AMALGAMATION AND SPECIALISTS VERSUS CORPS
By Commander J. O. Fisher, U. S. Navy
1. The keystone argument advanced in favor of corps and specialists is "that the activities of this particular line require a special knowledge and special training." This argument applies equally well to both. It is the equivalent to saying that one man is not capable of doing all things equally well.
2. As an argument for specialization of officers, it carries exactly the same weight as assigning officers to different duties. If used for the establishment of a corps it is equally applicable to the organization of all officers in corps. The objection to a corps is that it is not a number of specially qualified individuals along identical details of naval activities, but an organization of individuals covering a wide field of activity. Therefore, an argument for specialists—special knowledge and experience—is not an argument for organizing these individual specialists in a corps.
3. Corps continually extend and increase in power and authority, all of which must be given up or taken over from the existing authority in the navy. The preceding conclusion is obvious since authority cannot rest in two places for the accomplishment of any given result. For that reason, all authority in the corps organization is authority subtracted from the navy and given to an organized few in the navy.
4. The next step after the formation of a corps of officers is to provide enlisted personnel. The first step has already been made by the medical corps in acquiring hospital corpsmen, over which they have greater control. If this action is necessary why should not gunnery officers have control of gunnery corpsmen, or engineer officers, control of engineer corpsmen, or communication officers, of radio corpsmen, or navigators, of navigation corpsmen? It certainly takes no longer to make a hospital corpsman than a gun pointer, or engineman, or radio operator, or helmsman.
5. The same development has taken place in the present supply corps. As the original pay corps, they controlled the expenditure of money under the commanding officer, who made the return to Washington. At that time, the pay officers were a few specialists. Since then, they have been consolidated into a corps with an organization established by law in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts and they have acquired the control of the pay, clothing and small stores, commissary and, now, the purchase of all supplies except new ships. The time is not far distant when they may require their own supply corpsmen, and, for the same reason, obtain the same decision the medical corps obtained—that their requirements of personnel are such that they cannot be adequately supplied by the Bureau of Navigation.
6. In all of these cases, the big argument for the establishment of a few specialists has been "that the activities of this particular line require a special knowledge and special training."
7. As has been stated previously, this is no argument for the establishment of a corps. It is an argument for the designation of specialists, but nothing more. The establishment of corps is due to the desire for power by certain specialists who realize that special knowledge along only one line of activity places them in an advisory capacity only. It does not qualify them for executive authority in the navy. Therefore, they acquire executive authority in law by weight of numbers and the desire on the part of many line officers to be relieved of the drudgery of details.
8. Corps cater to mental and physical laziness in officers of the line. They relieve the line officer of detail drudgery. He is glad to escape. He pretends to admire their efficiency when he really wants to shirk the detail drudgery of their work. In the meantime the corps have transferred the detail drudgery to the junior officers of the corps, to draftsmen and to clerks.
9. How many officers in each corps are actually doing the special work for which they were trained? Most naval constructors are in navy yards or on inspection duty. Few are doing the work for which they were specially educated. Most of them are doing similar duty to that performed by line officers on inspection duty, navy yards, and in the bureaus.
10. The senior officers in the supply corps are all doing administrative work, similar to that performed by line officers in administrative positions ashore in navy yards and at the bureaus. Again in the medical corps, which is the specialty of specialties, there is a similarity between being executive officer of a hospital and first lieutenant on a ship. Few of the senior officers of the medical corps are doing the duty of a specialist. Most are doing administration duty which is almost diametrically different and calls for broad general experience and knowledge of the navy.
11. An analysis of each corps and the duty performed by its senior members will disclose that it is the exception and not the rule for corps members to be doing strictly specialist duty. They are exercising that part of the administrative authority delegated under the law to the corps' bureau. They have ceased to be specialists and have become administrators and coordinators of specialists in the navy although their experience and knowledge has been limited by their corps activities.
12. There is a season for specialists in all lines of activities in the navy. But, that is not a reason for combining specialists along certain lines in a corps organization headed by a bureau with control of appropriations and authority subtracted from the central authority.
13. The navy consists of (1) the fleet and (2) the shore establishment. The sole reason for the existence of the shore establishment is the fleet. In time of war, the fleet, by the decision which it obtains in battle, must justify the existence of the navy and the expenditure on the navy. For that reason, the organization and administration of the fleet must be at least equal and should be superior, as an instrument for action, to the organization and administration of the shore establishment.
