In order to keep the Navy’s complement of petty officers approximately filled at all times, it has become necessary for the Navy to make petty officers in certain ratings by special education and concentrated training, instead of “striking” or apprenticeship at the detail or in the office on hoard ship, to which the candidate aspires. The vast majority of ratings are still filled at sea in the customary manner, but technical ratings, such as machinist’s mates, electrician’s mates, musicians, boilermakers, blacksmiths, and coppersmiths are required in greater number than the facilities on board ship can supply them. During past years, the Navy has been deficient in these ratings. To correct this deficiency, large quotas of students for the service schools on shore were authorized in 1923 and 1924, to be filled by recruits selected at the training stations upon completion of the eight weeks recruit training, and before their transfer to sea.
As a result of this policy, the Machinist’s Mates School, for example, has graduated about thirty-five men every three weeks as qualified for the rating of machinist’s mates, second class. These men have gone from the school to assignments at sea after eight weeks recruit training and approximately ten months in the school. In other words, most of the machinist mate material now in the fleet as machinist’s mates, second class, or awaiting appointments to that rating, consists of men who have just reported from the school after one year of service, no part of which has been spent at sea. In many ways, this is an unfortunate condition.
Up to about July 1, 1924, the majority of the men in the Machinist’s Mates School at the Naval Training Station, Hampton Roads, Virginia, were men who came to the school from sea, and were recommended for instruction at the school by their commanding officers. This method would seem to furnish men of greater general experience, who would make better machinist’s mates, than does the method now in use. But this practice has nearly fallen into disuse and at the present time approximately but 10 per cent of the student body of the Machinist’s Mates School has had previous sea experience.
Since it is conceded that our present policy is unfortunate in many respects, it seems appropriate that the officers charged with the duty of training petty officers, in and for the fleet, should make a careful study of conditions, analyze causes, difficulties, and results obtained, and arrive at a clear, definite decision as to what method should be established in order that the greatest benefit should accrue to the Navy by their training. The writer sets forth herein some phases of the situation as they have been presented to him, during his previous tour of sea duty in the fleet, and during his present duty as officer in charge of the service schools at Hampton Roads. He also accompanies the discussion with conclusions and recommendations which appear appropriate from his point of view.
He recognizes the fact that the demand for men, trained and untrained, from certain vessels and fleets, precludes the possibility of establishing a stable permanent policy, as any policy is dependent upon the varying conditions in the fleet. For example, if under the present plan an excess number of graduates are furnished the fleet from any one school, so that all vacancies in the rating supplied by this school are filled, then a different situation is created from that which made the present policy a necessity; and rather than continue as at present, it may be preferable to change the policy in order to meet the changed conditions. But this situation can be met by a flexible compromise.
Service Schools at Hampton Roads, Virginia.—In order that the reader may thoroughly understand the situation at the service schools with particular reference to those at the Training Station, Hampton Roads, Virginia, the following explanation of the courses of instruction is furnished, before the discussion is started.
At this station all service schools are operated as a part of the Training Station, under the commanding officer of the Training Station. The schools are grouped in a department entirely separate from the department of recruit training. An officer, either lieutenant-commander or commander, is detailed by the commanding officer as officer in charge of service schools. The schools themselves are divided into three divisions; first, mechanical division consisting of the Machinist’s Mates School and the Artificers’ School, with the classes (1) boilermakers, (2) blacksmiths, (3) coppersmiths; second, the electrical division, consisting of the Electrical School and the Radio School; third, the General Division, consisting of the Yeoman School, Musicians’ School, Recruiters’ School, and Naval Academy Preparatory Class. Each of these divisions is in charge of a lieutenant or lieutenant (jg), with such assistant officers and warrant officers as are available. Special officers are assigned to duty with the Recruiters’ School and Naval Academy Preparatory Class.
The curriculum of each of the schools is drawn up to contain as much practical instruction as can be given, with the theoretical instruction reduced to the minimum that is consistent with the requirements of the petty officer, in the rating for which he is being educated. In the Machinist’s Mates School, the first three weeks of the course are spent in a review of arithmetic, covering only the handling of fractions and decimals which is required in the reading of blueprints, in the setting of gauges, and in ordinary work on board ship. The next two weeks are spent in teaching the student the elements of blueprint reading. No attempt is made to qualify the student as a competent draftsman, but he is taught how to read and to make simple drawings such as he must use in his regular work.
