We are informed by the daily papers, that the present administration will ask Congress to inaugurate a building program for the navy by which the materiel strength of the fleet will be doubled in five years.
There is a feature, however, connected with any building scheme, which it appears has been more or less neglected in the past, and it is but natural that the auxiliary parts of the navy are apt to be overlooked by those whose conception of a navy is one of a mass of fighting ships and nothing else.
It is hoped that we shall not commit the oversight, and neglect that most important of all auxiliaries to the fleet—efficient bases.
It is not meant to refer to the navy-yards at home as bases, but to those ports in distant waters in which the fleet may have to find all the mass of things required by a fleet in active campaign. Bases must exist for the fleet and not the fleet to provide work for the bases.
There can be no question of the needs of the fleet in regard to personnel and materiel, nor can there be any question but that the needs of the fleet in these respects are known and will be remedied, but experience which, as George Washington said, "Is the best criterion to work by," has so clearly pointed out the fact that we have no definite policy about bases, that it is hoped that those in authority will not let this vital need of the fleet be neglected. A definite program of expansion and progress is as necessary as is the program for the fleet.
Commander Belknap, in his article on the subject of the base at Key West during the Spanish War, points out the great need of having completed organization for the bases before the declaration of war, and he shows us the confusion under which the base at Key West was administered because the fact of having such a base organization had not been apparent to us before the war.
We know now that such bases are necessary and it is very important to the best service of the fleet that it be provided with bases which have been in running order and under efficient organization during the time when we are preparing for war.
We cannot afford to overlook the very important fact that the proper equipment of a base is a matter of years of labor and foresight and not one which can be done in a month or a year. The engagement of the force to administer the base and to give to the fleet the best service possible is equally a matter of time and experiment and not a thing which we can afford to have done in a haphazard way. There must be smoothly working machinery, in both shops and administrative force, to whom war will mean simply a condition to which all the training of the force has always looked forward.
To accomplish this, most desirable end we must begin now and put the equipment, the tools, the docks, the stores and the administrative force in the field, so to speak, and start them along the road they are to follow until they have evolved a system needing the minimum of expansion to assume the duties which are a part of war.
The importance of having docks capable of taking the largest ships must be pointed out, because, in those vast areas where naval war occurs, we cannot tie our ships to our nearer island possessions when the demands of strategy may take them thousands of miles from those docks and repair shops.
The commander-in-chief must feel that hip fleet will have facilities at its disposal nearer to his immediate theater of operations than those of such possessions as we own, which may be many, many miles from the scenes of action.
He must not be forced to go into action with his mind worried by the fact that injuries to his ships cannot be repaired in his vicinity, nor must he be forced to go into action knowing that such injuries, if they are to be repaired, will take from him important units of his fleet for longer times than he can spare them.
We know that these things must be foreseen and prepared for and knowing this it is difficult to understand why they have not been given a more important place in the preparation of the bases which we now hold. Nothing progressive has been done in one of our very important bases in the seventeen years we have had it. Nor is there any assurance that any progressive advancement will be made because of the wide latitude given the chief of that station, and his freedom from any policy laid down, not only for him but for all the chiefs who may be sent to that station.
The reason for this lies in the fact that our attention has been devoted so closely to the actual fleet even at the expense of the things which make that fleet efficient. The need of fighting units has so overshadowed the equal need of auxiliary things for the fighting ships that we have very naturally neglected the less striking requirements for the most pressing ones.
The matter of bases in the possible areas where war is likely to come to us, is of great importance to the efficient conduct of the war and the victorious use of the fleet. The necessity for dry docks capable of taking our largest ships, in the distant bases, is ever present and so great is this need that war might find us totally unprepared in this vital respect unless we start at once to build such docks as we need.
Where great stretches of ocean intervene between a fleet and its home country there must be shops, docks, supplies of all kinds at other points than the home coast if the fleet is to take and keep the sea.
