Whether a vessel of the Navy is built at a private shipbuilding yard or at a navy yard, a definite period of time is allocated to her by the Chief of Naval Operations for getting ready to join the fleet as a fighting unit. It is with this preparatory or fitting-out period in its relation to personnel that the writer proposes to deal, and through the medium of a “case history” it is hoped to emphasize what may be done to “fit out” the officers and men who first man our vessels. The measures taken in the case of a heavy cruiser to prepare her personnel for some small use to the fleet upon first joining up may seem entirely obvious, perhaps so much so that they are frequently overlooked.
The apparent but relatively unimportant business of the fitting-out period is the placing on board of the stores, spare parts, equipment, and ammunition necessary to operation. It is an activity which is always successfully accomplished. The agencies for providing material function mechanically and, almost always, very efficiently. No ship of the line ever departs on her shakedown cruise without adequate material to fulfill the mission of her type in any emergency, including battle.
Material is the handmaiden of personnel and is distinctly of secondary importance to personnel. Yet no certainty of excellence in the preparation of a new ship’s personnel during the fitting-out period parallels that which material achieves.
It is a common wardroom observation that a ship which starts well continues to be an efficient unit of the fleet for many years. Psychologists agree that one of the best methods of curing a bad habit is to substitute in its place a good habit. The ship just commissioning has no bad habits, and if only good ones are begun in the fitting-out period, it should occasion no surprise that a ship continues to stand well. This inculcation of good habits in a ship is the most important duty of the executive officer during the preparatory period, which usually extends from about two months before commissioning to about two months after. As nearly all the officers who will serve in the ship arrive at the building yard and most of the crew are assembled at some near-by receiving or training station several months prior to commissioning, the executive officer has ready at hand the material out of which he must fashion his fighting unit.
It would be an egregious mistake to argue that the relatively short time allotted to fitting out is an adequate period in which to train the personnel of a ship to the point of readiness for battle. Director operators, gun layers, throttlemen, steersmen, and other ratings depending for proficiency on the constant manual manipulation of material need many more hours of drill than are available in the fitting-out period. It is just as foolish to sit back and fail to take advantage of this opportunity to plant deep in the heart of the ship the seeds of co-operation, intelligent initiative, and ship spirit which will surely flower into that sailorman’s delight, a crack ship.
In order to illustrate what may be accomplished by an executive officer, alert to the problems the ship will face on first forsaking the safe haven of the navy yard, it is proposed to relate a “case history,” which in broad outline may serve as an example of what can be done in preparing the personnel of a new ship for intelligent operation. It is, of course, assumed that every ship just commissioning will attend to the miserable business of getting aboard and properly stowing her stores; and of organizing as soon as possible the usual emergency drills.
About two months before the scheduled completion of this heavy cruiser at a private shipyard, the prospective executive officer called together the officers assigned to the ship and explained to them his views on what he considered their duty with respect to knowing their ship, her capabilities and potentialities, her special equipment, her personnel, the missions of her type, and her relationship to the fleet. He then proceeded to elaborate on his plan to assist every officer in properly carrying out this duty.
The plan consisted of (a) a detailed syllabus of instruction in the structure and function of the primary agencies in the ship provided to enable her to fulfill her mission, i.e., the propulsion plant, the battery, the water-tight compartmentation, and the special appliances furnished for meeting material emergencies; (b) a specific schedule for the preparation of watch, quarter, and station bills, battery logs, machinery history, and similar aids to organization; (c) a schedule for the rotating detail of the prospective division officers with the crew at a near-by training station; (d) a schedule of lectures on the ship’s relations with the fleet as indicated by tactical instructions and communication regulations. The department heads were designated as instructors, and all hands as students. The schedules laid out were rigorously followed.
Without going into too much detail, the result of this planned “fitting out” of the ship’s personnel was that all the officers were generally familiar, before the ship was commissioned, with the propulsion plant, its capabilities with respect to acceleration and deceleration so far as they were then determined for the type, the co-operation necessary from all hands to effect economical operation, and the time necessary for raising steam in an emergency; they knew the effective range of the several batteries, the rate of ammunition supply, and the general plan of fire control; all hands had actually operated the magazine floods and sprinklers and had put on gas masks; they knew the safe load on the various cranes and booms, the location of fire plugs, and the meaning of “X,” “Y,” and “Z” on certain doors and hatches.
Meanwhile the nondescript collection of “drafts” was being licked into shape and was taking on the characteristics of a proper crew under the daily instruction of the prospective division officers. Gun layers, range finders, and loading crew personnel were being spotted as was the small but inevitable percentage of “bums.” Before the ship was commissioned, every division had visited the ship and learned something about its particular bailiwick. Watch, quarter, and station bills were complete and posted. Each man knew his billet, his locker, his mess table. A complete battle bill was made ready by heroic efforts of the prospective gunnery officer, and each member of the crew knew his battle station. A ship’s organization book was compiled and printed, as the particular pidgin of the executive officer, and a copy was in every officer’s possession prior to commissioning. This book later was used, almost lock, stock, and barrel, as the official heavy cruiser ship’s organization book.
The day for commissioning arrived. The ship was towed to the navy yard and moored at 10:00 A.M. At eleven, a barge with a crew aboard, over 500 men in all, moored at the same dock and the men marched aboard, proceeding directly with their division officers to their respective parts of the ship. The noonday meal was cooked aboard, and after it the commissioning ceremonies, brief but ever thrilling, were finished. The watch was set and all hands turned to on stores, the first liberty section leaving the ship at four thirty.
School, as scheduled, continued throughout the fitting-out period. The second phase of preparation had to do with the ship’s relation to the fleet. The tactical officer, with large charts of cruising, approach, and battle formations, lectured on the ship’s place and mission in them, the maneuvers involved, and the purpose of the formation. The signal officer assisted with exercises from the General Signal Book and Signal Manual, in which all hands participated.
The ship made ready for her shakedown cruise. Due to circumstances over which the ship had no control, the shakedown cruise was canceled. After a short trip to Guantanamo, this heavy cruiser joined the fleet. It must have been prescience, clairvoyance—call it what you will—on the part of the executive officer who planned the fitting-out schedule and on the part of the captain who gave it his personal and whole-hearted support. However, the ship joined the fleet without a regular shakedown cruise, ready to take her place as a useful unit.
It is the writer’s opinion that a fitting- out period, such as is sketchily described above, achieves two valuable objectives. The practical business of being of some small use to the fleet upon joining up is guaranteed. The daily association of all the ship’s officers, working with the one common end in view, of mutual cooperation through common knowledge engenders a wardroom and ship’s spirit that is the cement of the whole structure of a crack ship.
Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons and they will stand by you even unto death. If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt; kindhearted, but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder; then your soldiers must be likened to; spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purpose.—Sun Tsu, The Art of War.