In the January-February, 1916, number of the Naval Institute Proceedings Lieutenant Farley has published an article entitled “The Sea Going Officer and the War College.” In this article the author makes it plain that he is a thorough and enthusiastic advocate of the college, and that he deplores the failure of many officers to understand its vital importance to the efficient conduct of our fleet.
But as his summarized quotations of the criticisms of these officers indicates an apparently complete misapprehension on their part of the real nature of the college, I shall endeavor to show that the college as now conducted is at all times essentially a part of the fleet, and that its methods are largely controlled by the fleet.
There is a granite building on Coasters Harbor Island in which are now assembled about forty officers, almost all directly from the fleet or recently in the fleet, for the purpose of determining from their practical fleet experience, and from the accepted principles of warfare, the best practical methods of handling our fleet in the face of an enemy. These methods involve tactics and strategy (the definitions of these terms may be found in any dictionary).
There is no War College, as the term “college” is usually understood. There is no president or corps of professors who remain during life and good behavior and whose duty it is to impose their conclusions upon the pupils.
The assemblage of officers is practically a board convened each year for the purpose of determining the best manner of conducting naval warfare with vessels and weapons of ever-changing characteristics. The staff of the college, generally fresh from the fleet and a course at the college, presents the accepted principles of war, and the accepted manner of writing orders, issues the rules of the war games to be played, and helps the pupils play them.
The principles and the order forms are derived from the acknowledged masters of the art, and the rules are formulated from the practical experience of the practical officers of the fleet.
The pupils are assigned problems, the correct solutions of which involve a correct application 06 the principles, and those who apply themselves leave the college with a very valuable practical up-to- date knowledge of the best practical method of conducting war on the sea.
At the end of the course of one year, the practical officers from the fleet who are about to be graduated, and the staff of the college, meet practically as a board to discuss the methods by which the studies of the college have been conducted during the past year, and to discuss changes in the course that may be deemed advisable for the following year.
In this manner, the method of conducting the college is virtually determined from year to year by the fleet, by the officer students and officers of the staff who have brought their practical experience from the fleet, and matured this experience by a year of study as to the most practical manner of handling the battle fleet.
From the graduating class are usually selected a number of officers to replace those members of the staff who arc due to go back to the fleet for more practical experience, and to carry to the fleet the knowledge and experience they have gained by the study of the art of war.
The above to show that we have no Naval War College in the sense in which it seems to be understood by too many “practical” officers in the fleet, that is, as a sort of “ high brow ” institution that imposes its theoretical ideas upon the fleet in “ words that had to be looked up in a dictionary.”
In the past there was some excuse for such lamentable ignorance of the nature of the college (and of the dictionary words’), but there is none whatever now.
When I went to the college in 1911 the service was very generally ignorant of its purposes and the great practical value of its teachings. Believing that this ignorance was extremely detrimental to our advancement in the practical methods of naval war-, fare, I wrote a pamphlet entitled “The Practical Character of the Naval War College.” I gave up a very considerable number of real dollars to have this printed and a copy sent to each line officer in the service at that time (November, 1912).
I do not think that any officer who read that pamphlet, and who now remembers it, would care to confess the ignorance indicated by the comments quoted by Lieutenant Farley. Unfortunately, the great majority did not read it. I questioned many officers and found few who bad read it. Had they done so, and followed its advice as to the live or six books recommended as a beginning of a course of reading, they would not have had to confess that they needed a dictionary to tell them the meaning of the commonest terms of tactics, strategy, etc., used in articles issued by the college.
The explanation, therefore, of the criticisms of the fleet's own college, composed of fleet officers, is very simple. It is an exhibition of wholly unpardonable ignorance.
It should not be assumed, however, that these criticisms are as serious as reported. Many of them are doubtless idle exercises of amateur wardroom wit. It is quite a mistake to assume that responsible officers resent the statement that no officers should be ordered to important commands until after they had taken the course at the college. The responsible officers of the fleet have, on the contrary, deliberately expressed themselves on this subject.
Within the past two years, all division commanders, all commanding officers of the Atlantic fleet, and all members of the War College staff, were assembled at the college for the purpose of discussing the relations! between the fleet and the college. After extended discussion the Secretary of the Navy, who presided, asked the opinion of each officer present upon this particular point, and without a single exception all agreed that as soon as practicable it should be the established practice to order to important commands, both ashore and afloat, only those officers who were graduates of the college.
The remedy for the conditions complained of is not believed to be any of those suggested. The fault is not with the college, for the college is such as the fleet officers make it and change it from year to year to suit the fleet’s own practical requirements.
The remedy should be applied where Lieutenant Farley so clearly shows that it is needed, that is, in the fleet. If those officers of the fleet who understand the vital necessity of the college would take the trouble to explain it to those who cannot or will not read the entirely adequate evidence on the subject, the difficulty would disappear.
It would of course be well if all officers could he sent to the college, but as this is manifestly entirely impracticable, the next best thing is to send as many as the conditions of the service will permit at the times when they are available.
This will provide a continuous flow of the famous practical experience from the fleet to the college, and a continuous flow back to the fleet of the same famous practical experience plus some knowledge of naval warfare—and the unfamiliar words associated therewith.
This process cannot, however, educate all the officers of the fleet in war knowledge. That is essentially the business of the fleet. The practical officers returning from the college to the fleet are just as capable of instructing the officers of the fleet as those who remain at the college to instruct those coming from the fleet. All that is required is the necessary organization to make the course in the fleet even more practical than that conducted at the college by the practical officers from the fleet.
This must be done before the fleet will be ready to carry out war operations with efficiency. It would do little good to pick out the ablest practical fleet officers and educate them alone in the art of war; for the ablest and most experienced leader can accomplish little with a commissioned personnel that does not understand the game—that would not even know what his orders meant if Webster's unabridged happened to be mislaid.
Let the fleet officers therefore cheer up, and instead of criticising their own fleet War College across the wardroom tables, get busy, read the books, take the correspondence course, get up chart maneuvers, and learn the great game the successful playing of which in war is their only reason for existence.