We must clearly point out, to those who do not understand it, the necessity for having our foreign bases prepared for any emergency which may arise. In doing this important work we should try to impress on them the vital necessity of having such programs as we adopt, for the bases in question, progressive and continuous, so that each year the sums allotted will be applied to the things which will go to make the base all that the fleet can desire in time of war.
It is of great importance that we of the navy settle on some definite points for our bases in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, and when that very important point is settled then we may hope that a policy of continuous preparation will be adopted, but when we are divided in our own minds and find ourselves pulling in all directions, we cannot hope for results of any importance.
There does not seem to be much doubt about the willingness of Congress to give us much of what we ask for, but when we face a condition where we don't know ourselves what we want, we are certainly not just to raise the cry that Congress won't do this or it won't do that.
To accomplish anything, whether it be a building program for ships, whether it be a base establishment and equipment, or whether it be a matter of administration, there must be a definite, clear-cut, closely adhered to policy covering the matter under consideration. We must be organized from top to bottom.
Commander Belknap tells us that three weeks after the Spanish War was declared there was not even an office provided for the base commander at Key West; there was no stationary, no telephones. no messengers, etc., and if a condition of that kind confronted us in our own country three weeks after the declaration of war, how much more difficult it will be to get the proper organization and equipment at a base which may be thousands of miles from our coasts.
The things we should have learned in the war with Spain, which have a bearing on the matter of the bases of the fleet, seem to have been very much neglected. I have been at many so-called bases outside of the United States but at none of them was the force very different from the usual navy-yard force, and in fact the general understanding was that these were navy-yards outside of the home country. They were not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, organized for war, and all of them were seriously under officered, particularly with regard to the staff of the commandants on whose shoulders would fall the mass of work connected with war administration.
At one of our very important bases the commandant performs a multitude of other duties, among them civil offices connected with the so-called civil administration of the place. There is no doubt about the confusion which Would result as a war condition because nearly every person at that station would perform new and unusual duties in the event of war.
It can hardly be questioned that the most important duties such a commandant has to perform are those looking to the preparation of his station for war time use, yet I know of places where war is the least thought of the executive officers and the organization is lacking accordingly.
A base commander should be selected as such because of his special training or qualification for such important duty, and the many duties he will have to perform, to perfect the force under him for war time use, which is the chief mission of the base, will not allow him to delve into other matters except at the expense of his primary work, base establishment and preparation.
To have adequate and proper preparation for war, the bases of the fleet cannot be overlooked or neglected. We know how little that the fleet needs can be obtained from the sea and because of this knowledge we cannot afford to neglect the vital feature of war preparation, placing the bases on a footing which will allow them to provide the repairs, stores, fuel and docking facilities necessary to the well being of the fleet.
Admiral Mahan has very clearly pointed out the essential things for an over-seas base, and he tells us that one of the principle requirements of a base, from a military point of view, is complete and adequate docking facilities. It is the lack of this important military, feature which is a characteristic of most of our bases beyond the seas. We should certainly exert efforts to have such a defect remedied as soon as possible.
By no stretch of the imagination can the fleet be thought to be ready for war if the humble and yet very important auxiliaries are not provided for. The trained ship's crew and all that it means is not in its most efficient condition if the materiel of the ship is short or lacking at a critical time. And without proper provision for the auxiliaries, bases, etc., such a condition might arise.
To conduct a fleet across vast bodies of water and have it in effective fighting condition on arrival, or shortly thereafter, requires a place at which it can refuel—a base—and if the base and the facilities for rapid refueling are lacking, the fleet is crippled and badly handicapped. If we do not have all the things needed by the fleet when it arrives in foreign waters we cannot expect to be victorious should an action ensue after our arrival.
If the fleet should not be accompanied by its fuel ships there must be means at the base for rapidly getting the fuel needed to them and there must be protection from the weather as well as from an aggressive enemy.
These are not matters which can be provided in a short time and they are features of campaign which may have great weight in the outcome of the action. It is not fair to the personnel of the fleet to subject them to makeshift methods after war is declared when we can give them all the advantages such preparation means by the use of a little foresight.
