HAVING been an officer of the regular service for ten years, and thereafter a reserve officer for five years, the writer has made several mental notes on his varied experiences with the United States Naval Reserve Force which may be of some interest to the service.
With the organization, the old proverb has been too often reversed, and the prophet has had no honor in the other fellow’s country. But I have lived in both countries.
We have all heard that combats are usually decided in favor of the side that puts across the first surprise, the first quick wallop. A word, then the blow the next instant, is the future war-opening we should expect, and perhaps we shall not have even that word of warning. Two weeks, three months, a year for preparation and training, while allies or a kind Providence protect us from that smart first wallop, can never more be expected.
Mr. Bryan’s million squirrel shooters, mobilized into soldiers over night, did not materialize in the last war, yet how can we expect more than overnight to prepare to resist an enemy in the next war? Or more than a month at the outside? How far were our regular forces augmented within a week or a month after the last declaration of war? Will we have a year to train men after a future declaration of war? NO!
We might well investigate the reasons why stores and factories and ships carry hand fire extinguishers, why they pay five or eight dollars or some other insignificant amount apiece for these extinguishers, mere toys of themselves, when a few blocks away there is a fire department with power and training more valuable than 500 hand extinguishers when it is applied to the blaze; or we might study the reasons why great department stores keep lists of substitute, hurry-up, veteran salesmen who can be called in to handle the rush following some special sales announcements, doubling, quadrupling the personnel of the regular establishment over night; or why men put money in life insurance when it could be spent so easily as they go, yielding so much more pleasure.
It is because every human activity in civilization must be hedged with reserves, on quick call against an emergency which will seldom arise with a reasonable warning. The gradual elimination of the chance of mischance is civilization itself; it is the difference between the stone age man and ourselves. And, odd as it may seem, it is often, if not usually, the most minute, insignificant precaution which means the difference between victory and defeat.
Granted then, that all sane men believe in reserves, and naval reserves, what are the sources of supply? How may they be kept available and of value? How shall they be used in emergency?
The first source of valuable reserves is doubtless found in the veterans of the regular navy, men and officers; the second in the veterans of reserve war service of one year or more; the third in young civilians of the better type, who will enroll subject to a probationary period of training.
In time of war the first urgent demand is for trained officers. There are never enough competent ones. It is a mistake to allot maximum quotas of officers who are allowed to take active part in the reserves by districts, thus restricting the number in any one territory to the number of enlisted men attending drills; and it is also a mistake to apportion the staff corps by arbitrary percentages, or percentages which would be appropriate if all were on active duty in war. This is because chance may have located the very best material of one type all in one district. If a large fraction of this is eliminated in that district by quota restriction, it is lost for the entire country where no more is to be found.
Following the great call for many officers for quick delivery at the outbreak of war, comes the cry for supplies, requiring an even more rapid expansion of this corps than that immediately of the line. Next follows the shortage of doctors, and so it goes.
It appears, therefore, a mistake to prescribe that in a given naval district only one line officer will be allowed to take active drills and training for so many enlisted men. The error is then extended further if, for so many line officers chosen on the above restriction, there is prescribed only a given small percentage of staff officers.
This system would appear similar to that of a gold prospecting outfit which started out to cover the United States on the false premise that, in each state, they would take only a certain allotment of gold. When that allotment was used up they would go on to the next state, where no gold ever existed, and dig there till the quota was filled, which would of course be never.
The result is what we have in the reserve today: a great coastal state from which thousands of reservists should be available and would be immediately demanded in war, to make up for inland states having none, whereas, due to quota restrictions, in that great natural reservoir of sea-going men, only a small number are in training.
In fact it is doubtful if there are actively engaged in training today, in the whole United States, as many as 5,000 men and officers, or perhaps there are only half that number.
Any officer in any district, regardless of quota, who has the following qualifications should be invited and allowed to keep in training and given some pittance in recognition, and to bind the contract:
- He has served on active duty with good efficiency record one year or more at sea; or he has, due to special technical training, been required to spend a large proportion of his active service on shore. The record search should be complete and a series of personal interviews reported by the commanding officer of the unit in which he desires to take training.
- He binds himself to keep in readiness for call to duty within twenty-four hours’ notice regardless of business or personal affairs.
- He binds himself to take active part as instructor or instructed in not less than forty training periods per year, or approximately one night per week, in uniform, and under navy regulations and discipline.
- He binds himself so to arrange his affairs that he may take not less than two months’ active duty on a sea-going ship in each enrollment.
