The proposal to combine the air forces of the army, navy, and other departments of the government under one directing and operating organization seems very tempting. It seems, in theory, to offer the advantages inherent in unity of command, combined resources, concentration of effort, and to offer to all the benefit of the experience and experimentation of each. This tempting program is reenforced by certain war experiences, such as that of the Northern Bombing Croup, in which army and navy together, using the same equipment and same methods, worked for the same objective and a single organization was logical and practicable. The British practice of using land machines for fleet work also furthers it. This combination of theory and circumstances is so plausible and convincing that it is necessary, in analyzing it, to proceed with caution, in order to get down to fundamentals and to get away from even the appearance of corps jealousy.
Perhaps it would be well, before considering them in connection with this particular subject, to examine into the intrinsic value and true meaning of the theoretical elements above mentioned.
- Unity of Command.—It is a fundamental principle of warfare—as indeed of industry—that unity of command is essential to efficient active progress. This means, however, that the forces operating in a given area, for a given objective, should be united under one command; but in practice it also means that large units within that command should be given their particular objectives, and that the control by the high command which co-ordinates the large units should be as general as possible. The army uses aircraft, the navy uses aircraft, other departments use aircraft. Their common working medium is air. Why not combine them . 9 under one organization? A Ford machinist uses lathes, a Waltham machinist uses lathes, a navy yard machinist uses lathes. They all work the same kind of materials, using the same kind of tools. Why not combine them under one organization? The General Electric Company at Lynn and the General Electric Company at Schenectady use the same tools, make the same class of product, for the same owners, but their organizations are distinct and separate throughout. They co-operate cordially. Why not combine them into a single organization? The answer to the first question is, of course, obvious. Their product and the problems connected with it are unlike. The answer to the second is not so obvious. As with many other companies, they find that separate organizations pay better—they produce more efficiently. Perhaps this is due partly to the fact that responsibility throughout the organization—which, axiomatically, must be accompanied by the corresponding authority—is more direct and more personal. The impersonal attitude toward which government organization—and all very large organization—tends invariably—has certain advantages, but also certain disadvantages which are a curse. Certainly this more efficient production gained by separate organization is in some degree due to the specialization of the Lynn organization, for example, on certain special parts of the company’s general specialty; and on their working in certain special fields within the general field of electrical equipment; and certain special labor markets and industrial conditions that are best handled locally.
- Combined Resources.—At a certain stage of the last campaign in France units of the U. S. Army were brigaded with the various armies of our Allies on the fighting line. This was heralded far and wide as a great achievement; and it was. History fails to record another successful similar combination. And as soon as it could be done it was changed in France. It was not changed primarily because the men involved were foreign—the foreign legion drew from every nation—our own army spoke forty or more different languages. It was not done because either impugned the methods or motives of the other, or doubted the efficiency of the other. It was done because of national pride and because the detailed methods, the ingrown habits of thought and conduct, the understanding of one another necessary to the most efficient action could not exist in the two organizations—they could not combine except under the stress of an immediate emergency. Now, naval aviation is an element of the fleet. The fact has been lost sight of during this war, due to its special and unusual character and to certain temporary conditions, that naval aviation is an auxiliary to the fleet. Its effective development demands a personnel indoctrinated in fleet ideas and ideals; its operation demands an acceptance and a trained knowledge of fleet tactics, fleet methods, fleet objectives, fleet operations. It takes a regular naval officer his entire life specializing in strictly naval work to be thoroughly conversant with the naval profession—if he ever becomes so. A fleet aviator must be first of all a naval officer—aviation is a specialty within the profession, not outside it. The whole effort of aviation in the fleet now (and it is rapidly being recognized in its true light) is to further that idea. Aviation operations during the war were utilized by the naval and military forces for purposes that were determined by the state of development of the art and by their usefulness as adjuncts to the forces on land and sea. They were largely used as individual initiative prescribed, and, at least at sea, their primary usefulness was not demonstrated. All their operations, important—yes, indispensable—as they were, were of a character that is recognized as strictly secondary from a naval viewpoint. At that, the limit of their usefulness has by no means been reached. But their primary function, that of actual tactical use in fleet action has not been recognized generally. The utilization of the functions of spotting, action maneuvers, naval reconnaissance, and bombing (not as regards their technic so much as regards the correct use of those desirable accomplishments) are matters that require the trained knowledge of a naval officer. This war has demonstrated that it is easy to make pilots. It has also demonstrated that it is hard to make naval officers in the full sense of the word—though it is easy to give commissions to men whose talents can be very usefully employed within the limits of their various individual qualifications, which do not include the higher branches of the naval art. Logically, then, the development of naval aviation demands that officers who already have the foundation of the naval profession as such get into and govern the development of fleet aviation doctrine and training, employing technical and outside agencies or officers for aviation from civil life if it proves desirable, but always under a control that is strictly naval in its esprit, its doctrine, its education, and its understanding. It is perfectly feasible for a directing agency, whether naval, industrial, educational, anything, to utilize to gain its ends various agencies, some of which may have no conception of the end for which they are working; but the reverse is not true. The dog can wag the tail, but the tail can’t wag the dog. The principal element in naval aviation is the naval element, and nobody can do it but the navy. In the present state of the art the aviation problems as such are not the difficult ones to solve. They must be quite subordinated to the naval end.
- Concentration of Effort.—Recognizing that the primary function of the military and naval aviation services to-day—and to-morrow—is to develop the military or the naval uses of aircraft, and, as a necessary but secondary function, to develop the material to fit those developed uses (as the methods of employment are radically different, the material must vary), it is evident that the agency which handles this material must be one which does not direct, but which serves the operating service; the Bible was quite right in stating that “ No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and serve the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”
- “ The utilization by all of the experience and experiments of each ” is an end that is desirable in every trade and profession and field of endeavor; and is met in each of them in various ways, chief of which are trade journals and professional associations and conventions.