First Year of the Line School

One of the most significant accomplishments of the post-war Navy has been the establishment and operation of the U. S. Naval School (General Line) at Newport, Rhode Island. This school is tangible evidence of the Navy’s interest in the training of former Reserve and Temporary Officers who have chosen to make the Navy their career. With the graduation of the first class last May it is now possible to chronicle the events of the inaugural year and hazard predictions as to the future of the school.

As early as the spring of 1944 the Navy Department began to express concern over the assimilation of many Reserve and Temporary Officers into the future peacetime service. Vice Admiral William S. Pye, U. S. Navy, then President of the Naval War College, was appointed head of a board to investigate the feasibility of a General Line Course and to make recommendations for the conduct of the proposed course. The report of the Pye Board, completed in July, 1944, outlined the general objective of the General Line Course as being “to prepare the officer for efficient performance of duty as a head of department on board ship or of an administrative unit on shore, and as a commanding officer of a small ship or aviation unit.”

The Pye Board report envisaged the course as mandatory for all officers of the command branch. It further enumerated many specific objectives designed to support the general purpose. Since most of these objectives are actually now obtaining, it is of interest to record them below:

Specific Objectives

(1) To continue the development of the powers of analysis and reasoning

(2) To ensure mutual understanding in relation to the capabilities and limitations of all naval weapons, types of ship and aircraft

(3) To indoctrinate in the most effective uses and operation of types of ships and aircraft, singly and in coordination

(4) To familiarize with the naval system of ship, aviation, and shore establishment organization and duties of the heads of departments thereof

(5) To introduce the more important and basic tactical concepts and the underlying axioms

(6) To acquaint with the fundamental considerations which control economic, political, and social relations

(7) To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences in types of ships and aircraft, and to acquaint students with the latest developments in their own and other branches

(8) To familiarize with the principles and practices of naval communications with emphasis on the operational aspects thereof.

With the cessation of hostilities the problem of establishing a General Line School became of paramount concern. To expedite action a board composed of both naval officers and civilians met under the leadership of Rear Admiral J. L. Holloway, Jr., U. S. Navy. While this board was concerned with officer training throughout the Navy, it placed as first in importance the founding of a temporary Line School to care for the pressing need to broaden the professional knowledge of the large number of transferred Reserve and Temporary Officers and of Naval Academy graduates who during the war years had served in specialized assignments. The Board realized that insufficient time was available for the preparation of a permanent institution to meet the twofold requirements of implementing announced policy quickly and of preparing officers of narrow experience for the early assumption of broader responsibility aboard ship.

Concrete recommendations as to time and place were advanced by the Holloway Board. The school should commence by January 1, 1946, preferably at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where existing naval facilities could be utilized. Actually the school did not convene until the summer of 1946, while the location was shifted from Quonset Point to the Naval Training Station at Newport. Before making Newport the choice, however, an exhaustive study of all naval installations was undertaken. Newport was selected on the basis of vital considerations such as adaptability of existing facilities, economy in building costs, and adequacy of housing in the city.

With regard to curriculum the Board recommended shaping the course to aim at the exercise of thought rather than at the mere acquisition of information. It was noted that the study load should be limited so that there would be time for the reflection necessary to development of perspective. Instructors should be drawn from as wide backgrounds as possible. Ultimately all Line officers would have attended the school before completing seven years of commissioned service.

The school would be a means of providing equal opportunity and a common unifying professional experience for Naval Academy and non-Naval Academy Officers.

In the spring of 1946 the nucleus of the school staff assembled at Newport for the arduous task of preparing the curriculum. Fortunately the parent institution, the U. S. Navy Postgraduate School at Annapolis, furnished valuable assistance in this respect. The postgraduate lesson schedules and outlines were studied carefully as guides to subject matter and method. Consultations were held with members of the Annapolis organization. In addition to the postgraduate school aid, the staff was given the benefit of the experience of many wartime training units. Requests for texts and training aids went to such varied activities as damage control schools, radar schools, communications schools, Naval War College, fleet training bases, and forces afloat. The staff soon discovered that the crying problem was not in finding enough to teach but rather in deciding just what to teach of the huge mass of material available. The diversified backgrounds of the prospective students made it imperative that no important facet of an officer’s knowledge be neglected.