The men of the fleet are entitled to at least an even break with the enemy, and they will not have it unless every contingency which human foresight can provide for has been considered and the means to meet it have been worked out.
Many things, not a pail of the immediate fighting force, are a part of the efficient fleet, and among these exterior things not the least important are the bases. Much money and much time is needed to put the bases we have in the best condition for the use of the fleet, and if we are to have them ready before a war comes to us we cannot afford to waste any time in starting the preparation of the bases so that they will be prepared to give the best service to the fighting ships.
It is our duty as a nation to look ahead; maybe it will be five, ten, or even a hundred years before we have a war. No matter whether or not it is any one of these periods of time, it is our duty to those who come after us to provide every means of maintaining our national existence; neglect of the fleet or any part of the fleet auxiliaries is not fair to the Americans of the future.
The error so often committed by republics of living in the present and letting the future look out for itself is one we should avoid; neglecting the fleet, or any part of it is committing that fatal error and not avoiding it.
The requirements of bases are varied and many and the study of these requirements cannot be lightly entered into. It is essential to success that all that human foresight can do, be done during peace, and not during war.
Progress in the preparation of the bases requires a policy for them and this policy must be one passing from one chief to another. It must be a policy which takes out of the hands of the person who may be ordered as the base commander or commandant, the power to apply the funds allotted to him as he thinks proper. There has been so great a waste of money because of this power that we have not progressed as we should .have done had each of the many men in command of our bases supervised the work laid down for him by a general staff gr some similar body of officers.
Not only has this lack of policy been expensive, but it has been at the bottom of the lack of progress we have made at our bases because each succeeding commandant, at many places, has ignored or not approved of the things his predecessor has done and has exercised the authority given him and done what he thought proper, with the result that we have many bases which are covered with unfinished work representing so much money wasted.
Our national policies in the Pacific make it imperative that we have bases in that ocean other than those on our own coasts and other than those in the island possessions nearest to our home coasts. The principle is admitted that, for the purposes of campaign, an army establishes a base nearer to the theater of war than those which, from their character, may be called permanent bases or depots of supply. In the same way it is essential to a naval campaign to have secondary as well as advanced bases. The advanced bases are themselves based on the secondary bases.
The secondary base requires docks and shops and these we lack at the points most likely to be used as secondary bases. Much discussion has already taken place as to the points at which these secondary bases are to be established and, as Admiral Mahan says, "If the given theater of maritime war be extensive and contain many points susceptible of strategic usefulness, the choice among them becomes important." (Naval Strategy, p. 201.)
Whatever points are selected it must be remembered that these secondary bases will be the points from which the fleet will act to establish advanced bases, and they must be prepared to give the fleet every facility for repair and docking which, of course, could not be had in the advanced base. They must be close enough to the possible advanced base to allow the ships to return to them without taking valuable units from the fighting force for long periods of time.
Admiral Mahan also says about these secondary bases, " . . . .a nation which wishes to assure a share of control on any theater of maritime importance cannot afford to be without a footing on some of the strategic points to be found there. Such points, suitably chosen for their relative positions, form a base; secondary as regards the home country, primary as regards the immediate theater." (Naval Strategy, p. 200.).
It is these secondary bases which at present are of primary importance to our fleet. Their importance lies in the fact that they are the points which will lie closer to possible advanced bases than the other insular bases established.
Whether or not the bases in a vast body of water like the Pacific Ocean may be close enough to agree with the strategic principle of mutual support is a question; it is certain, however, that the important ones are far enough apart to make an enemy divide his fleet in order to watch both, and we have therefore to decide whether or not the violation of one principle in part, is compensated for by the agreement with the other half of the same principle.
We hold important points in the Pacific, but we have not secured our hold on them all to such an extent as to make the use of them an assured fact to our own fleet in time of war. We have an important duty to perform and to perform at once to so secure those bases that we will not have to inaugurate a campaign to retake from an enemy what we have held for many years but have neglected to fortify and prepare against capture.
