IN THE NAVY of the present day, are we not making a fetish of formulas? We are developing a rule for this and a method for that, reducing everything to a standard so that knowledge is easy to gain, inspections easily made, and administration easily accomplished.
Thus, we have established formulas and forms for the navigator so that his work at sea is simple, short and easy of accomplishment. For the chief engineer, complete and thorough instructions are issued by the Bureau of Engineering, covering such varied ground that, any man, by studying these instructions and carrying them out literally, need not call upon his own personal ability in order properly to perform his duties. Further, should any accident occur, the instructions are so multitudinous that it is almost a certainty that the bureau and administrative officers can point to some instruction which has been violated or forgotten, and thus the operating force must assume all the blame along with the responsibility. For the gunnery officer, the Bureau of Ordnance has compiled instructions and safety precautions which, if strictly followed, will prevent disaster. The fleet has devised check-off lists and standardized methods so that this work may be learned merely by study of past records.
Thus, due to the desire and need for standardized methods in our service, practically everything has been reduced to formulas. Unquestionably, there was urgent need for the introduction of standardization into engineering and ordnance. The spirit of competition which was engendered in the early years of this century by Admiral Sims and others, had started every officer to work along individual lines in order to improve our gunnery and our engineering economy. The result was immediate and marked improvement in both gunnery and engineering. After ten years, however, it was found that every graduate from the Academy was trying out the same old schemes which had proven of no value many times before. Therefore, about 1914, the fleet started to standardize methods and materials in order to reduce this waste of effort.
This period of standardization has lasted ten years. During this time both gunnery and engineering probably have reached their highest levels of attainment, excepting as occasional improvement in material offers a slight advantage. By reference to reports of target practice, ship and gun drills, and records of individual ships, broadside, turret and gunnery officers are able to learn a great deal about their jobs, what the best methods are, etc., and as the result the fleet in its entirety has advanced and improved to the level of standards set.
All these standards, formulas and instructions have made our work easy. They have served a necessary and very useful purpose. We should consider seriously if they have not fully served their purpose, and are not now acting as drawbacks against our further improvement. This is caused by the fact that, unfortunately, due to the difficulty of enforcing standardized methods upon our service, which had developed from 1904 to 1914 on individual lines, strict disciplinary measures were taken to assure close obedience to standards and instructions. Check-off lists, written instructions, long preparedness questions and lengthy reports were devised so that every officer was compelled to abide by the standard methods. Therefore, at the present time the abilities of such officers as might improve our methods are severely cramped and they are prevented from utilizing their abilities for the improvement of the service without danger of ruining themselves and their careers, by wrecking themselves during a quarterly battle efficiency or preparedness inspection.
This subject opens up many trains of thought and many lines of argument. Some officers will see in this step a retrograde movement, back to the conditions of 1904. Others will see in it the possibility of advance in the future, and will approve, with the idea of throwing off all standards and letting individual effort remain unhampered for all time. Common sense indicates that neither of these courses is best for the service. We must use our present standards and our past experience as the foundation for our future development. If we base decision on anything except this basis, we shall discard the advance we have made and consolidated instead of using it for further progress. Therefore our plan is to simplify present instructions, orders and methods into some permanent form such as will prevent repetition of former errors and furnish the service with a good working platform, and then to encourage individual action and initiative for improvement of methods above our present standards.
But, many readers will immediately say, this is exactly what we are doing at present. Such a statement, however, is thoughtless and can not be based on sound observation of present conditions. The practice of engineering and gunnery in the fleet, particularly as regards methods of operation, is restricted to close limits by the questions asked in the voluminous quarterly inspection and preparedness reports. The questions in these reports, running into the hundreds, have in great part outworn their usefulness, as they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were created by firmly establishing methods of operation and now merely serve to prevent improvement above those standards. As long as they are used as a club to prevent adoption of all methods which are a departure from present standards they will kill the initiative of the heads of departments concerned and prevent developments and improvements which are vitally necessary.
Investigations of failure at target practice, which it may be assumed were originated in order to make sure that standard methods were being followed as well as to determine the immediate cause of any failure, have also become threats against every officer and man connected with the investigation, and each member of the personnel concerned sees therein only an attempt to place the blame upon him, instead of a praiseworthy effort on the part of the higher command to assist him in locating the faults so that they may be corrected in the next period of competition. This feeling must be changed.
