With our Navy facing the restriction of funds which can be expected for some time to come, we are going to be forced to reduce, to a large extent, the operations of ships that remain in commission. This fact, coupled with the scarcity of sea billets available, means that a great many officers will necessarily receive training ashore instead of through actual experience at sea. Various schools and training courses are being established, chiefly for the training of newcomers to the ranks of the Regular Navy. These are a vital need but one which is considerably limited due to the large numbers of these officers eligible for such training. We are all going to have to learn in any way possible, and it is felt that discussion in the Proceedings may be a fruitful method of interchanging information.
In the past most of us have picked up practical points in all branches of the service from actual service with resourceful shipmates, both commissioned and enlisted. Not all good seamanship is contained in Knight’s Seamanship, neither do Bureau Manuals give us, the operators, the alpha and omega of the various branches of our profession. Perhaps there would be more useful articles written and published in the Proceedings if prospective authors could be convinced that down-to-earth, common sense, practical aids are the greatest help to us all, and will be the hardest to obtain under post-war operating conditions. Many of us are going to command major ships with but little, and in some cases none, of the experience of our predecessors. If we are to prove ourselves capable, we must take advantage of all opportunities to make ourselves so. With these ideas in view, and with the desire to pass along some information I believe will be helpful, the following three tips are submitted.
Hand Signals to the Wheel
Recent discussion of communication difficulties inherent in the telephone and talker system has brought to mind a kindred subject which I believe to be worthy of consideration. It is the matter of standardization of hand signals from the conning officer to the helmsman. Anyone who has handled ships to any extent knows that there are innumerable times when noise, physical obstructions, distance, or faulty communications make it practically impossible to give proper conning orders without a hurried trip to the pilot house to shout the order. While vocal transmission of orders is difficult under the above- mentioned conditions, in time of battle it is often an absolute impossibility. Many ships have automatic weapons in such close proximity to the conning station that their din, added to that of the other guns on board, precludes anything but visual transmission of orders. If this condition is not foreseen and hand signals devised, a situation may arise whereby the conning officer is reduced to comparative helplessness at a most critical time. The use of hand signals in these circumstances is widespread, but as far as I have been able to learn no standardization has ever been attempted, therefore signals must be taught individually to each quartermaster and helmsman. Visual indicator systems are excellent for exchange of information or transmission of orders between stations which are permanent, such as between pilot house and engine room, forecastle, or CIC, but the conning officer on board most ships must be in many different locations in order to go alongside ships or docks, recover seaplanes underway, maneuver in all kinds of tactical situations, fuel at sea, or any other of the many evolutions performed while he is far displaced from his normal, comfortable position between his cup of coffee and the helmsman.
For what it is worth I offer the following system, one which I believe to be simple and easily remembered. It is freely admitted that it came about as a result of considerable embarrassment on my part while attempting to keep a battleship in station on a carrier violently maneuvering without signals of any kind, in the first air action of the war in which a fast battleship was part of a fast carrier task force. It was tested many times later and found sound. It consists of the following signals:
Right (left) (blank) degrees rudder.
Stand facing forward and wave to the right (left) with the right (left) hand, and then show one to five fingers indicating increments of five degrees of rudder desired. If no fingers are shown, standard rudder is indicated.
Rudder Amidships.
Stand facing forward and move hand in fore and aft motion with fingers stiff and hand feathered fore and aft.
Meet Her.
Raise both fists overhead and knock them together several times.
Steady As You Go.
Raise one fist overhead.
With these four orders you can put your ship on any desired course or cause her course to be rapidly altered in the direction desired.
Hand signals to the engines have been tried but they are usually not necessary or particularly successful. For that reason they are omitted in this discussion. The matter of obtaining a course to steer from the flagship, of having the talker transmit it to the conning officer and from him to the helmsman, during action, is a bit more difficult. A piece of chalk in the hands of the talker or conning officer for writing the course on a bulkhead or slate is the solution I have found most successful. At times a loudspeaker on the TBS can be heard, and at other times it cannot. Usually a talker with tight earphones plugged in on the receiver can obtain the order correctly and he can pass it on in written form in the manner best suited to the situation and to the physical structure of the conning station. It is often completely impossible to depend upon our ears, and this fact must never be forgotten on the bridge in wartime. The conning tower is more quiet; but operating from there, in many cases, only substitutes blindness for deafness and is not acceptable in air actions.
Numbering of Mooring Lines
Have you ever moored a battleship or other large ship to a dock, using from 10 to 14 lines? If you have you know that you are at one end of a telephone net with a talker at each of the lines, which you have undoubtedly numbered from 1 up, beginning with your forward line and counting aft. If you were carrying out this evolution on board a merchantman or other type naval ship which frequently moors alongside, you would probably be very familiar with the names or numbers and locations of each and every line, perhaps even with the bollards on the dock. If you are on board a large combatant ship, it is highly probable that you have never moored her or any other like ship alongside before.
Suppose that you are conducting this operation. Everything is going along very well with your heaving lines or line throwing gun lines going over smartly and the ship moving up to her assigned berth at about the proper rate of speed. The mooring lines reach the dock and suddenly you see a line taking a strain that will throw your calculations out of kilter, or, worse still, will part the line. Is it No. 6, 7, or 8? It is extremely difficult to tell, especially if one or two of the forward lines have not yet been run to the dock. It is highly desirable to know at all times the number of each line in order that orders for it may be transmitted immediately and without error.
The solution of this problem proved to be the simple and direct approach. A number of nicely painted wooden numbered paddles were turned out, and the mooring alongside plan allowed for one man at each line to do nothing but stand at the proper chock and hold his paddle facing the bridge. This way you know the number of the line, the men on deck know the number of the line they are responsible for, all talkers know the number they are responsible for, and confusion is reduced to zero. Try it some time.
Mooring to a Mooring Buoy
Anyone who has conned a ship up to a mooring buoy knows that one of the major annoyances of the problem is the disappearance of the buoy under the forecastle several hundred feet forward of the bow, the distance depending on the size, type, and length of the ship. All has usually gone well to this point, but from then on there is usually a rapid exchange of guesses from the First Lieutenant in the eyes of the ship to the conning officer as to the distance of the buoy from the bow and its relative bearing. Rather than overrun the buoy, a highly dangerous practice when anti-torpedo nets are secured to it during wartime, and being unable to obtain a complete mental picture from the First Lieutenant’s running commentary, the conning officer is prone to make too slow an approach or to kill his headway too far away from the buoy. The latter procedure necessitates the long haul of a hook rope or wire mooring pendant by boat to the buoy and an unseamanlike maneuver of warping the ship up a long distance to the mooring position.
Again the solution is simplicity itself. Send your conning officer to the forecastle, let him man the 1JV phone, and let him give all orders for the wheel and engines to the bridge for transmission to the helmsman and engine room. He can take station on the centerline a few feet abaft the jackstaff to judge the ship’s heading and, with a little practice, can drop the anchor chain on the buoy with the ship dead in the water, after having made a smart approach. Once you have tried this, you will never again “second guess” on the bridge.
None of the aforementioned suggestions are world shattering, and undoubtedly they have been used by many before. I have never seen them in print and simply pass them on in hope that they may help others as they have helped me.