INTRODUCTION
The ever mounting cost of government is becoming a matter of great concern to all taxpayers. Not that there is anything new in the shaking of heads over the growth of such costs. Since the beginning of the Federal government an almost continuous study of this subject has been under way by committees of Congress, by special commissions appointed by various Presidents, and by private organizations. One of the declared objectives of the Hoover Commission appointed by President Truman in 1947 on the “Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government” is to find ways of “limiting expenditures to the lowest amount consistent with the efficient performance of essential services, activities, and functions” of the government. Inasmuch as the major items of the 40 odd billion dollar annual budget, such as the interest on the public debt, aid to veterans, foreign commitments, and certain other items, are not susceptible to appreciable contraction, it is not to be expected that the Commission will be able to find ways of making any considerable reduction in expenditures. Nevertheless any reduction that can be made is important because it is likely to lead to improving the operations involved.
A fundamental difficulty in reducing such expenditures is the lack in government of the profit motive as an incentive to efficiency and economy. In private enterprise management efficiency and management rewards from the top down are measured largely in terms of the ability to operate at low costs in order to make profits. In that field the determination of costs has therefore become of the greatest importance and accounting has become one of the most valued tools of management. The ultimate end of cost accounting in private business is to keep costs and selling prices in line. With this use of cost accounting the government is not normally concerned. The government should however be as much interested as private enterprise in the use of accounting as a tool of management for comparing operating efficiencies; for laying the foundation of sound budgetary planning; for exercising fiscal control at all levels of spending; and for measuring individual as well as group performance.
EARLY NAVY COST ACCOUNTING
The Navy was a pioneer among the departments of the Federal government in recognizing cost accounting (as distinguished from appropriation accounting) as an essential instrument for measuring performance. Constructive interest in the subject began in the Navy when a movement under the name of “Scientific Management” got under way in private industry shortly after the turn of the century.
This philosophy of management was spearheaded by Frederic W. Taylor. The movement received much publicity and added impetus when Louis Brandeis, later a justice of the United States Supreme Court, expressed the opinion before a Congressional comittee that scientific management could save the railroads of the United States a million dollars a day in operating costs. The efficiency experts, as Taylor’s disciples were called, stressed the point that a large percentage of the failures in industry are due to insufficient knowledge of the costs of production. Cost determination was therefore placed very high on the list of the indispensables to good management. The principles of scientific management were taken up with great enthusiasm by certain elements in the Navy, particularly by the Construction Corps and by those members of the Supply Corps who were experts in accounting. Their interest lay largely in the money spent at navy yards and other industrial shore activities. Such expenditures represented then, as they do now, about one-half of the annual expenditures for the Navy. These men took the position that even though the government is not in business for profit, those responsible for the management of navy yards should know the cost of the work done at the yards in order to do it better and more economically.
When it was decided in 1909 to apply the principles of scientific management to the operation of navy yards, the setting up of a cost keeping system along modern industrial lines was included as an item of major importance. A firm of accountants was employed to lay out the system. These experts went about the job in the same way that they would have done for a large private industrial concern, only to find that naval appropriation acts, with their many subdivisions and the requirements of the government for strict appropriation accounting, made this impossible. It was found that appropriation accounting and cost determination had to be made independent processes, and that they could not be made identical without impairing the legality of the one or the correctness and administrative value of the other. A cost accounting system had therefore to be devised which is in a measure a makeshift, and which does not lend itself readily to the broader uses of accounting as a tool of management. Incidentally it may be mentioned that a clause was introduced in the Naval Appropriation Act for 1913, which has been repeated every year since then, making it illegal to pay the salaries of officers and civilian employees while engaged in making time or motion studies. This has handicapped the Navy Department greatly in applying some of the most worthwhile principles of scientific management to the operation of navy yards—such as the setting of standards and goals of performance. That, however, is another story and is not fundamentally involved in the structure of Naval Appropriation Acts.