The next twenty-one weeks are all practical. The students during this time learn how to actually operate hand and machine tools, and are given an insight into what can be done by the tinsmith, coppersmith, and blacksmith, so that they may be able to take advantage of these allied trades, when they are more competent to do a job than is the machinist. The last three weeks of these twenty-one are spent in making actual repairs to the machinery and equipment of the Machinist’s Mates School. As this equipment consists of machine tools of every kind found on board ships, and of pumps, engines, and other machinery used on board ship, this period is of greatest value to the student. It enables him to use the knowledge he has gained in practical work, similar to the repair work which will be required of him at sea.
The following nine weeks are devoted to instruction and practical work with the various engineering appliances, ice machines, evaporating plant, condensers, pumps, and so forth, which are found in the engineering department on board ship; so that the student, when he reports on board, will quickly be able to identify the various machines and auxiliaries, and will have an understanding of their utility and operation. The final two weeks of the course consist of an examination which weeds out the fit from the unfit, and enables the officer in charge of the school to make definite recommendations, as to which men have successfully learned the practical and theoretical knowledge which has been taught them. 'Thus he is enabled to select those who are actually competent to hold the rating of machinist’s mate, second class, as far as their technical requirements are concerned, when they leave the school. These men are graduated.
The Electrical School has a twenty-four weeks course of general electricity. During this time, one week is spent on each of the following subjects: magnetism, units and resistance, circuit calculations, generators, electro-magnetism, field construction, armature winding, motors, control of motors, maintenance of motors, batteries, alternating current, applied alternating current and electric drive, operation of generators and switchboards, instruments, motor boat and battery ignition, light and power, searchlights and signal devices, interior communication, ship-control, and fire- control. During each day the students have practical work in the subject for that week. For example, in armature winding the students actually wind armatures; in the motor control week, they make the actual connections to rheostats for control of motors; in the battery week, they repair, assemble, and charge batteries. In every week they carry on practical work to as great an extent as possible.
The last eight weeks of the Electrical School course are devoted to the gyro-compass and final examinations. In every way, throughout the entire course, the effort is made to teach the student what he will have to do practically on board ship, and to avoid merely furnishing him with theoretical knowledge which he must adapt to practical use at sea.
The Musicians’ School has a course of 150 lessons on each instrument, so arranged that the average student by close application and average musical ability can successfully complete one lesson each school day. When a man is graduated from the Musicians’ School he has mastered the elementary technique of his instrument. He has played with his instrument in the assembled school band, and he has been taught sufficient music to enable him, when he gets on board ship, to advance and improve himself continuously in his regular work in the band at sea. Further, such men as have talent for orchestra instruments also are taught to play the violin, cello, piano, and so forth, so that the fleet is given men from which they can build and maintain orchestras.
Bearing in mind that the above examples are typical of the courses of instruction now maintained by the Bureau of Navigation in service schools, it is plain to anyone who carefully studies the subject that the often repeated charge, which is made by seagoing officers, that service school graduates should receive more practical instruction and less theory, cannot be substantiated in fact. It is believed that this charge is frequently based upon the inability of a service school graduate to immediately perform some practical work on board ship, which is a common and a customary job at sea, but which is not exactly similar to any of the work carried on in the school. To expect a graduate to go ahead with every piece of work is a false expectation, which is not realized by these schools nor by any other school; and until the service at large understands that the service schools graduate men who have received excellent educations in their trade, but who still require practical work at sea to fit them for their ratings, all graduates will be handicapped on their first duty by this misconception on the part of the officers to whom they report.
Recruits as Students in Service Schools.—At present recruits are assigned service schools according to the following procedure: All recruits who report at the Training Station are given the O’Rourke General Classification Test. During their period of detention in the receiving unit the existence and nature of the service schools at this station are explained to them. Once again while they are in training, the officer in charge of service schools appears before the recruits and describes to them the nature of the schools, and how ratings are obtained in the Navy, both through school education, or through practical education on board ship. Such recruits as desire to enter any school submit their names to the officer in charge, and those who have made a score of 50 per cent or better, on the general classification test, are referred to the schools which they have requested, and are there given the aptitude test, to determine their fitness for the trade they have selected. The officer in charge of the school, using the results of both of these tests as a guide, then selects those men whom he considers best qualified for the school in all respects. The number of students selected is restricted to a certain quota established by the Bureau of Navigation.
If it should develop in any one week that more applicants appear whom he considers good material for the school, than is allowed by the quota, he will select such additional applicants as he considers proper. The succeeding week or weeks he will restrict his selection so that his average of selections for the quarter does not exceed the quota authorized by the Bureau.
