A reserve officer’s problems are about as varied as the articles sold in a five and ten cent store. To successfully command a reserve battalion its commander should be a combination of disciplinarian, salesman, playwright, diplomat, public speaker, and school teacher. If he has any other qualifications they will also be of value.
Added to the tasks of an officer in a coast city are many others for the officer whose command is located far inland with practically no naval equipment. He is confronted with the problem of not only training recruits to be seamen, but also picturing to them what a ship and a navy look like. Many of these men have never seen a modern warship. I often wonder after a drill is over just what is visualized in the minds of the new men. It must be as wonderful as the conversation I overheard one night on a midwatch during the war between a messenger and a lookout on the construction and operation of the moon. Yet visualize and train them we do, and I feel confident that the man who has been rushing to dog down a certain imaginary watertight door at synthetic collisions in a Midwestern armory will with equal efficiency do a good job when he hears a siren aboard ship, once he locates the same numbered door.
These men enter the Reserve for many different reasons: patriotism, the desire for adventure, in order to make training cruises, a chance to take the entrance examinations for the Naval Academy, and a few just becuase it is something new. I doubt if many come in for the retainer pay alone, although as they get advanced in rating the retainer pay is a welcome addition to their incomes and offsets their expenses. The turnover would probably be considerably larger if they did not receive the pay, and does a lot to keep the drill attendance at a high percentage.
As a man is enlisted and assigned to a division the great problem of retaining his interest begins. If this interest is not maintained from the start, the new recruit will begin missing drills and will probably eventually be transferred to a volunteer status, resulting in an almost total loss to the Navy. Care is taken in selecting recruits and they must have letters of reference from responsible people, but unfortunately letters of reference are easy to obtain and not of much value. The recruiting officer does his best to study the applicant and by a series of questions eliminate those whom he feels will not be fitted or who have merely a transitory interest. In this battalion although the recruit is assigned to a particular division from the start, he spends most of his time in a recruit class where he is taken in hand by a senior petty officer and taught the rudiments of his naval training, chiefly A to N. He drills with his division only at general drills. Each recruit is required to purchase the Bluejackets’ Manual which stimulates interest and a desire to learn more about the Navy. At one time we gave them these books with the result that they were not valued and were soon lost.
The divisions have their time divided between drills and instruction, and follow as closely as possible a syllabus for the entire year, which is designed to cover all the subjects necessary to train and maintain the training of all ratings.
In order to simulate ship conditions as nearly as possible, the armory has been divided into spaces numbered to agree with the compartments in an older type destroyer. A complete navigating bridge has been built, with most of the devices that would be found on a destroyer’s bridge, and above it is the fire control station with elementary controls. The fire control and ship control phones are very complete and are paralleled with voice tubes. The latter is 2-inch down spouting and is highly efficient. A loud-speaker system to every compartment completes the interior communication system. The latter is controlled from a central station and provides 2-way communication to important stations, and 1-way to all other stations. Microphones are located in the cabin, wardroom, quarter-deck, bridge, and ship’s office. Loud-speakers to the parade ground enable the divisions to drill to a large selection of march music. All of the above and many other gadgets are designed and built by the men in the organization. Each new idea adds a certain amount of realism to the drills. At emergency drills actual gear is provided as far as possible, and the rest is usually dummy gear built to resemble the actual article. General quarters is quite & realistic affair and is held in conjunction with a spotting board. An effective salvo is created by placing 1,500-watt photoflood bulbs covered with red cellophane in the muzzles of the two 4-inch guns, together with 30- caliber blanks. Infantry drill is usually very good. Only about one drill in ten can be devoted to it, but the performance is usually very acceptable.
Rated men are expected to do most of their studying at home, and a constant series of progress tests keeps a good check on how well this is being done, and locates the weak spots where intensive training is needed. Additional rating courses are badly needed but are not available at present. On drill night, time is too valuable to devote as much as we would like to the training of petty officers, and we feel that if the man has enough leadership and ability to be a petty officer, he should be required and be willing to do some outside study.
Leadership is the paramount qualification of a good reserve officer. If he does not have it, all of his technical knowledge is of small value to the organized divisions. A reserve officer has very little real authority to compel volunteer men to come to drill and give up their own time for the interests of the Navy. The problem is one of constant salesmanship and of building up an esprit de corps so high that the men will make considerable sacrifices to help their unit. An officer’s value depends in large measure on his willingness to study and prepare himself for his position. As in every walk of life some are a great asset and spend many extra hours on study, while others do the minimum to maintain their position. They come from many sources. Many are college and university graduates, six in this battalion are from the Naval Academy, and several have worked their way up from the ranks by hard study and ability.