The crux of cost determination, whether concerned with the production of physical things or of services, is the indirect expense involved in the processes of production. The costs of direct labor and of direct material are usually not difficult to determine, but these elements may be only a fraction of the total cost. The problem lies in ascertaining accurately and in distributing equitably the indirect, or so-called overhead expense. This difficulty increases with the size and complexity of the producing organization. It is great enough in private industry, but it is multiplied many times in Naval activities by the form in which Naval Appropriations are made. It will be helpful to an understanding of this difficulty to describe the appropriation system.
NAVAL APPROPRIATION SYSTEM
In connection with making plans for carrying on their activities for succeeding fiscal years, the bureaus and offices of the Navy Department make estimates of the expenditures in money that will be involved. These plans and estimates are based on many considerations and on data obtained from many sources, including recommendations from the shore establishments and from the forces afloat. Each bureau has a fiscal division having as one of its functions the preparation of these estimates segregated under headings called “appropriations,” the names of which more or less closely indicate the objects of the proposed expenditures. Explanations going into very great detail to justify each item of the proposed expenditures are prepared by the bureaus. Thousands of items go to make up the final estimates.
From the bureaus and other subdivisions of the Navy Department the estimates go to the Director of Budget and Reports of the Navy Department, where they are further reviewed and coordinated. The authority and responsibilities of that office and of the Fiscal Director of the Navy Department have been greatly enlarged in the last few years. It is the function of the Director of Budget and Reports to formulate, supervise, and coordinate all policies and procedures affecting the budgetary activities of the Navy. This includes prescribing the form and method of preparing appropriation estimates, reviewing program planning to insure adequacy for budget formulation, and the actual preparation and presentation of the Navy’s budget. Representatives of the office make field inspections, hold hearings within the Naval service, and review and evaluate the estimated financial requirements in terms of the missions to be performed by the respective components of the Naval establishment. The Fiscal Director formulates and coordinates the procedures affecting the financial activities of the Navy, and prescribes the type and content of all accounting and financial records. Broadly speaking, the Fiscal Director keeps track of Navy money after it is appropriated.
Until 1921 the appropriation estimates, prepared in principle but not so elaborately as described above, went from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Treasury for transmission to Congress. Since the establishment of the Bureau of the Budget in 1921, all appropriation estimates are submitted to that bureau for review before going to Congress. One of the purposes in establishing that office was to provide a disinterested agency for reviewing and revising the appropriation estimates of the executive departments. This has in fact become one of its principal activities, rather than just the preparation of an annual budget according to the usual definition of that term. Justification of estimates before the Bureau of the Budget has become a routine year round activity of the fiscal divisions of the bureaus and of the office of the Director of Budget and Reports.
The estimates for the Navy, together with those of all other federal activities, are assembled in an annual report by the Bureau of the Budget for transmission to Congress by the President. Various comittees of Congress then call on representatives of these activities to appear before them to explain the purposes for which the money is to be used and to justify the amounts requested. In the case of the Navy estimates, the most searching hearings are those held by the sub-committee on appropriations for the Navy Department of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives. The reason is that the Naval Appropriation Act, as presented to the House of Representatives, originates in that subcommittee. The scope of these hearings may be judged from the fact that in connection with the Naval Appropriation Act for 1948, some 200 naval officers and civilians from the Secretary of the Navy on down appeared before that subcommittee alone, and that these hearings take up a volume of 1819 printed pages totalling almost a million words.
Congress is not bound to follow the appropriation estimates recommended by the Budget Bureau, and it has not yielded its prerogative of having the final word on how much money is to be appropriated. Increases in the estimates originally submitted are not infrequent. The Naval appropriation act as finally passed by Congress is based not only on a great number of technical and administrative considerations on which millions of words of explanation and justification have been lavished, but also on the political considerations of the moment revolving around broad questions of national policy.