Nor must we overlook the fact that our possible enemies have made complete studies of the strategic situations in the oceans which surround us. They will have realized the usefulness of our frontier points, not so much to them as to us, and they will have prepared to make us fight for what is already our own unless we at once place our outlying bases in adequate defensive condition.
It is so easy to lose sight of these matters in the excitement and bustle connected with the political action at the capitol when Congress is making appropriations for other necessary things for the fleet, and it is-hoped that a bountiful amount may be included' in the estimates for the naval expenditures for the purpose of making our secondary bases, bases in fact as well as in name. Whatever amount is so allotted should be expended in carrying out a definite progressive policy for these bases.
There is a consideration which arises in the question of a policy being inaugurated to extend from year to year over any long period of time, and that is the inevitable changes which occur in our governing bodies. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss how this difficulty is to be overcome, but it is certain that if Congress can provide a means of establishing a building policy to be completed at a future time, they can also establish a policy for our bases which will also be progressive and be completed at a future time.
We should try to avoid the mistake of having all the legislation for the fleet at the expense of the auxiliaries which are of such vital importance to the fleet.
We have owned points of great strategic importance since the Spanish War, but our interest in them seems to have awakened only very recently. The result is that we have not the well-prepared bases we should have had if we had at once adopted a policy of preparation for these points as bases. We have also been undecided among ourselves as to the best points to be used as bases with the result that we have passed through an era of disorganization and a period of unsettledness which has been harmful.
The opportunity now presents itself to rectify many mistakes which have occurred in the past, and indications are that we will grasp the opportunity. The efficient equipment, thorough organization and systematic administration of our over-seas bases is one of the prime essentials to victory.
The fleet, without such bases, is bound to act under a handicap which may throw the deciding weight into the scales on the side of the enemy and, as has already been said, we are at least entitled to an even break in the game of war.
The great time it takes to build dry docks, the great distances material will have to travel to get to some of our most important bases, the necessity for transporting everything needed to others, are all facts which we must impress on the minds of those in whose power it lies to give us the things we need. We must also drive home the great truth that time is of vital importance, so that whatever is done may be started at once.
Two weeks before the war in Europe started it was not thought possible that the whole of the powerful nations of the continent would be in the throes of war in less than a month, and by the same reasoning we cannot tell when war may be thrust upon us. We do know that if we are ready the country will be saved millions of money and thousands of priceless lives, and we know that in order to be ready we must begin to prepare at once.
The preparation of our bases is mostly a question of getting the material things at them which the fleet will need, but we must bear in mind the fact that man will have to prepare the material and produce from it the shops, docks, etc. needed, and man can only work at a certain rate and produce a certain amount of results. It is incorrect to say that we can do this after war is declared because it is humanly impossible to do in a short time the many things we have to do to put our bases in the most efficient condition for war.
The land defences of the base cannot be put into the hands of the base commander in the sense that he will have to take active charge of them. His mission lies in other directions but the very important duty of the land defence should be in the hands of a trained soldier acting under the base commander. This at once makes the detail of army troops impracticable as the law' prohibits a naval officer from exercising command over army troops.
Aside from the friction possible, where two branches of the service, which have different methods, are serving together there is the great military difficulty of divided responsibility and no officer wishes to be placed in such a position. It is logical then that with the proper increase of the marine corps there will be provided a body of trained soldiers for the duty of base guards and one used to naval ways and methods. Also it is logical that the troops to form the land defence be those which can be always on the ground over which they would act and be therefore familiar with the situation in a way impossible for troops thrown in, in the emergency calling for the use of troops.
Let us all keep in mind the importance of the bases to the efficiency of the fleet and let us strive to disseminate the very important knowledge that without such bases the fleet is under a handicap which is unfair to it. These auxiliaries have their place in a well-balanced fleet. Let us work for them and let us hope that we may soon see that in the plans of preparation for war the very important bases are not overlooked.