the materiel for which he is responsible, and in inspections of the parts of the ship for which the gunnery department is responsible.
ENLISTED PERSONNEL.
The present condition of the enlisted personnel is chaotic. We have a multiplicity of rates and titles. All of our titles suggest the performance of some particular duty rather than the rank and authority of the holder in a military organization. The present situation is the result of the forces of a misdirected conservatism which has retained in the service a type of petty officers developed in the past, while at the same time a new type of petty officers has been developed to meet the necessities of modern conditions. We have at present, generally speaking, two sets of petty officers, and many specialists who are petty officers for the performance of special duties only.
There appeared in the pages of the PROCEEDINGS of the Naval Institute, immediately after the Spanish War, an extended discussion of the methods to be employed in training our enlisted men. There were several dissenting opinions expressed, but generally the weight of opinions of the officers who took part in that discussion was in favor of the retention of the sailing ship, and in favor of educating the topman for service in modern ships.
Since that date two facts have become evident, and are not believed to be open to serious discussion: First, that it is entirely impracticable to produce the topman of former days; Second, that we would not do it if we could, since the type of man produced is entirely unsuited to our requirements. It seems to have been the opinion of a number of officers who took part in this discussion that the form of training proposed was necessary to develop the character and courage required.
Character and courage are attributes which are widely distributed among many classes of men. Courage is usually dependent upon familiarity with environment—a topman would probably have been very badly scared in the engine room of a reciprocating destroyer. The evidence accumulated during the past years, from experience in accidents of various kinds incident to life in the modern navy, has amply demonstrated that the fears expressed as to the deterioration in character, due to the lack of training in sailing ships, were not well founded.
All this might be considered to be a dead issue, but it is believed that the opinions expressed at the time represented a sentiment which has had a powerful effect in retarding the development of the personnel to meet modern conditions. The old ratings have been retained, with very much the same qualifications for advancement as in former days.
Boatswain's mates and coxswains are very much the same as formerly, except that their opportunity for learning seamanship has been destroyed. Prevented by a misleading title, and the traditions surrounding that title, from adopting a helpful mental attitude towards their real duty on board ship, they have never developed into really useful battery petty officers.
It is an astonishing fact that no where can there be found anything in the way of instructions as to just what the qualifications for a boatswain's mate are. It is understood, in a general way, that he must be a seaman; but just what this means is left to the individual judgment of the officer making the appointment.
The qualifications for turret captains, electricians, water tenders, hospital apprentices, and others, are established in great detail.
A boatswain's mate might be entirely competent in masting vessels, and yet be entirely ignorant of the simplest fact in regard to the machinery of the turret which he is required to man in battle. He is the petty officer most concerned in handling men, which he does in connection with the ordinary work around the decks. This cannot but impress the mind of the recruit with the idea that scrubbing decks, and not gunnery, is the really important function aboard ship.
In the meanwhile a new type of petty officer has appeared in the organization, forced by the actual necessities of modern conditions. The most forceful and capable petty officers we have to-day are the turret captains. It would be most unfortunate if this were not the case, for not only do they perform duties requiring the highest order of resourcefulness and initiative, but conditions may arise which, if we exist for war, would render failure on their part a serious matter indeed.
They are junior to all petty officers of the line with whom they come into contact, and while the instructions contained in the "ship and gun drills" establish their command as absolute within their turrets, we do not use them as petty officers until they go to their battle stations, when they find themselves in command, not only of men to whom they have not been accustomed by daily association, but actually of men who, up to that time, have been their seniors in the division. Could any absurdity be carried further in a military organization?
On top of this organization, confusing enough in itself, we have the master-at-arms.
The influence of the masters-at-arms on the morale of the line petty officers is destructive. Uncertain as to their status in regard to them, the other petty officers usually withdraw from participation in the enforcement of discipline, and devote their attention to the performance of their own special duties.
The masters-at-arms, clothed with great powers, beset with more than ordinary temptations, independent of any effective control, usually develop along lines familiar to investigators of conditions in the police force of our municipalities.
From the standpoint of battle efficiency there can be no argument but that improvement would .result from the establishment of one branch of line petty officers, whose primary qualifications should be based on their ability to perform the necessary duties in fighting the ship. The only question upon which argument is possible is the question as to whether or not we are able to insist on the necessary qualification in elementary seamanship, on the part of our battery petty officers, to enable us to dispense with a special branch of seamanship petty officers.