OBLIGATING AUTHORITY
It is often asked, “Just what is an appropriation?” An appropriation by Congress is a law, having the full force and effect of any other law. It defines the purposes for which the money appropriated can be used. Further, it stipulates the amount of money which can be obligated for these purposes. The term “obligated” means the right to commit the Secretary of the Treasury to the payment of money out of the treasury for the purposes authorized by the appropriation act. The Navy Department actually has five kinds of obligating authority stemming from appropriation acts:
(1) Obligating authority contained under the so-called annual appropriation titles. The principal appropriation titles in this category are “Aviation, Navy”; “Maintenance, Bureau of Ships”; “Ordnance and Ordnance Stores”; and so forth for the various bureaus, Marine Corps, and certain other sub-divisions of the Navy Department. Obligations may be entered into under this authority after the bill is signed until June 30 of the fiscal year covered by the act. The Navy has 24 months from the end of the fiscal year to clear bills and to make payments for the obligations incurred.
(2) Contract authority is sometimes provided to supplement an annual appropriation. So far as obligating the Treasury is concerned, contract authority is identical with the annual appropriation under the same title. If an appropriation and additional contract authority are included in the act under the same appropriation title, the sum of the two figures is the amount that the Navy Department may obligate during the fiscal year in question. The distinction is that contract authority permits the obligation of funds, the cash to pay which will be appropriated subsequently.
(3) Obligating authority under an appropriation title is sometimes granted by transferring a balance from some other appropriation title or fund. The transfer is usually made from an item or a fund that is in excess of requirements, to a title that is short of estimated requirements.
(4) Continuing appropriations are those identified in the Appropriation Act by the words “to remain available until expended,” and are employed under such titles as “Construction of Ships, Navy,” “Ordnance for New Construction,” and “Public Works.” There is no time limit on clearing bills and making payments under these titles as there is in the case of the annual appropriations. Such appropriations also usually provide the authority to make obligations for the entire cost of programs, although the expenditures to complete those programs will continue over several years.
(5) The Navy has four principal revolving funds which carry obligating authority: the naval stock fund and the clothing and small stores fund that have been set up with money specifically so earmarked in appropriation acts; the working fund fed by deposits from other government departments and private parties which was created in order to simplify doing work for such customers and for obtaining reimbursement for the expenditures made; and the procurement fund fed by deposits from the annual appropriations. The obligating authority which the Navy has under the four funds is the total value of the funds, but as of any given moment it is the unobligated balance of the funds.
THE BUREAU SYSTEM
The structure of Naval Appropriation Acts goes back in principle to the re-organization of the Navy Department on the Bureau system in 1842, but changes in the degree of detail covered by the acts have been almost continuous since that time. The principle underlying the bureau system is the segregation and distribution of the Navy Department’s technical and administrative work along functional lines. Under the law establishing this organization, the Secretary of the Navy was authorized to distribute the work of the Navy Department to the bureaus. To a certain extent he had a free hand in allocating to the bureaus the funds appropriated annually by Congress for the Navy. The system did not remain static very long. In the hundred odd years since its adoption, the growing complexities of the Navy, resulting from the scientific and technological advances of the machine age, have continually brought into being new purposes for which money has had to be provided. Additional bureaus have been set up to handle some of these developments; the scope of the activities of all of the bureaus has been vastly enlarged; the functions of the bureaus have been reshuffled many times; and there have been split-ups, mergers, and even one case of the complete abolition of a bureau, with transfer of its functions to the remaining bureaus. In fact the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery is the only bureau that has remained the same in name and in function since it was established in 1842.
With the inauguration of this system, the Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks was charged with the construction and maintenance of the docks, wharves, and buildings at the navy yards, and was given general control of the administration of the yards. The commandants of the navy yards reported to the chief of that bureau. Since then the Navy has gone through a complete cycle in the matter of bureau control and responsibility for the management of its shore establishments, particularly of navy yards. The control of the Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks (later called the Bureau of Yards and Docks) over the navy yards gradually declined, and the influence of the other bureaus in the affairs of the yards gradually increased until all reached about the same level of authority in this respect.
