Safety Third
(See page 1144, August, 1937, Proceedings)
Lieutenant W. N. Mansfield, U. S. Naval Reserve.—From previous experience in the Navy and in my present capacity as a marine safety engineer, I was father shocked with Lieutenant Hanna’s article. When I entered the merchant service as a mate, the first sign that caught my eye in the pilothouse was one in large red letters that said “Safety First—Take No Chances.” I soon learned that this was more than a company policy. The Department of Commerce requires that this slogan” be posted in the pilothouse of every merchant ship. Fresh from the Navy and numerous safety precautions, that sign always appealed to me as a familiar and valuable reminder that my skipper and my government did not want me to take any chances in carrying out my duty as a watch officer. Today, I should like to require every watch officer to repeat this slogan whenever he relieves the watch, on deck or below.
There is a real difference between ship safety and personnel safety, with the one similarity that both depend upon training for their success. Ship safety depends upon the ship’s officers and the farsightedness of the ship operator. Neither deliberately plans to endanger a ship but when the emergency does arrive, the former can be thankful that they have a well-trained crew and the latter that he wasn’t too small over furnishing a little more than the law said was necessary to handle such an emergency. Personal safety first, on the other hand, is an individual matter with which every seaman is concerned and over which the safety engineer watches with a jealous eye. Each of us has a wholesome regard for his own skin although some of the accidents which occur to seamen would seem to belie such a statement. Merchant sailors wear safety helmets to protect their heads, goggles to protect their eyes, safety belts to break their falls and to haul them out of tanks, safety shoes to protect their toes, gas masks to protect their lungs or to supply air, and proper clothing to prevent the body from catching in machinery. They take salt tablets to ward off heat exhaustion and usually call on the skipper for first-aid treatment for the slightest scratch. This is all in the interest of accident prevention and in spite of it—not because of it—we continue to have accidents but not so many. This seeming pampering of the merchant sailor does not make him one whit less a seaman than the hard-boiled old-timer about whom we have no records of safety because none were kept.
Going to sea is a hazardous business, accidents will continue to happen, and the newspapers will always exaggerate disasters at sea because they are sensational. The press will write three paragraphs about a ship stranding and calling for help and perhaps two lines about refloating herself without assistance—or simply report her arrival in port. To the landsman, every ship is a boat and every boat is a big passenger liner regardless of her class, trade, or accommodations. The safe construction of a tanker cannot be obtained on the same plans or laws laid down for a passenger vessel any more than industrial “safety first” campaigns can be applied to the seagoing personnel.
The heroic way of saving life is not always the best way and it may lead to endangering the person saved. For example, a bluejacket fell over the side from a subchaser into shark-infested waters. Without too much hesitation, a shipmate grabbed a meat cleaver and jumped in after him. There are some who will say he did not merit the thorough dressing down he received from the skipper. This rescue could have easily cost not one life but two.
The writer cannot agree with the premise that overemphasis on personal safety will cause the seaman to instinctively look out for himself or waste so much time in taking safety measures that it will be too late to carry out his duty when an emergency occurs. I can remember a submarine crew going through an actual chlorine gas emergency just like a regular drill. And the conduct of a gun’s crew when a powder bag is ripped is always to instinctively do the safe thing.
Most of us in the Merchant Marine are a little fed up on this splurge of destructive criticism. The shipping companies which do not consider the welfare of their crews, which lack a continuous record of their men, which lack some sort of a retirement program, which allow a prevalence of drunkenness, and which allow a stagnation of promotion should expect and do receive less work and consideration from their seamen. But fortunately this is not true of all of them.
The one item that has been left out of this discussion and the one thing that ship operators cannot be held strictly responsible for is pretraining. There is a real need for a national training system for merchant officers and men. With this training will come a sense of duty and pride o craftsmanship and better discipline. Such a system is successful in the Navy and it can be applied to the Merchant Marine with certain limitations because of the inherent differences between the two services. What other nations have done, American capital, genius, and intelligence can do better.
I sincerely hope that no effort will be spared to teach these men Safety First for their own sake and for the sake of our Merchant Marine. Without it, the Navy should not accept them as its second line in time of war.