As finally constituted, the curriculum consisted of some eighteen subjects which would require over eleven hundred hours a year of classroom work—no small order when it is considered that the average college student normally carries a yearly classroom work load of only some seven hundred hours.

The scope of the school’s instruction can only be comprehended by a description of subject curricula. In the Operational Command Department, as an example, the subject of Strategy and Tactics covers relative movement, formation maneuvers, type tactics, battle doctrines, joint operations, and the like. An elaborate “Maneuvering Tactics Trainer” enables students to simulate cruising and battle conditions without risk of torpedoes or collisions. In the same department Communications presents everything that a shipboard “Comm” Officer should know, while a “CIC-ASW” course initiates the student into the intricacies of the Combat Information Center.

Ordnance and Gunnery, another department, presents an overall picture of the surface, air, and underwater aspects of its subject in sufficient detail to enable the student to understand the theoretical and practical principles of control, operation, and maintenance of gunnery equipment; to become familiar with shipboard gunnery organization; to appreciate limitations and capabilities of armament; and to know the nature of future trends in naval gunnery, including guided missiles.

The Engineering Department demands much of the student’s time. A brief but comprehensive college mathematics course is presented in such a fashion that the student has the proper mathematics prerequisites for all other courses at the school. This is followed by an extensive electrical engineering study designed to furnish a basic working knowledge of electricity, magnetism, and electronics. Concurrently, the Engineering Department presents Naval Engineering and Damage Control; the former to familiarize students with the various types of naval machinery installations, the latter to indoctrinate them in the principles and methods of damage control. Endowed with a large modern laboratory, the engineers render instruction most effective by means of demonstrations and practical works.

The Seaman ship Department covers all elements of marine navigation from piloting to Loran. In addition, each Saturday morning finds a group of students holding “Bumper Drill” with several PC’s in Narragansett Bay. Meteorology gives a fundamental understanding of the weather science.

The administration Department is rather narrowly named since its field embraces such loosely related subjects as Aviation, Logistics, Military Law, Submarines, Naval History, Naval Intelligence, Administration and Leadership, and Foundations of National Power. Aviation presents aviation history, organization, theory, battle operations, and new trends all calculated to prepare the student for making sound decisions involving the coordination of air and surface power. The recent war demonstrated conclusively the vital role of logistics, a fact which has led to tremendous emphasis on the subject in the Line School, with teaching developed to present concepts, organizations, components, and combat operations. The study of military law is approached to equip the student with knowledge necessary for the efficient administration of naval justice. The submarine course is an introduction to the sub, its operation and functions, the series of lectures being prepared for officers unfamiliar with the undersea craft. Naval History and Foundations of National Power, although different subjects, are closely allied, the former treating with the influence of sea- power upon history and the latter reviewing factors which have shaped the course of international relations through the centuries and in our present world. The Naval Intelligence course comprises a brief study of the Naval Intelligence Service, its organization and functions. Finally, there is that most catholic of subjects, Administration and Leadership, designed to embody, to cite only a few such aspects, psychology, uniforms, public information, traditions, diplomacy, and financial fitness.

To enable naval aviators to keep their hand in, Quonset Point Naval Air Station provides some thirty-two planes of the JRB, SNB, and SNJ types. Flights are scheduled seven days a week. Non-aviator students are encouraged to take passenger flights to increase their knowledge of this branch of the service.

It can be readily discerned from the above that the General Line School, its staff, and its students are shipping a heavy cargo. Nobody, instructor or student, would affirm that all of last year was smooth sailing. A lot of it was close-hauled, and sometimes tacking was necessary.

What about the personalities who saw the school through its first year?

First, the staff. Approximately sixty officers are assigned to teaching and administrative posts within the school. At the top is Captain Frederick Moosbrugger, U. S. Navy, a wartime destroyer commodore well known both within and without the service for his many successful exploits against the Japanese. Captain Moosbrugger brings to the school a wealth of experience in surface ship operation. As Executive Officer is Captain C. W. McClusky,¹ U. S. Navy, veteran wartime carrier aviator possessing a wide understanding of the Navy in general and aviation in particular. Under the guidance of these two leaders the remaining staff officers, many of them specialists, have labored to carry out the school’s mission. Practically every field of the Navy is represented on the staff; long time destroyer skippers, battle wise aviators, gunners who have heard shots fired in anger, submariners who have scourged the Empire waters, engineers, damage control experts, communicators. The one valuable asset all have in common is that, where naval warfare is concerned, they can say “I was there.” In addition to the officer instructors, several competent civilian mathematics and engineering instructors are present.