By the end of the century the point was finally reached where each of the five technical bureaus operated a complete set of shops and had a power plant of its own at each of the principal navy yards. This duplication of facilities and of administrative effort became the subject of much discussion and criticism in Congress and in the Navy itself—especially by the advocates of scientific management already mentioned—with the result that consolidation of the shops and of management were brought about beginning with what was called the Newberry reorganization in 1909. During the period that followed the bureaus were in theory completely divorced from any authority or responsibility for the management of the navy yards. A division was set up in the Secretary’s office to handle such matters. The bureaus retained technical responsibility for the work of the shore establishments, decided what work was to be done, and provided the money by allotments from their appropriations for doing the work. They also had the principal responsibility for staffing such establishments with competent specialist officer personnel. Actually the bureaus continued to exercise considerable management control over the navy yards through such personnel. This policy stood the test of World War I and of the following peace period, but it had obvious shortcomings. Toward the end of World War II the bureaus were again assigned management sponsorship and responsibility for the various shore establishments, but the responsibility was placed on a single bureau for each activity. The Bureau of Ships, for example, has management sponsorship for naval ship yards, the Bureau of Ordnance has management sponsorship for the Naval Gun Factory and for ammunition depots, the Bureau of Personnel has management sponsorship for naval training stations etc.
Whatever other effect on the administration of the Navy the fluctuation of bureau influence in the affairs of the navy yards may have had, it resulted definitely in proliferation of the naval appropriation structure. In their desire to define their functions more positively and to tighten their grip on matters in which they were interested the bureaus often requested Congress to make specific appropriations to cover such matters. Congress was usually not loath to make appropriations under specific titles because the practice appeared to strengthen the hold of the committees on the purse strings. Therefore the pattern of appropriation acts became a main or leading appropriation covering each bureau’s activities, with numerous additional titles more specific in their nature. In most cases the objects of expenditure mentioned in the specific appropriations were covered also in general terms by the main appropriation, so that often payment could be made from the bureau’s main appropriation as well as from the specific appropriations. In addition there were titles covering in detail the maximum number of white collar workers (clerks, draftsmen, and other technical personnel) that could be employed in each of the; shore establishments, bureaus, and subdivisions of the Navy Department, and the maximum pay that each individual could receive.
The bureaus adopted the practice of controlling their appropriations by budgeting them at the beginning of the fiscal year, retaining a sizeable reserve for unforseeable contingencies. Allotments on a monthly or quarterly basis were made to the various spending activities, or to cover specific projects. Periodic returns of actual expenditures from these activities provided information as to balances available. If, as the fiscal year advanced, a bureau found itself with a growing margin of funds over probable needs, the allotments were increased or additional projects were undertaken that had been given lower priority at the beginning of the year. These are still the principal steps in keeping track of appropriations, but spending discretion and authority have been decentralized to a considerable extent. For example, decisions as to what repairs on ships to undertake at naval shipyards is now left to the forces afloat within the limits of allotted funds, thus providing an incentive for more self-maintenance and for greater discrimination in the work requested of the naval shipyard. A ceiling has been set on the total numbers of personnel that may be employed at the respective industrial shore establishments, even though funds may be available to employ temporarily a larger force. The number of white collar workers, supervisors, and other non-producers is regulated by specific allotment of funds for that purpose only. However, no matter how carefully a bureau manages its funds under the present appropriation structure, there is no assurance that all work can be undertaken in the order of its importance as seen by the bureaus. For example, the Bureau of Ordnance and the Bureau of Ships may have set aside the money for certain very important underwater explosion experiments involving the use of tugs and the presence of bureau technical personnel. However, when the time comes for making the experiments, it may not be possible to undertake the work because there is no money available for manning the tugs and to cover the travelling expenses of the technical personnel, as the funds for these purposes come under the cognizance of another bureau.