Safety Third
(See page 1144, August, 1937, Proceedings)
Lieutenant Paul E. Howell, U. S. Navy (Retired) .—As both a naval officer and a safety engineer may I beg to differ with the sentiments expressed in the article by Lieutenant James Hanna, U. S. Naval Reserve. It is this very attitude, founded upon misunderstanding of the ends to be accomplished, that has caused the necessity of heroic exertion to rectify blunders. We find that safety has been opposed solely by those who were able to survive the very hazards which they contemptuously decry, by sheer bull luck and nothing else. They fail to count the numerous casualties which have occurred at their side in their lifetime, the men who took the rap in their place; the ones their bunglings maimed. It is not too much to say that the necessity for the use of more than average deftness and heroism, call it “Duty” if you wish, is the result of dereliction of duty by someone else.
When the Safety Movement was first started over twenty years ago, in realization of the toll of lives taken by accidents, it was the belief that they were caused by carelessness on the part of the individual, all accidents could be eliminated by being more careful, hence the slogan Safety First.”
As statistical material accumulated and as analyzed, it was realized that the general term “carelessness” was merely an excuse to cover someone else’s lack of planning, blundering, or inability to think in other than the routine ruts. It also became very evident that it was practically impossible for the most careful person to be careful all of the time due to preoccupation and other factors which rob the worker of his vigilance. Because of this, many safety engineers condemn and abhor the term “Safety First,” as it conveys a mouse-like sense of timidity that was not intended and often puts the emphasis and responsibly for safety upon the wrong person.
There is no entirely safe way to do even the most commonplace things of daily life, he author recognizes this by stating that all of us risk injury daily, even though only in crossing a street. The best that can be accomplished is to do any task the most nearly safe way possible.
Dangerous tasks can be accomplished in a more dangerous way, and also in a less dangerous way; very often boldness and dash are the very essence of safety, as in grasping a nettle. It is the failure to recognize this that causes the author to believe that shrinking from danger is what is being taught our seamen.
Safety in a maritime sense is but an ingredient of the two necessities of marine operations—efficiency and economy. It occupies the same position with relation to the desired ends as do preventive medicines, which seek to economize man power, and Form H which seeks to economize fuel. If an essential unit or man is incapacitated, it makes little difference in the results whether he be struck by shellfire, ill with disease, unable to arrive because of fuel shortage, or injured by an avoidable accident.
The Navy practices safety in many ways not considered as such, as in the provisions for ammunition storage, Bureau of Engineering instructions, orders for gunnery exercises, emergency drills, etc., wherein safety is planned and written in the instructions, and while we may consider some portions, the reasons for which we are unfamiliar, as nuisances, no one will regard them as unnecessary.
General Quarters is in itself a safety measure, since a dangerous task, the suppression of the enemy, consists in preparing to accomplish the task with the utmost efficiency and economy, the safest way, by subjecting him to the heaviest fire your ingenuity can provide. Even in the accomplishment of this greater measure, the smaller safety measure of “bore clear” at the guns is not omitted.
Safety in general is accomplished best by supervision and planning, and “safety first” should best be read “preparedness first.” It is not at all uncommon for the watch officer to query himself “If such a condition occurred, or event happened, what would I do?” and then plan what steps would be taken, while not under stress, so that should an emergency arise a well-thought-out plan would care for it. This is true “Safety First.”
I have before me over 500 investigations as to the reason for accidents to stevedores. An analysis of these accidents shows the following reasons why they were not prevented:
Failure of supervision caused 48.0% of all accidents
Failure of personnel caused 39.2% of all accidents
Failure of material caused 2.6% of all accidents Unknown and miscellaneous caused 11.2% of all accidents
This indicates that any “safety first” campaign addressed to the individual is barking up the wrong tree in regard to the more severe accidents, and the reason for the rising cost of accidents is the failure to recognize the fact. The place to install safety is on the drawing board, in the planning of operations, and in the instruction of personnel in best and safest methods.
The author persuades himself that mass safety involving the safety of the ship and passengers is different from individual safety. Certainly the first is more spectacular in that the individual is omitted, yet every case of mass safety is made of interlocking pieces of individual safety. An obstruction that causes a sprained ankle in a seaman about his work may cost the lives of many passengers who stumble over the same obstruction while in a panic, or may hinder the closing of a door in the work of a fire-fighting or damage-control party.
An analysis of all accident costs, including disasters, will probably show that the daily sniping of preventable accidents to passengers and crews easily leads; that damage to ships and cargo from the same sort of accident is second and the costs of life and ship are but small percentage of the total. The Lloyds Register of 1935 shows that but 269,728 tons of shipping comprising 0.49 per cent of the total were lost or condemned due to the stress of weather, fire, collision, stranding, etc.