All who qualify as above should be encouraged to join. There would be no dead-heads in that lot. All would be worth-while veterans, and a surprisingly good proportion, ex-regular service officers.
The same qualifications would apply for enlisted men. The same chances for examination and promotion should he available under the department, as for enlisted men of the regular establishment of the same length of active service.
All who could be gathered into the fold under the above restrictions should be sought and held regardless of district of domicile. There would be too few in any case to fill the need, due to lack of financial return commensurate with the demands made upon them.
The next source of supply would he among younger men, college men, and technically trained men, those about twenty-two years of age, too young now to have taken part in the World War. These should be brought in on a probationary basis for six months, with the definite understanding and promise at the start that, if they then measure up to standard, they will be examined for the ratings they fit, or for ensign’s rank if they are suitable.
The difficulty in obtaining probationary classes so far has been lack of a permanent, definite policy. Nothing could be promised. Intimations were confusing. They only upset the outsider who sought to qualify for a definite contract. There wasn’t any such animal. This fact has shaken the faith of the small group of reservists which did remain “faithful to the end,” until the end became the handful we now have. All this was not the fault of the Navy Department or the lack of desire for a policy. It was lack of funds, of course. It was the postwar reaction of Congress and the people. “A burglar broke into our house last night. It only happens once in a life-time. We can safely throw away our revolvers now. We will not spend any more money on oil to keep the rust away.” This policy or lack of policy reminds one of the man who carries life insurance for nineteen years, then decides to drop it and dies the next year.
I have talked to many reserve officers and enlisted men who have said this, in substance: “If the United States needs us now, and needs our services and time on the basis of patriotism, and asks for these services as a charity to the cause of protection we will gladly give them! We will sacrifice one night per week and our only vacation once a year without even having our actual expenses paid. But we know that the United States does not need or want charity. It is an independent state and its oldest policy is to accept no gifts. Therefore we expect a recognition that our services are of some value before we offer them.”
The worst blow that could have fallen on the reserve force was the disenrollment of all members to Class 6 which happened in 1921. Class 6 is the “dictionary class,” its only connection with the service being that the names are kept on a card in Washington. It is about as valuable as any other pseudo-contract service in which there is no consideration and hence no performance.
At this time many of the most valuable technical experts in the reserve force, officers who in civilian life were valued at a thousand dollars and more per month, were dropped, with the rest, to the choice of Class 6, or nothing, and chose nothing. Since re-enrollment to Class 2 was resumed, these have not returned, and have expressed their intention never to return.
Again the trouble was not the loss of drill pay or active service pay, a very small item in the budget of these reservists, but it was the lack of recognition that they were of any value at all to the service. And yet again this was not the fault of the Navy Department, but was the fault of false economy.
The old law of compensation works once more to the detriment of the country today. If we try to save money by refusing to pay our legitimate bills, we shall later pay a hundred fold for our short-sightedness. If we refuse to pay our insurance premium, the most important bill in any business, the risk and the grand disaster are on our own heads. If we retire to our barracks and grow fat and lazy, secure in our former providential victories, we may logically expect another "Fall of the Roman Empire.”
The cost of the naval reserve force as it should be operated, with 4,000 reserve officers always in training, instead of perhaps 400, as at present, and 20,000 enlisted men instead of 1,000, would still be a negligible item on the budget of the United States; yet no small expenditure could be more wisely made.
On the transport U. S. S. Troy, of which I was supply officer in 1919, carrying approximately 6,000 souls at each crossing, there were about thirty naval officers. Of these, only four were regular service officers, the oilier twenty-six being reserves. The navigator, chief engineer, watch officers, technical officers were all reservists. Only the commanding, executive, medical, and supply officers were of the regular establishment. That ship was about as mean a job to operate successfully in her engineering department as one would seek, yet it was operated successfully with an eighty per cent reserve force personnel. This is the proper way to use the reserve force in time of war. It is true that the reserve supply officers in my department were of little use to me, but this was the fault of circumstances and their having had no practical experience. In another war, these same officers, if in training now, would be valuable. On the other hand I now teach a class of five reserve supply officers, having former war service, and there is not one of them whom I would not count an asset in my department, and, even more, whom I would not recommend as safe to head the supply department on any moderate sized ship. They are a credit to the quick accounting and administrative brains required of them in civilian life.