PROPOSED REVISION
The number of appropriation titles increased gradually over the years until there were upward of 200 separate items in the annual naval appropriation acts just after World War I. The great expansion in Navy spending with the outbreak of World War II, and a shortage of accounting personnel, soon caused appropriation accounting to fall so far behind that it was of little value in furnishing up-to-date information as to the status of the appropriations. In order to provide relief from this situation most of the specific appropriations were eliminated, and lump sum limits were inserted in the main appropriations of the bureaus to cover the pay of white collar workers. These steps, and the introduction of more mechanical bookkeeping appliances, have put appropriation accounting back on its feet, but cost accounting for purposes of management and fiscal control stands about where it was before. A simplified appropriation structure to correct this trouble has been recommended many times in the past by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts and by others. The subject is again before Congress on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy. The handicap to satisfactory cost accounting imposed by the present acts lies in the fact that much of the indirect expense involved in doing any item of work at naval shore establishments must be charged to a considerable number of appropriations. Once so made, the charges cannot conveniently be recaptured for inclusion by simple accounting procedures in the cost of the work. This in turn impairs the usefulness of accounting as a tool of management.
The accounting difficulty, however, is only one of the aspects of the unsatisfactory management position in which the Navy Department is placed by reason of the numerous appropriations to which every primary Navy function is charged. The situation may be summarized as follows. The present appropriation structure involves all of the bureaus in the fiscal affairs of numerous activities over which they have very little fiscal control, inasmuch as practically every expenditure that originates with any one of the leading appropriations makes some call, direct or indirect, on the other appropriations. This is true even when the major part of the cost is absorbed by the appropriation having primary cognizance over the work. The contributing appropriations thus cut across functional and organizational lines, and there is always overlapping of the appropriations at the functional boundaries. This results in diffused fiscal responsibility, in awkward and complicated internal management, and in difficulty in making effective budget presentations. Fiscal responsibility is diffused because undertakings are financed from many sources and therefore have many fiscal masters. Fiscal control is consequently divorced from management responsibility. Management is complicated because the bureaus are involved in the fiscal affairs of numerous activities over which they do not have primary management control. Effective budget presentation is difficult because the money requirements for contemplated undertakings are presented piecemeal, and because the estimates under the contributing appropriations are justified by bureaus which do not have definite management responsibility for the expenditures. These handicaps make it difficult to present clear and concise estimates to the Bureau of the Budget and to Congress.
The Fiscal Director of the Navy Department recently prepared a number of diagrams to show how the present Naval appropriation system works. The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and a naval hospital rather than the more intricate example of a naval shipyard were chosen to illustrate the working of the system. Fig. 1 shows the flow of funds and the returning reports. Fig. 2 shows the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery involved in the fiscal affairs of all of the shore establishments, but with primary management control over hospitals only. Fig. 3 shows that all bureaus are involved in the fiscal affairs of all of the shore establishments. A diagram similar to Fig. 3, showing appropriation titles and objects of expenditures, could be prepared showing how all appropriations contribute something to each expenditure object. The crisscross of lines would make the difficulty of accurate cost determination even more striking.