A great deal of interest is created and maintained by the uniformed baseball, basketball, and other battalion teams. They provide good advertising for the battalion and attract as a rule a better than average type of recruit. These teams offer many men a chance to take part in athletics that would not otherwise be open to them. A certain number of social events are held for the men and are always well attended. The officers also have their own parties, and although this is something somewhat new in this battalion, it is believed that it has had a very beneficial effect in creating more interest in the unit. A miniature war game board is installed on the wardroom deck, and at times very interesting problems are played, resulting in healthy postmortems and some additional research. Complete damage sheets and forms have been worked out which allow the games to proceed in a smooth fashion and with a minimum of delay. Problems are usually of a quick decision type.
In addition to the annual inspection marks, two of the most important items affecting annual standing are cruise attendance and drill attendance. Many ingenious ideas are put into force to gain high percentages in these two factors. These range from appeals to pride, rewards, and competition, to actual arrests of every absentee. That some of these Plans are effective is shown by the fact that the battalion has won the Commandant's Cup for cruising attendance on four separate occasions.
Most employers are willing to let their men cruise and encourage it, but a few refuse to let their men have the necessary vacations. It is interesting to note that one of the latter is one of the country's largest Corporations. Esprit de corps has been so high in some cases that men have quit their Jobs in order that they might cruise. In the year that we cruised every man in three divisions, eight men gave up their Jobs. Needless to say we used every effort to place them in new ones on their return. Drill attendance presents many of the same problems as cruising, especially among men that work at night. These men make arrangements to get off on drill nights, and a shift in drill due to national holidays, or the inspection board inspecting on a night other than the regular drill night results in a sharp drop in attendance. Two years ago the board inspected on a night that coincided with graduation night in one of the local high schools. As we had several members among the graduating class we took some penalties, but some members passed up their own graduation exercises in order not to penalize their divisions at inspection. This is getting pretty close to the top in loyalty. Three officers come from 40 to 120 miles to drill, and one officer traveled about 60 miles each way for years and rarely missed a drill. Part of this distance was over unpaved roads which were almost impassable in winter. Last week an apprentice seaman came out to the armory from his home 30 miles away on a night other than drill night, because he heard some officers were going to be present and he wanted some instruction on the tracking board to which he had recently been assigned. Yes, loyalty in the reserve ranks is very high. We realize that we lack a great deal in technical experience and knowledge but eagerly grasp all data that are made available to us, and in the event of war I think that these volunteer sailors will blend rapidly into the ship's complement and will be men that their commanding officers will be satisfied with.
Several years ago in order to encourage perfect attendance for one year, including the training cruise, we instituted an order with the above qualifications. We expected great things from it, but although it undoubtedly did some good, like many other ideas it fell short of the goal. After one year a great many of the men had received the cross of the order and highly prized it, but we still were not 100 per cent. An analysis showed that the majority of the men had almost perfect records anyway, and the loss was occurring among a small percentage in each division. This shifting small percentage is one of the great problems, and it is to retain their interest that we go to many extra hours of planning and work. The easiest thing to do would be to eliminate this dross and replace them, but if you do the turnover factor works against you. Many of this group are drifters who would not be interested in anything very long. Some entered with the expectation of a rapid advance and are not willing to wait and work for advancement. Probably the best system we have found to eliminate this group is to enlist them on the waiting list of volunteers and see how regularly they attend before they are accepted into the fleet division or, as it is now called, the Organized Reserve Division.
The appearance of the men is usually smart. “Tailor-made” uniforms have been eliminated and the whole outfit is regulation except for a little difficulty with non-regulation shoes. It is very difficult to get men to scrub their uniforms at home, and as a result many go to the dry cleaners and invariably come back with that “tell-tale gray” shade to the tape. Leggings, slings, belts, and scabbards are another problem. Some boards want them bleached and other boards do not, but they all want them uniform. We tried bleaching one year with disastrous results. The equipment, being manufactured in different lots, came out every shade of brown, yellow, and white, and a few did not come out at all where too much bleach had been used. Our next attempt was to blanco them to an identical white. This was much better, but the board was mystified by every man in the battalion having “dusty” shoes. The blanco had powdered off on a perfectly good shine to our cost. I have often wondered why they could not all be issued in white the same as the midshipmen use.
Discipline is strict and has been a source of surprise and some criticism from several visiting reserve officers. We go on the theory that a man comes into the Reserve because he respects and wishes to be a member of a smart military organization. If this is not true he belongs in some civilian group or club that has more liberal ideas. We expect well executed present arms from the sentries, and that all other traditions will be carried out as rigidly as our conditions will permit. Officers come to their feet with practically a clicking of heels when the battalion commander comes in the wardroom. They know that no one gets any great “kick” out of it, but it is proper and is so understood and carried out. Officers are required to replace gold lace prior to inspections and cruises and to wear a certain make of cap. Buttons must also be replated when needed. Some of this is perhaps arbitrary, but no one is unhappy about it. Officers are in many cases close friends in civil life, but there is absolutely no familiarity during drill hours. I have seen an officer receive a beautiful dressing down for some fault at drill, and have seen the same two having a good time forgetting their sorrows together after drill that night. It is all part of the game and the old adage about a taut ship being a happy ship is equally true in the Reserve and quite vital if we are to have the value that should be expected of us.
★