This question will be answered in the affirmative by any officer who has had experience with gunner's mates in destroyers. As a plain statement of fact, our gunnery petty officers know about as much seamanship now as the seaman petty officers. The 7-inch battery of the Connecticut was recently dismounted, and landed by the gunner's mates, under the gunner—a very creditable performance in modern seamanship.
Whether we admit it or not, seamanship is at present a specialty. We have a few men who can steer, a few who are good leadsmen, and a few who can handle boats. Whenever we want men for special duty it is necessary to train them for that duty, and we are quite satisfied if we can provide men sufficient for that duty, and do not attempt to train the whole crew. It would be no more practicable to train all seamen to be good helmsmen than it would to train them to stand a dynamo-room watch, and there is no necessity for us to attempt it. The men of a quarterdeck division of a battleship would be relatively helpless on the forecastle, until they had been trained to the duties required on the forecastle.
An elementary knowledge of marlin-spike seamanship is of course essential to all men who work on deck, but the amount of knowledge required is small, as compared with former times, and is easily within the capacity of a man of sufficient intelligence to perform the duties required in connection with the battery.
It is a strange fact that while we are dependent, on battleships, on boatswain's mates and master-at-arms, the duty of both can be performed by a gunner's mate on a destroyer, without in the least interfering with his usefulness as a torpedo man.
Coxswains are supposed to handle boats, but when we want a steam-launch coxwain we are forced to train him. It would be just as easy to train a gunner's mate as to train a coxswain.
The principal improvement which would result from establishing qualifications for petty officers based upon their ability to perform the primary duties for which they are placed on board ship would be, not the direct improvement from the standpoint of battle efficiency, however great that improvement might be, but the improvement which would result from the establishment of a homogeneous and cohesive organization, in which it would be possible to use all petty officers for their most important duty aboard ship—the control of men—and the improvement due to breaking up the numerous "gangs" and details which have grown around ratings and titles implying limited and restricted usefulness, and which have prevented the establishment of the division as an effective administrative unit.
The engineer's force has always been in a very much better position in regard to petty officers than the deck force, but here also we find the same misuse of title. We have water tenders who cannot be separated from tending water. We have oilers bound forever, by the possession of a degrading and disgusting title, to the duty of oiling. Many a promising recruit has been prevented from enlisting in a branch which offers excellent opportunities for advancement, by the title of coal-passer.
It is perfectly possible, and perfectly logical, to develop a type of petty officer in the engineer's department who should be capable of all the duties in connection with the care and operation of marine machinery, both in the fire rooms and in the engine room.
There is nothing in the training of a shop machinist which qualifies him for a petty officer; and many of them, enlisted with this qualification, fail as petty officers. The work required of a watch-standing petty officer is work which can be learned only aboard ship. The navy to-day is full of chief machinists' mates who have, without encouragement, qualified for their ratings, passing through all the grades from coal passer up; while there are also many chief machinists' mates, of a high order of skill, who have never developed into really satisfactory petty officers.
Our water tenders, who are first class petty officers, should be as capable, in handling an engine room watch, as the average machinist mate, first class, and would be if we were not prevented from using them by the restrictions of a title which binds them to the fire-room forever. The amount of work requiring more skill than is possessed by the average bench hand who can be developed aboard ship is very small, and the training required for this work could readily be imparted in the trade schools to the small number of men required, who have already qualified as watch-standing petty officers.
The definite steps necessary to bring about the desired results are as follows:
First: Abolish all titles as they exist to-day in the line branches.
Second: Reestablish, for each branch which requires special training—signals and ship handling, battery, and engineering—one line of petty officers, to be called chief petty officers, petty officers first class, petty officers second class, and petty officers third class.
Third: Establish a qualification for each branch which would fit men of that branch primarily for the duty for which they are placed on board.
Fourth: Abolish entirely the present illogical schedule of extra pay, and establish a system of extra compensation, for special qualification, based on modern conditions. Develop the trade schools for the purpose of giving the special training required.
Fifth: Reclassify, in accordance with naval practice, the trades represented on board ship, and establish the rates of chief artificer, artificer first class, artificer second class, and artificer third class, for men who are not petty officers, but who require a special training in trades.
Three branches of the line for which a distinctive qualification would be required would be as follows:
SIGNALS AND SHIP HANDLING BRANCH.
Primary Qualifications.—Ability to command men. Proficiency as helmsmen, as leadsmen, and in signaling. Men of lower ratings detailed to this branch to be considered in training for the higher rates. Coxswains of all power-boats to belong to this branch.
Extra compensation for qualification in elementary navigation. Chief petty officers, so qualified, to be eligible for command of tugs and for warrant rank.
GUNNERY BRANCH.