Efficiency and economy would be promoted if the present appropriation structure were revised by organizing appropriations in terms of primary functions, by eliminating contributing appropriations (except for naval personnel, inasmuch as separate financing of such personnel is not illogical), and by describing purposes under the appropriation titles in such language as to avoid overlapping. Accounting procedures could then be set up to more accurately satisfy both appropriation accounting and cost accounting. One of the steps to bring about this reform is the recasting of the appropriation titles. As a beginning in this direction, the Navy Department has proposed the following for the 1950 Appropriation Act:
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
Miscellaneous Expenses
Claims, Navy
Contingencies of the Navy
Operation and Conservation of Naval Petroleum Reserves
Salaries, Office of the Secretary of the Navy
Salaries, Office of Judge Advocate General
Contingent Expenses
Printing and Binding
BUREAU OF SHIPS
Maintenance, Bureau of Ships
Construction of Ships
Increase & Replacement of Naval Vessels—
Construction & Machinery
Salaries, Bureau of Ships
OFFICE OF CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
Island Governments
Naval Observatory
Hydrographic Office
Salaries, Office of Naval Records and Library
Salaries, Office of Chief of Naval Operations
Salaries, Board of Inspection and Survey
Salaries, Office of Chief of Naval Communications
General Expenses
BUREAU OF ORDNANCE
Ordnance & Ordnance Stores, Navy
Ordnance for New Construction
Increase & Replacement of Naval Vessels—
Armor, Armament & Ammunition
Salaries, Bureau of Ordnance
OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
Research, Navy
Salaries, Office of Naval Research
BUREAU OF SUPPLIES AND ACCOUNTS
Subsistence, Navy
Maintenance, Bureau of Supplies and Accounts
Transportation of Things
Fuel, Navy
Salaries, Bureau of Supplies and Accounts
BUREAU OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY
Medical Department
Salaries, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
BUREAU OF AERONAUTICS
Aviation, Navy
Construction of Aircraft & Related Procurement, Navy
Salaries, Bureau of Aeronautics
BUREAU OF NAVAL PERSONNEL
Training and Education, Navy
Welfare of Naval Personnel
Officer Candidate Training
General Expenses, Bureau of Naval Personnel
Naval Reserve
Naval Academy
Naval Home, Philadelphia, Pa.
Pay and Allowances of Naval Personnel
Retired Pay, Navy
Transportation and Recruiting of Naval Personnel
Salaries, Bureau of Naval Personnel
BUREAU OF YARDS AND DOCKS
Maintenance, Bureau of Yards and Docks
Public Works, Bureau of Yards and Docks
Salaries, Bureau of Yards and Docks
MARINE CORPS
Pay, Marine Corps
Retired Pay, Marine Corps
Pay of Civil Force, Marine Corps
General Expenses, Marine Corps
As a necessary part of the proposed revision in appropriation structure, some redistribution of bureau cognizance will be involved. Funds to cover service and maintenance functions would be transferred to the bureau having management responsibility for the activity. This would result in fiscal responsibility going hand in hand with management responsibility. Each activity would thus have a single fiscal master to be held accountable for results by the Secretary of the Navy and by Congress. Fig. 1 would then become Fig. 4, and Fig. 3 would become Fig. 5. Management of the respective establishments would be simplified both for the bureaus and locally.
A simple illustration will clarify the proposed revision. The naval training station at Great Lakes, Illinois, is under the management sponsorship of the Bureau of Personnel. Under the present appropriation system, the small boats used at the station for training and transportation purposes are supplied and repaired under appropriation “Maintenance, Bureau of Ships.” Under the new arrangement the Bureau of Ships would still have the responsibility for the design and procurement of such craft (either by manufacture at naval shipyards or by purchase), but the Bureau of Personnel would pay for the boats and their unkeep from its appropriation “Training and Education,” and the charges would appear as items of the station’s operating costs for comparison with similar costs at other training stations. Estimates and justifications for the proposed expenditures would appear in the budget of the Bureau of Personnel.
The control by Congress over the size of appropriations and over the purposes for which they may be spent would not be weakened by reducing the number of titles in Naval Appropriation Acts. In fact, control would be strengthened through simplification and crystallization of budget presentations. Each bureau would have to prepare and defend the complete estimates for the activities under its cognizance, and it could therefore be held solely responsible for the money it receives and spends. In the realm of accounting, Congress is primarily interested in appropriation accounting and in auditing. These would remain as important and indispensable as ever; but the sights would be raised, and the terms of accountability would extend to accounting for operating results and to the measurement of performance against goals or standards initially set through budgetary planning and cost estimates.