14. The fleet is a complicated weapon. It is divided into battleship, cruiser, destroyer, submarine, mine and air forces and the train. The names of the different forces indicate in general their function in the fleet. Each force, to a greater or less degree, has its own tactics, its own weapons, its own personnel, and its own separate and distinct functions in fulfilling the mission of the fleet, all of which are coordinated and administered by the commander-in-chief and his organization.
15. The fleet must be paid, clothed, fed, receive medical attention. Crews must be developed and trained for each turret, engine room, fire room, fire control party, for navigation and communication, and to handle each unit of each force as a unit of that force. The men doing what is called engineering duty must handle reciprocating steam engines, gasoline engines in power boats and aircraft, Diesel engines and storage batteries in submarines, turbine generators and electric on the more modern battleship. Communication requires training of individuals to handle visual signal and radio. The train must supply fuel, fresh provisions and other necessary supplies and repair facilities. These are only a few of the multitudinous activities in the fleet.
16. Officers are assigned to different ships as navigators, gunnery, engineer, turret, fire control, medical and supply officers, first lieutenants, communication officers, engine room watch, deck watch, and all of these details to duty are for varying periods of from one year to three years.
17. To continue in one line of duty for a period of three years is the first step in making a specialist. To continue for a longer period than three years in a particular line of duty is to be limited in opportunities for broadening an officer's experience. Only in the medical profession are more than three years' special instruction and training allowed to make a specialist. And, three years' experience and training in any particular line of duty mentioned above, or on any particular type of ship mentioned above, will have a similar effect in training a specialist. After three years spent in a special line of work, an officer then by change of duty, acquires a broader knowledge and experience in the navy. If he belongs to the line, the duty available for him is much broader, and furnishes a much wider range of experience than as though he belonged to any corps. An officer of any corps after a three-year tour of duty is limited as regards the opportunities for general experience open to him. Officers of corps are cut off from a great many activities for which they are well fitted. Vice versa, corps cut off many line officers from acquiring experience in the activities of that particular corps as limited in general by the duties assigned each corps.
18. Line officers have, in the past, controlled the navy. They have done so not by virtue of any God-given right of birth or by any other special privilege, but solely by virtue of custom based on the fact that their range of duty and the variations in duty to which they may be assigned and for which they may be held responsible for results, is much greater than that of any specialist. In the navy, if a ship is given a particular mission, that ship must accomplish the mission, and the commanding officer is held responsible. If a man gets sick and he has no doctor, it is up to the commanding officer. If the pay officer dies, the commanding officer must assume the responsibilities and detail a relief from the line officers. If the ship runs aground and receives much damage and must be repaired, the commanding officer must make the necessary arrangements and pass on the repairs. If it becomes necessary for a commanding officer to build a storehouse or a dock and there is no civil engineer available, the commandant or the commanding officer must get the result. If there is no chaplain, it is up to the commanding officer to hold services.
19. In other words, the duties and responsibilities of line officers are the direct growth from the duties and responsibilities of commanding officers and exactly as no commanding officer can evade any duty and responsibility which is necessary to the operation of his ship in the accomplishment of a given result, so should no line officer evade duty which will qualify and train him to shoulder the responsibilities of commanding officer.
20. In the organization of the fleet as examined above, we have many specialists who assist commanding officers and force commanders in their duties. The specialists, however, are not limited to the members of a corps, but include all officers other than those under instruction and those in command. Neither is there any corps organization in the fleet. Members of corps are all doing their assigned duty. But, as specialists in the fleet, they are not organized under the law with control over any activity in the fleet. It is realized that if a number of individuals with limited knowledge and experience in fleet activities were permitted to organize under the law, with control of any part or function of the fleet, the commander-in-chief would be handicapped in his control. The corps authority would have to be subtracted from his authority. Corps control would have to be subtracted from his control, and corps responsibility would have to be subtracted from his responsibility. It is apparent that if corps organization were permitted in the fleet, the unity of authority and responsibility necessary for obtaining the right decision in battle would be wanting.