The students at the start of the year were nearly five hundred and fifty in number. Of these there were over three hundred commanders, nearly two hundred lieutenant commanders, about thirty lieutenants, ten lieutenants (junior grade), five Army lieutenant colonels and four Army majors. By year’s end there were even two Captains, U. S. Navy, students. Further analysis revealed that there were some three hundred and fifty aviators, sixty-five submariners, and one hundred and twenty-six General Line officers. Their wartime assignments were as varied as their ranks and their service branches. Some came from Japanese prison camps, some from carrier air groups, some from staffs, some from ships, some from the Pacific, some from the Atlantic. Many aviators had never been to sea in a ship. Many surface sailors had never flown in a Navy plane. Their personal backgrounds were widely separated. Many were college graduates with high degrees. Others had never gone beyond high school.

Such diversity brought with it major problems. Each instructor was on his mettle, for in every section there was bound to be at least one expert in the subject under discussion. Yet how was the course to be taught? Should it be pointed at the individual to whom the subject was practically unknown or should it be directed at the median knowledge group of the section? It was only by patience and cooperation on the part of all hands that such obstacles were mastered.

For administrative and classroom purposes the students were divided into sections of about twenty-five officers each. These sections mustered together, attended classes together, and at weekend parties consoled or cheered together. Each day, Monday through Friday, classes convened at 0800 and ran through until 1600, with an hour off for lunch and perhaps one or two study periods out of the seven daily periods. On Saturdays extra instruction and practical works were held.

Personal and family relations came to the front for the first time in many of the students’ naval careers. During the war, the Navy and the Family were widely separated. At the Line School, officers and their wives saw a different side of the Navy. Social activities could be carried on leisurely. Friendships could be formed. Even if the baby did have an occasional cold or the price of butter went up another five cents, it was still good to be home.

Housing, as could be expected, was a worry. Newport, with only forty thousand population, stretched a bit at the seams in absorbing so many families. Fortunately, a Navy housing project, the Anchorage, was available to absorb some one hundred and fifty families. Meanwhile the Training Station built about eighty housing units from former barracks. Several agencies in the city of Newport came to the assistance of naval authorities. However, the prospect for adequate housing in the future is not too bright, what with the presence of many fleet units in the harbor and the expansion of both the Line School and the War College. Still in all, the situation is probably better than in many other parts of the country.

Much time and effort has been spent in the past year on the provision of proper welfare and recreational facilities. A dependents’ ward has been added to the naval hospital. A new commissary has just gone into operation. The new Commissioned Officers’ Mess (Open), scene of most social activities, is the pride of the Station. Athletics are encouraged with a beach club, swimming pool, bowling alleys, tennis courts, sail boats, skating rink, and gymnasium. The Line School Women’s Club illustrates well the versatility of the Navy wife. Dramatics, a choral group, athletic competitions, volunteer welfare work, and social meetings are a few of the activities involving the ladies.

What of the future of the General Line School?

Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal has indicated that the school must graduate over 14,000 officers in the next seven years. This will include Naval Academy graduates as well as others. For the coming year Newport will find itself with six hundred students amongst whom will be a score of Central and South American naval officers. The Newport establishment will be required until at least 1953. Meanwhile it is hoped that another school can be instituted in Monterey, California, as soon as possible.

Toward the end of the school year there was much formal and informal sampling of student reaction to the Line School. Just how much had they learned? Did they feel that the time was well spent? Answers varied, but the students almost unanimously affirmed the value of the school. A former destroyer skipper and college graduate indicated that for him the school was largely an excellent review of fairly familiar subjects. On the other hand, Captain Moosbrugger at a graduation address described a more typical reaction. An aviator student who had never been to sea last spring suddenly found himself ordered as navigator of a carrier. For familiarization he took a short cruise in the carrier and discovered that he recognized equipment and procedures solely on the basis of what he had learned at the school. He came ashore confident that he could handle his new duty.

If the school can instill such confidence, it is most certainly accomplishing its mission.