The advantages of this system are, that men who enter the service with a talent for machine work, electrical work, radio, and so forth, immediately apply themselves to a course of instruction, which gives them a thorough foundation for their development into the petty officer ratings as soon as they go to sea. The disadvantage of this method is, that these men go to sea and in many cases receive their appointments without the proper amount of sea training. In other words, although technically qualified as machinist’s mates, electrician’s mates, and so forth, still they are in no way qualified, and it is impossible that they can be qualified, for the military duties of the ratings. Further, many of the men selected are capable, good workers, and well qualified technically, but they are too young to properly administer the military duties of their rating over the older men whom they find on board ship. This disadvantage is a serious one and well worthy of consideration. In view of the double requirement of any petty officer, that he must be technically qualified and also militarily qualified, for his rating, it is very questionable if the present practice should be continued, particularly for the rating of second class petty officers such as is usually handed to graduates of the Machinist’s Mates and Artificers’ Schools shortly after they go to sea.
Candidates in Service Schools Who Come from Sea.—The Bureau of Navigation Manual allows the commanding officers of ships to recommend certain qualified men for transfer to the various service schools. The purpose of the privilege is to furnish a means by which a man who has proven his worth on board ship, but who requests special education which cannot be efficiently supplied at sea, may be transferred to a school and there be taught sufficient to enable him to qualify for the technical duty of a rating, for which he has shown his fitness, during his service at sea. Were the commanding officers of ships to use this privilege in the manner intended, there would be no question of sending recruits to service schools. But, unfortunately, on account of the crying need on board ship for good men, such men are not transferred to the schools, but on the contrary are rated on board ship in such ratings as coxswain, boatswain’s mate, gunner’s mate, torpedo-man, and so forth, where the necessary technical education can be supplied at sea without loss of the services of the man himself. Instead of these excellent men coming to the schools from sea, we find the majority of men who come from ships to be only of average ability. Frankly, we cannot expect anything else. The commanding officers are responsible for the efficiency of their ships. They must train petty officers in many ratings. The accomplishments of their ships are dependent upon the ability of the enlisted men on board. Therefore, it is not reasonable to expect them to select their most capable men for transfer to a shore station for trade school education as machinist’s mates, electricians, and so forth, when they need such men on board for present urgent work.
As a result, the men who come from sea are generally of mediocre ability, although they have good points which merit recognition. There are frequent cases of men who are serving on their second enlistment as firemen or seamen, who lack perseverance and ambition, but who are faithful and valuable in their nonrated positions. In hopes of helping such a man, his division officer will recommend him for training at a service school, not because he considers him exceptionally well qualified for the rating, but because of a desire to help him along, even though the man will not help himself.
Then occasionally men who desire to get away from a ship, will request assignment to a trade school, and their requests will be approved without regard for their lack of fitness for the detail requested. Such men instead of taking advantage of the golden opportunity thus offered, often make no effort to learn a trade, but are content to be sent to sea again on some other ship. In order to correct this defect in the system, all men who come to a service school are returned to the ship from which they came, upon graduation, or when transferred from the school for cause.
Unfortunately, in most cases, by the time the man has proven his fitness or unfitness and is returned to the ship, the officers responsible for his transfer to the school have been either detached from the ship or from the duty, so they do not know of his return. Therefore, the individual officer does not realize that his consent to the transfer of such a man to the service schools has been a loss to the government, if the man proves himself unfit; and what is worse, a direct blow at the efficiency of the Navy’s training of men for the petty officer ratings.
Therefore, although theoretically this method of obtaining students in the schools for training petty officers in the technical ratings is the best method, still, practically, it has not been successful in the past and probably will not be successful in the future.
A Compromise Proposal.—It has been suggested that instead of attempting to give a complete trade education to the recruits in the service schools on shore, the present practice of transferring large quotas, even larger than at present, if practicable, from the recruit units be continued, but that they be retained in the service schools for a comparatively short time, eight to fifteen weeks at the most; whereas at present it requires thirty-eight weeks to complete the Machinist’s Mates School course, and thirty-two weeks to complete the Electrical School course. During this time in the school, these men would be taught the rudiments of their trade so that they could then report on board ship, and the officers afloat could select from these graduates the best men for practical training, and thus rate them petty officers as the result of their work at sea. The benefit of this method would be that these men would qualify technically and militarily at the same time, and thus this deficiency of the present system would be corrected.
What are the defects of this plan? The first objection appears to be the fact that the only reason for the existence of the service schools is the inability of the fleet to train men for the ratings which are supplied from these schools. If the complement of machinist’s mates had been kept filled in the fleet, there never would have been any question of starting a Machinist’s Mates School. If the complement of the electricians, radiomen, blacksmiths, and so forth, had been filled by ratings in the fleet, there would never have been a question of starting an Electrical School, Radio School, Artificers’ School, and so forth, at any shore station. Therefore, it is extremely doubtful if furnishing the rudiments of the technical knowledge required of men in these ratings, will give sufficient ground work for the men to progress at sea, fast enough to keep the complements filled.