21. To summarize, we define a specialist as being an officer with special training, knowledge, and experience in one of the many activities in the navy. We define a corps as being an organization of individuals, under the law, centering in a bureau and controlling special activities in the shore establishment, for which the bureau's appropriations may be expended. We define amalgamation as being an organization in which junior officers are given training and experience along the broadest and most comprehensive lines of activity in the navy, with opportunities for special education and training as they show inclination therefore, and where the senior officers in the navy with a broad and general experience occupy positions as commanding officers and in administrative functions in the shore establishment, all under a single control with undivided authority and responsibility for the efficiency of the navy.
22. The fleet is operated without any corps organization. The shore establishment is operated by corps and bureaus. The bureaus are necessary to perform the same functions that they perform at the present time. But every bureau in the Navy Department can be efficiently administered by officers from the fleet. What bureau activity cannot be accomplished with the fleet personnel?
23. The question therefore evolves around the proposition—Are corps necessary for the shore establishment when amalgamation with specialists doing special duty is sufficient for the fleet? This is the question to which the answer is required. It is undoubtedly easier for the members of a corps to assimilate a limited experience in their corps than to acquire experience and knowledge of more of the activities of the navy. It is undoubtedly easier for line officers to shirk experience along certain lines and to permit the organization of corps to take over those duties. Line officers must remember, however, that each duty necessary to the navy in which they have had no experience subtracts from their qualification to control the navy.
24. More and more are naval activities in the shore establishment coming within the control of corps through corps control of bureaus. Why should a corps control a bureau which controls certain functions only of the shore establishment of the navy?
25. The fleet has many functions included in its activities, and the activities of its forces. No corps controls any function in the fleet. Functions in the fleet are just as complicated and call for just as much special knowledge and experience as the bureau functions in their relation to the shore establishment. The fleet contains more specialists than any bureau of corps. But the fleet contains no corps. There is no activity in the navy which is not duplicated in the fleet.
26. The fleet has unity in authority and responsibility. The shore establishment has not. The fleet has many specialists and no corps. The shore establishment has many corps and no more specialists than the fleet.
27. The organization of each corps, with its central authority in a bureau controlling appropriations made for the benefit of the navy, weakens the unity of authority and responsibility for an efficient navy.
28. Specialists are necessary. They always will be necessary. But the necessity for specialists does not require their organization under the law as a corps.
29. Why is an organization, under the law, centering in a bureau, necessary for civil engineers and not for navigators? For supply officers, and not for gunnery officers? For naval constructors and not for engineer officers? For medical officers and not for first lieutenants? Why should officers doing special duty connected with pay, commissary, clothing, accounting at navy yards, requisition and issue of supplies, all of which are different, be organized into a corps under a bureau controlling expenditures under appropriations made for the navy?
30. Is it not apparent that the organization of these officers in a corps is unnecessary to the accomplishment of these functions and the administration of the bureau?
31. Members of corps, by virtue of what they know of navy activities outside their specialties, qualify for administrative positions in the bureaus and elsewhere in the shore establishment. An officer of a corps who has had bureau experience only is not qualified to administer the bureau in the interest of the navy. Why, then, should each corps have its own bureau? Why should not each bureau make use of various classes of specialists as their special knowledge, experience, and inclinations especially qualify them, for one of that bureau's activities?
32. For instance, each bureau requires an accounting of that bureau's appropriation. Why should that duty not be done by an accounting specialist? As a matter of fact, it is, by an officer assigned that particular duty (i.e., a specialist by assignment to duty.) Of course, he may be unfamiliar with that duty at first, but he learns it and adds to his general knowledge and experience in the navy. The only reason for not assigning officers with experience in that particular duty in each bureau is that officers with that special experience are members of a corps, and that their corps or bureau would immediately apply for an increase of officers in the corps to handle these additional details.
33. No bureau wants to be the indirect cause of increasing the number of officers in a corps, centering in some other bureau, and thereby decreasing their own relative authority.
34. Amalgamation does not mean that all officers must qualify in all the forty-eleven activities of the navy. Such a requirement is absurd. Under a corps organization, all members of a corps are not qualified in all its special activities, any more than are all the line officers qualified in all the activities of the line.
35. At present when an officer is assigned any duty for which he is available under the law, he must assume the responsibility of his rank and grade in that duty. He may have a general academic knowledge of that particular duty and have had no practical experience, and no special knowledge, but he can get assistance from others who have had, he can study the service literature on that duty and as an incentive for his intensive study, he must assume the responsibilities for results.