Consideration of the reaction of the questions and investigations upon the vast majority of officers forces us to admit that most officers, as a result of them, take the safe path of standardized mediocrity. That is, they use methods which are almost certain to give an average good multiple; something strictly in accordance with standards; something slightly above the mark for which they will be investigated; something which will keep their records clean and, needless to state, something well below the maximum which they could obtain were they to make the hazard of trial and attempt, by full development of their own personalities, to deliver the best they have in them.
There is a further reaction in all this which militates against the efficiency of the naval service. By too close adherence to set rules, regulations and standards, our freedom of thought and initiative become stunted and warped, so that when we have spent thirty or forty years in the service and have reached the higher ranks we are unable to think and act quickly upon new and unforeseen conditions, but are compelled by our previous mode of life to remain on a standard mediocre plane of development. History records time and time again that the great generals and the great admirals were those who retained their temperament for individual, independent and extraordinary action. This is particularly true in naval warfare. Nelson, by his independent action off Cape St. Vincent, by his perseverance at Copenhagen and during the long years of the blockade, and by his disregard of the old regulations, that “the fleet should be joined in action van to van, center to center, and rear to rear,” was able to accomplish more for England than all the hosts of standardized sailors who came before and after his time. In fact, no small measure of his success was due to the fact that his opponents held closely to the orthodox, mediocre methods of the times, which ordinarily gave a slight amount of success, and were supposed to be safe and sane. Such action furnishes an alibi—but not victory.
The time has not yet come, and the development of airplanes, submarines and numerous other auxiliaries indicates that the time will never come, when naval warfare will not be subject to the hazards of sea and weather. All these factors make it more essential that the higher command be versatile, bold, ready to take the initiative, and to authorize new and unexpected movements when the opportunity arises. He must know when caution is necessary and when it must be thrown to the winds; when to retreat and when to advance, and more, he must be able to take such action at the psychological moment. If he has spent a lifetime of standardized living, of keeping out of trouble and never allowing himself his own full development, it will be impossible for him to throw off the shackles from his mind when this time comes.
The inability of the military mind (by which is meant the minds of generals and admirals with years of discipline and regulations) to grasp new conditions and to rise to the highest demands of modern warfare is illustrated in a letter from Winston Churchill, written to the British premier a short time before the battles of Wytschaete and Messines, in the latter part of 1914. At this time, Allied and German Armies were stalemated and had dug into their intrenchments from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Mr. Churchill, with other free untrammeled minds, was of the opinion that with the present equipment nothing could be gained on that front, and that either new equipment must be devised or the next move made upon another front. He stated, however, that unquestionably, “the military mind would not be satisfied that this condition of stalemate was true until it had sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives to prove the fact.” Numerous small local battles and the millions of lives lost on this front from 1915 to 1918 indicate how true his estimate was and that years of discipline and standard living had imposed on military minds an inability to perceive true conditions that were so apparent to a tyro.
Read the story of the opposition by the military minds to tanks, smoke screens and every new form of warfare developed by modern science, and the fact that such a mental condition develops is unmistakable. It developed in the British. It controlled the Germans. It almost ruined the French. Fortunately, we were not put to the test.
But it does appear that our service is liable to drift into this condition during these years of peace. Formulas and instructions are devised with the intent and purpose of making things easy for us. It seems proper for us to stop and consider the fact that men do not advance, and nations do not progress, when things are made easy. What we need is an incentive to drive us ahead, with rewards for every success. Let us not stop where we are, nor be content with whatever we have gained in the past; let us not remain bound by methods which may be improved; let us not make a fetish of formulas, but, taking full advantage of our present position, let us have a period of mental development and individual effort. Withdraw the threat that one mistake, no matter how small, will ruin our careers; that he who makes no effort but follows the rules will become an admiral, while he who tries and makes a partial failure, is ruined for life. The Wrights did not conquer the air on a series of successes but by overcoming repeated failures. Langley’s failure did more for the success of aviation than had he never tried. We cannot deliver our full abilities nor properly serve our country if we are restricted too closely by rules and methods; therefore, let us have a period of freedom, that our minds may expand and develop to their maximum, for the sake of the service and the glory of our country.