It is my observation that, by and large, those small handfuls of reserve officers scattered over the coasts, who have stuck to active connection with the reserves through the last four discouraging years, are men of great merit who have stuck because they loved the service and its purposes. Then there is another class, now disconnected, who have not returned since disenrollment to Class 6, because maximum quotas allowed to districts prevented them. I observe that these are often good material and should be brought hack. There is still another class, who left upon disenrollment, who are thoroughly disgusted and could not be summoned back. Not only this, but in their private walks of life they are doing everything possible to discredit the naval reserve and the Navy. This is accomplished by letters to congressmen full of deceptions and misstatements and half-truths, and the situation is a menace to the service. These are of course the type not wanted by any branch, having thus displayed their devilish dispositions.
But here is a picture of a condition which actually exists, which the Navy would delight to see:
The scene is a large gunboat moored in a stream flowing through a great seaport city. It is night. At seven-thirty the reservists begin to assemble on board, seventy to a hundred officers and men. A handful of ship-keepers on active duty are keeping the ship clean and warm and lighted. The effect, as one goes on board, is that of a ship in full commission. A half-hour later we look on board and here is what we see. In the cabin a commanding officer, executive officer, and battalion commander in conference. In the wardroom, a class of thirty officers in a lecture and problem on navigation. Up forward, two divisions of forty men each going through routine drills under competent division officers. In the sick bay a medical officer examining recruits and signing papers. In the junior officer’s messroom a class of five supply officers studying the new provision return.
But here is another side which requires attention. At 8:30 P. M. five fine looking young men come aboard to look into the subject of enrolling. Investigation proves them to be ex-petty officers of two enlistments in the regular Navy. Naturally they are given a warm welcome; but, here is the hitch: “What rating will we be given on enrollment?” they ask. The enrolling officer’s face falls and he sadly informs them, “We can enroll men only as second- class seamen at present.” “Good night!” reply, as in one voice, the quintet of fine material and they go over the side with the impression that the reserve force is a big hocus-pocus. And are they not correct, when it is a fact that a gun-pointer whom the Navy has taken two years to train, and who in an emergency is worth $10,000 to the Government, can only re-enroll in the rank usually saved for a nineteen-year-old schoolboy?
Not only does this appear so to these men, but to all their service associates to whom they may talk in civilian life. And not only is the attempt to enroll an ex-regular machinist’s mate or gun-pointer as a seaman second class a joke to them, but the remuneration received, if they did enroll, uncertain as it is from one quarter to the next, is a joke. Can you imagine a civilian giving up his annual two weeks’ vacation to the Navy for fifteen or twenty dollars, or taking part in a drill every week in the year for one dollar and fifty cents? For patriotism, yes! But that appeal is not so strong in a world where romance has been worn off, due to familiarity, and where the multitudes are sick of war.
The naval reserve force should be organized as a part of the regular naval service and not an accessory matter. It should be of sufficient importance to be relied on in national emergency to augment the number of regular service officers by fifty per cent within one week, or less, after the call. The war details should always be tentatively kept, allowing only for changes of address.
If a graduate midshipman has cost and is worth $25,000 to the Navy and the country, surely an ex-regular service officer who has had six to ten years of service in the fleet is worth no less. There are few enough of these latter available in any case, but it is profligate extravagance to let them get away entirely. The same actual money value basis might be worked out for reserve officers of a year or more active duty, in time of war, who have improved themselves very largely in the training subsequent to the war, who have found all their problems of war service since explained. The same with ex-regular and ex-reserve enlisted men. And, over and above this argument is the main point, that, in time of shortage of any commodity or service, dollars cannot measure the value which this service may command, for mere dollars will not, overnight, or in six months, buy training, knowledge and experience which forethought alone might have provided in time that has passed. “He that foresees, RULES.”
In conclusion, it may be stated that the Navy Department has done all it could to make a dwindling reserve force survive. The shocks which have shattered the reserve force came from lack of a service-wide, nation-wide, congress-wide appreciation of flic meaning of the word, “Reserve.” The older officers of the regular establishment have, in the wisdom of mature judgment, put forth praise and encouragement for the reserve.
What is needed now is the support and co-operation of the entire body of the regular service, with a knowledge that the reserve does not envy them their position or commission, wouldn't take it as a gift under present conditions, in no way wishes to supplant them in time of war, is modest in its claim to knowledge, but merely wishes to fight, when the time comes, in the branch of the service which it loves, and to support and supplement it when numbers are short.
Once the reserve has permanent, service-wide support, it will be found worthy and, in turn, things working in cycles as they usually do, the Navy may have a reserve-wide support in its local influence on the opinion of civilians at large, which in the end, shapes the destiny of this nation.