36. In assignment of officers to duty, a reasonable common sense basis is generally followed of consulting the qualifications and preferences of seniors and assigning juniors where there are opportunities for instruction.
37. This is not only the case in the line, but in every corps. There are naval constructors who have never done any legitimate design work and there are naval constructors who are specialists in duty as superintending constructors at private ship yards and in hull division work at navy yards. There are officers in the supply corps who have never done duty as supply officers of navy yards; others who are always assigned duty as accounting officers ashore; and still others who specialize in disbursing pay. There are officers in the medical corps who have specialized in eye, ear, nose and throat; others as operating surgeons; others as general practitioners.
38. To define corps activities as a specialty is a misnomer. Corps are made up of specialties. The bureaus as the center of a corps is an administrator of specialists. The bureaus as a subdivision of the Navy Department are administrators of specialties. As the experience of the bureau personnel in the navy is broad and general, that bureau is an efficient subdivision of the Navy Department.
39. In fact, every officer in the navy who occupies any position other than commanding officer of a fleet, squadron, division, ship or naval station is a specialist by assignment to duty.
40. Each bureau controlled by a corps controls promotions under selection in that corps by virtue of their control and power of assignment to duty. They can by virtue of this control develop bureau spirit and bureau loyalty in opposition to navy spirit and navy loyalty which belongs primarily to the fleet.
41. With specialists and promotion under selection by a board of rear admirals, and assignment to duty under control of the bureau of navigation, the temptation and control necessary to establish bureau rather than fleet spirit and loyalty are lacking and the whole navy is the recognized power which rewards efficiency and controls the future of all officers.
42. The whole history of development of corps in armies and navies could be written up as a brief which could be known as the "Why of Corps," a splendid example of what logicians term arguing in a circle.
The Principal Argument
The principal argument: The navy is now so big that people must specialize. No man can know all about the navy.
First Step
Specialists are designated. They are given rank and precedence. They are organized as corps in law with a bureau and with executive power, all of which are subtracted from the central authority.
Second Step
As time goes on, corps have increasing weight along executive lines. First one corps and then another, as the quality of their leadership determines, acquires a preponderating influence in the counsel of the Secretary of the Navy.
Final Step
The final act is after we have had a navy run first by supply corps; then by gunnery corps; then by tactical corps; then by engineer corps; then by construction corps; then by medical corps; then by navigators corps; then by marine corps, etc. The secretary and different members of the corps finally realize that they need some coordinating authority. So a naval general staff is established to be the coordinating influence. The fundamental requirement for the members of the general staff is diametrically the opposite of the original argument establishing specialists. It is realized that to control the navy the members of the general staff must have broad and general experience in all lines of activity. Therefore, after years of development, we finally return to our original position that an officer to be an officer in the executive and administrative activities of the navy must have general knowledge and experience in all activities of the navy, and the circular argument is complete in all its error.
End of Brief
43. A man acquires general experience and knowledge not by shirking details and transferring them to some other individual, but by facing them squarely and obtaining a right and just decision. We cannot close our eyes and render a decision on the plausible argument that "The navy is so large that specialists are necessary" and use that as a reason for establishing a multiplicity of corps. Specialists are necessary. They will always be necessary. They may be temporary or permanent. They may be established by law or by conditions. But, the navy needs no corps as a corps.
44. The officer or officers with the widest knowledge and experience in all the multitudinous activities of the navy are the best qualified to control these activities. The qualification of line officers for this control is decreased with the establishment of each corps which automatically cuts them off from certain experience and knowledge.
45. A central control is necessary. The establishment of corps which temporarily subtracts from it, eventually leads to its reestablishment in a naval general staff, of which the members will be given broad and general experience and training in all lines of naval activity—or the same training line officers have had for many years.
46. Many hundreds of years experience has established the principle "that the power to direct and control flows only to the man who, by general experience, knows how."
47. It is of little importance what happens to specialists. The variations in origin and training, the environment of duty assigned, and among officers themselves, will always insure a greater and less knowledge and experience of certain special duty among officers. That variation may or may not be recognized in law.
48. What is of importance is the decision on corps. Whether or not we shall have additional corps or shall amalgamate those existing at present.
49. We need special knowledge, experience and training of all kinds in the navy. We need a central authority, with broad general experience and knowledge of all navy activities, to control those activities.
50. We need no corps or other organizations of individuals in the navy to subtract from that central authority.