In some quarters objections have been made to the proposed changes on the grounds that placing management sponsorship and fiscal control in the hands of a single bureau for each activity will sacrifice some of the advantages of the Bureau system. For example, the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Corps of Civil Engineers are specialists in the maintenance of shore facilities and in the operation of power plants. It is asked, “will the organization of a naval shipyard function satisfactorily if the division handling such work is manned by officer personnel owing primary allegiance to the Bureau of Ships while on such duty, but whose careers in the matter of promotion and assignment to future duty are largely in the hands of the Bureau of Yards and Docks?” The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts and the Supply Corps are specialists in storekeeping, accounting, and transportation, among other things. Will such duties be performed as satisfactorily at naval shipyards by officers working under similar conditions of divided self interest and allegiance? It is hardly to be supposed that the Bureau of Ships would provide a group of specialists, separate from the Civil Engineer and Supply Corps, for managing the public works and supply division at naval ship yards. Basically such a policy would be unsound, because it would deprive the officers of these two corps of much of the training and experience they need to discharge the broader functions of their bureaus. Complete responsibility and cognizance of the Bureau of Yards and Docks over new public works, and of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts over its duties other than certain service functions, would of course remain unchanged.
Fifty years ago the shibboleth of corps loyalty would have carried more weight than it does today. During these years the strong feeling of corps solidarity has abated considerably. The recognition of the soundness of the organizational device of having administrative lines of responsibility differ from functional lines in the operation of land, sea, and air forces in order particularly to achieve unity of command has had much to do with this change in feeling. Once this principle is also more completely accepted in the operation of the Navy’s shore establishments, it will be recognized that the appropriation of funds should parallel the administrative rather than the functional lines of responsibility. The result will be that outstanding officer specialists from any branch of the Navy will have the opportunity of participating to a larger extent, and of reaching positions of greater responsibility, in the management of naval shore activities under the proposed appropriation structure than under the present structure.
A graduate of the Naval Academy in 1901, Rear Admiral Furer was in the Construction Corps until it was amalgamated with the Line. A pioneer in establishing scientific management in our navy yards, he has had many other interesting assignments, such as raising the submarine F-4 from a depth of 304 feet off Honolulu in 1915. From November, 1941, until his retirement he was Coordinator of Research and Development for the Navy Department.
+
PREVIOUS TRAINING
Contributed, by MAJOR RALPH Z. KIRKPATRICK, A. U. S.
In a recent magazine article Admiral Halsey related how swiftly he and his staff proned themselves, one day in the Pacific, when two Japanese bombers dropped from the overcast and started to work. “I was the fustest and the flattest, with the others’ footprints on my back!” recalled Admiral Halsey. But it was not his first experience in such a human pile-up, as I can bear personal witness.
It was during a Midshipmen’s Practice Cruise down to Panama, before the Canal was yet finished. With no water yet, but with the structures nearly completed, it was an ideal time to study the waterway. An energetic lieutenant commander, Executive Officer of one of the practice ships, took his midshipmen everywhere, with local engineers as “tourist guides.”
On the hour and half ride to Gatun in the crowded Midshipmen’s Special train, the Exec and the local engineers sat in chairs in the baggage car. The Exec was a veritable question box: “Wasn’t that vanadium steel back there in those Pedro Miguel lock-gate yokes? What percentage? What’s the expected maximum daily lockage? What ? How---------?” A continual stream of questions.
All of a sudden there was a jolt, a jar, and we were all in a confused heap on the floor of the car. But not for long. Before the rest of us had untangled ourselves, the Exec was outside on the ground, shooing the curious midshipmen back into the train.
What had happened was that our engineer, rounding a sharp curve, had sighted a signalman’s speeder on the rails directly ahead. He had given her the air, but not in time to save the speeder, though the signalman was unhurt. We got him out of the weeds scared but unhurt, and headed on our way again.
“Glad it was only the speeder that got smashed,” said the unexcited Lieutenant Commander Halsey, the Exec. “Say, what did you say the capacity of Gatun Lake is?”
That was Halsey, all over. Am I sure that it was Halsey? Sure I am! Wasn’t I right alongside him at the bottom of that pile-up?
(The Proceedings will pay $5.00 for each anecdote submitted to, and printed in, the Proceedings.)