The author cites two extremes in hazards of duty ranging from the mess boy who gets his feet wet in order to get his dinner out, to the engineer who risks his life to pull fires. Both might be called failure of supervision and each should not have been necessary. A remedy for the first ranges from overshoes to reconstruction so as to provide a dry place; for the second the carelessness which caused the low water should have been rectified.
I cannot recollect offhand, but one rather famous explorer when asked concerning his adventures replied he had none; that adventures showed lack of skill and planning. It is the same with accidents and most emergencies, the necessary pseudo heroics following accidents indicate lack of foresight.
I directly challenge the statement that by saving in small accidents, greater ones are invited; the rapidly decreasing numbers of catastrophes in relation to minor accidents prove the opposite. Often preventives introduce additional minor hazards. The difference between a large and a small accident is only in degree, not m kind. We appreciate the former because our sense of proportion is blunted by the extensive publicity given to catastrophes. Even on the day of a great marine disaster, the number of passengers and seamen killed or maimed in minor accidents may overtop the number in the disaster, and this loss occurs every day.
I also challenge the meaning of the statement that seamen are not told to take intelligent (?) chances. To my mind, this is contradictory; either it isn’t intelligent or else no unforeseen chance existed. If isn’t intelligent because the law of averages invariably catches up. I am reminded in this instance of a seaman who in taking a chance in coming up a hatch ladder through which cargo was being handled was struck by a descending slingload of cargo. The chance that he would be involved in an accident was but one in fifty, yet even at these odds the accident occurred. The statement referred to is very reminiscent of the fatalistic attitude of too many executives who prate of the “inherent dangers” of their particular industry and because of the “intelligent chances” taken by their employees allow their accident rate to climb. It has been proved that in any “inherently” dangerous industry, whether it be marine or terrestrial, certain groups will be found who are outstanding in efficient management and low costs; invariably these groups are leaders in safety.
Those who are firm in their belief, as is the author, that any undertaking demands its victims bear witness to the lack of confidence in their own competence and management. They are in the class with the ancient bridge builders who used to seal a living victim in the bridge abutments to appease the river god, only now the victims are sacrificed otherwise. These are the real safety cowards since they resent any attempt which may uncover their own incompetence.
Lieutenant Hanna is mistaken in translating “safety first” as “save your own skin first.” If you read Operation Orders, the first item of importance is the mission. In all worth-while work the job, the task, or the mission is the prime point; after this comes the utensils to perform the mission, and the method of performing the task; here real safety, both of the unit, the task group and the individual becomes of importance in accordance with the doctrine of economy of force.
It is demonstrated daily that planned action in small emergencies prevent them from growing into great ones, and practice in dealing with small emergencies allows great ones to be handled with equanimity. It is not held against a lifeboat’s crew that practiced in smooth water, perfecting the technique so that it might safely and rapidly be launched in a rough sea.
Unfortunately, many persons have been misled by propaganda regarding safety by ill-informed enthusiasts or by those who have an interest in selling materials or devices or otherwise lining their pockets and hence they get a distorted view.
However, I think we need have no fear that safety will breed a race of mice or rabbits to man our vessels, if we keep sight the fact that the task to be accomplished, whether large or small, is ever Paramount. If proper instructions, proper supervision, and proper planning for emergencies are given a ship’s company, emergencies will be taken in their stride as mere routine, and there will be no fireworks of mock heroics and the attendant heavy losses to make the headlines; and paraphrasing one paragraph of the original article, “and whose saddest and most neglected phase was the president of a steamship company gripping the arms of his chair, hoping for some accounts of heroism or self-sacrifice; accounts that never came,” accounts that were needed to cover and whitewash negligence in planning, in material, in supervision, in instruction, and in “safety first” by those who were responsible.
Helgoland, the Gibraltar of the North Sea
(See page 1359, September, 1937, Proceedings)
Matthew Thomlinson.—Major Smith claims too much for the Helgoland batteries when he says that they “denied the British Grand Fleet access to the German seaboard for the entire period of the conflict.”
And as for the British not pursuing the High Seas Fleet after Jutland—has Major Smith heard of the German mine fields that stretched across the approaches to the German North Sea ports?
If Major Smith wants a British view of the importance of Helgoland, and the real reason why “Allied war vessels never made a serious attempt to tackle the fortress,” I suggest that he consult Hector Bywater’s Their Secret Purposes, and read Chapter XI. And he might also read one of the War Naval Histories before he ascribes to Helgoland’s batteries all the work that was done by a team—coast defense guns, mines, submarines, and High Seas Fleet— of which Helgoland was only a part.