Primary Qualifications.—Ability to command men, and to perform all the necessary duties in connection with the care, operation, and overhaul of the ordnance equipment.
Extra compensation for qualification in mechanical skill sufficient to undertake repairs.
Torpedo men to be detailed from above.
Men specially qualified to be eligible for warrant rank.
ENGINEERING BRANCH.
Primary Qualifications.—Ability to command men, and to perform all necessary duties in connection with the care, operation, and overhaul of marine machinery.
Extra compensation for mechanical skill necessary to perform any work required aboard ship.
The training for this should be limited to the attempt to produce good bench hands.
Men for machine tool hands should be artificers. Not more than four would be required on a battleship, and they should be employed continuously at this work.
Men specially qualified to be eligible for warrant rank.
FORM OF ORGANIZATION PROPOSED.
It is assumed that no exception can be taken to the statement that the form of organization best suited to our requirements is the military organization.
A military organization is one based on complete control of men by leaders responsible for them under all conditions; and the establishment of direct lines of authority by which the orders of the commander may be, with certainty, transmitted to the lowest units composing the organization as a whole; an organization in which the control of men, by their own leaders, is so complete that no disorganization can result when, owing to the accidents of battle, the leaders must act on their own initiative.
It might be argued that we have such an organization, at present, for battle stations. This is but partially true, but, admitting the complete correctness of this statement, we are forced to admit that this is an organization which disappears with the retreat from drill, when we go back to an entirely different form of organization which is not military, and in which we fail to avail ourselves, in the daily administrative work, of the opportunity of training our men to work under the leaders who must command them in battle.
There has been a general tendency of late in the industrial world, to work away from the military idea, and to adopt a form of organization based on functional control; an organization in which the activities of the men are controlled at one time by one specialist, and at another time by a different specialist; an organization in which supervision is established over the act which the man is performing, rather than over the man himself. This form of organization is workable only where it is possible to plan long in advance, and where no unforseen emergencies are to be expected. This kind of organization approximates to that which we have to-day aboard ship, except that in our case it is the result of accidental development rather than design.
It is not possible for us to adopt anything in the way of organization as simple as that of a regiment.
In the first place we have aboard ship three branches in the line which require special training as different as that of the branches in the line of the army. Whereas a regiment is an incomplete unit, depending for its existence upon other special corps, we have aboard ship representatives of all of the branches which are necessary to form a completely self-supporting whole.
We are moreover under the necessity of fitting our organization to the ship, and, owing to the varying conditions to be met, are forced to establish organizations to meet the several different conditions. If we are able to adopt one organization to meet the several different conditions, we can at least insure that each of our organizations shall be military, and adopt the broad general principle that as far as practicable all men shall be employed at all times under the leaders who command them in battle. We must recognize the fact that the one primary duty for which we exist is to fight the ship in battle, and that all other duties are secondary and relatively unimportant.
The form of organization proposed is shown on the accompanying chart. This organization has been worked out for the present complement of a ship of the Connecticut class, and is submitted as one which can be adopted without the comprehensive changes in enlisted personnel which have been recommended. No material difference in form would result from these changes.
The organization shown is an administrative organization, the only form of organization which will hold together under the stress of the day's work. Any attempt to base an organization on battle stations alone will fail, because it will be found to be impracticable to hold together a loosely joined battle unit, similar to the present powder division, which is composed of men who normally work together as part of some other unit.
It will be noted that the organization of the engineer's department is carried out to the squad, whose identity is retained under all circumstances. This is made possible by the fact that there are at present available in this department a proper number of petty officers with rates appropriate for this duty. With a readjustment of ratings in the present deck force, the squad organization would be equally appropriate.
The general scheme of organization is based on the division of the personnel between five co-ordinate departments and the sub-division of the departments into units, the character of which is determined by the particular requirements of each department. No attempt has been made to divide the pay department into four parts because that sub-division happens to be appropriate for a gun division.
The executive control by the heads of departments should be complete over all men of their departments. The executive officer will then be free to execute his proper functions as an aid to the commanding officer in co-ordinating the departments, and in inspecting them as to their efficiency in accomplishing the required results. The present organization is not satisfactory. In the hands of capable administrators it has yielded good results; but at the expense of an enormous energy, wasted internally on the organization, which, under a better organization, might have been expended externally upon results for the accomplishment of which the organization exists.
The most important result, however, from an organization based upon the retention of centralized control and decentralization of detailed activity, will be the establishment of a condition by which the officers will not be denied the training in administrative work necessary to fit them for positions of responsibility which they must later fill.