It should be noted that service schools have been required only in comparatively few ratings. These are specialties which require training and education that cannot come to the enlisted man in the regular course of his duties. No service school is required for engineman, boatswain’s mate, coxswain, and the like ratings, because the knowledge of the work required in these ratings is accessible and easily gained on board ship. In contrast, the electrician’s mate, machinist’s mate, and musician must know considerable about their trade in the way of general and special information and theoretical knowledge that can only be taught at schools.
Another objection to this plan is the fact that on board the smaller classes of vessels, such as cruisers, destroyers, gunboats, and so forth, very often, when a machinist’s mate is requested to fill the complement, due to the vacancies in that rating in the Navy as a whole, a qualified machinist’s mate cannot be supplied, so a service school graduate is sent instead of a rated man. For such a billet an elementary graduate would not suffice. These ships, with their small complements, are unable to train men as “strikers” for every position, and would be unable to give the additional training to the graduate from a service school, who was sent to the ship with only a rudimentary knowledge of his trade. They require a thoroughly competent graduate.
A third objection to this plan is the fact that whereas at present every man who enlists gets an equal opportunity to attend such service school as he desires, it would be impossible to transfer the graduates after their elementary training so that they would have equal opportunities for making their ratings. Some ships would probably be able to run regular schools of instruction, while other ships, which at the time might have no need for petty officers in these ratings, would utilize the school graduates for general work about the ship, and they would eventually fleet up in other ratings with a complete loss of their time in the school, and great dissatisfaction among the men concerned.
Conclusions and Recommendations.—Mature consideration of the service needs, and the various methods of supplying petty officers, has convinced the writer that a better grade of technically qualified petty officers competent not only for their trade duties, but also for the military duties of their ratings, will be furnished by maintaining service schools which give a complete course of instruction with as much practical work as possible; the students in most cases to be drawn from recruits. It must be understood that this technical education must be supplemented by additional practical work for a period of time at sea, the length of which period is dependent entirely upon the capabilities of the individual man. During this probationary period at sea, the service school graduate will learn the practical application of his trade in everyday work and will also learn the military duties of his rating, and, if competent, he will learn how to handle men, and will develop his ability as a leader of men.
The practice which has been followed in the past by the Bureau of Navigation of completely closing schools once the complements in the Navy as a whole, in the ratings supplied by that school, are filled, should be discontinued. The school should be continued, even if the quota is reduced to one man per week, and the instructors to one chief petty officer. The maintenance of the school at so little personnel cost to the Bureau provides a continuity of policy that enables the Bureau at any time to expand the school, without a great loss of time and effort. Where considerable equipment is required in a school, for example, in the Electrical, Machinist’s Mates, and Artificers’ Schools, a small complement of students will keep all the equipment intact, and in excellent condition, whereas, if such a school were discontinued entirely, there would be enormous wastage, loss, and frittering away of valuable machinery and equipment which could not be replaced when expansion of the school was required, without a great expense to the Navy.
Further, it should be kept in mind that a condition in the fleet which requires the starting of a school to fill a certain rating one year, is only appeased by the supply of graduates from the school to fill the vacancies in the fleet. The condition still exists, and in the course of time, if the school is completely closed, vacancies will begin to appear in that rating, and the school will have to start its instruction again.
Therefore, it is recommended that when the peace-time requirements of the Navy demand the establishment of a school for the training of petty officers, once such school is started and equipped, it shall continue in operation, hut that its quota of students will be reduced to accord with the demands of the service. In order to raise the quality of the graduates of these schools, in cases where the complement at sea is fully provided in ratings supplied by any school; in addition to reducing the quota for entrance to the school, such school should be authorized to graduate only a certain number of men per month. The result of this action will be that the laggards will be dropped at different periods of the course, and only the best men will reach the graduation period and be sent to sea as qualified for practical instruction for their ratings. This will increase the quality of material available for the rating, without increasing its quantity. Such action will further maintain the continuity of policy in the school. It will enable the school to develop, and improve the instruction, because only high-grade men will be continued in the school, and effort will not be wasted on men of only average or below average ability.
As to the source of supply of students: the schools must continue to draw the major portion of their quotas from the recruits. The present instructions which allow ships and stations to send men, with the Bureau’s approval, to service schools should be continued, and, if commanding officers send only qualified men to them for instruction, then the recruit quotas can be cut down or entirely abolished, and the service schools will be on the high plane that was originally intended, with graduates capable of performing all duties of their ratings.