How many really competent petty officers do you have in your ship? I don’t mean competent technicians; I mean leaders who can take charge and get results without supervision. Your answer will probably be that there are disappointingly few. From all sides come complaints about the scarcity of “old time” petty officers—that breed of men who ran things and ran them well as petty officers in our pre-war Navy.
I know personally of a recent instance when isolated fights in a liberty party boat were permitted to develop into a near riot involving a whole platoon of Marines and a boatload of free-swinging sailors who were trying to protect their mates from trouble. Where were the petty officers? Two chief petty officers slipped away without trying to stop the affray. One first class petty officer (there were five present) struggled manfully to bring order and finally did—but not before the ship whose liberty party was concerned was in complete disgrace. And not in time to prevent severe repercussions for many of the participants.
Let it never be said that we do not have the material to develop fine leaders. Those same petty officers who failed to stop the fight were good technicians. They are intelligent and able men. But the Navy had failed to develop their qualities of leadership and their sense of responsibility to the degree required of their rates. When the pressure was on they proved complete failures. And I am convinced that their performance in battle could not be nearly so effective as it would be if such peacetime problems did not make them put their tails between their legs.
It is easy to find the causes for our pitiful lack of finished petty officers. Our great expansion during wartime caused promotions to become extremely rapid and finally matter of course. A seaman who wasn’t rated in a few months felt that he was getting a raw deal. Examinations for rates were sometimes given but were more often bypassed completely. When they were given, examinations tended to be perfunctory. Little heed was paid to such details as Quarterly Marks. If he was a Chief, he got 4.0; if first class, a little less; and so on. The number of officers on shipboard multiplied, and they assumed more and more of the functions of the “old-time” chief petty officer who had long since become a temporary officer. The officers themselves were often inexperienced in anything but their battle station duties and unable to give adequate training to their petty officers. It all worked remarkably well, however, and that it did is a great tribute to those who made it work despite inexperience. And then came that terrible agony of demobilization. Our newly trained enlisted and officer personnel were released into civil life leaving us a gasping skeleton of a mighty Navy. Those officers who remained found themselves with several jobs at once and began to throw more and more responsibility towards their young, war-made petty officers only to find that all too frequently they couldn’t handle it.
Our general mess was excellent until December, 1945. In that month we started all over with new men. To our gastric horror we found that our new “cooks” could not cook. That would have been bad enough, but we found that the senior cooks could not even run the galley. It takes leadership and ability to boss the helpless messcooks, the temperamental cooks, and to do the planning required to follow a strict menu. So the Commissary Officer became our Chief Commissary Steward in addition to his other jobs. He worked day and night to improve the situation (while we starved) and did so to his everlasting credit. When he finished we had the best food in the Area but were still developing the petty officers. Our boys could do the job, but they had to be shown how, encouraged, and helped. Their rates had been merely sewn on.
It is going to get worse before it gets better. By July 1948 we will have gone through another major turnover as a vast number of enlistments expire. We will lose many more of our coveted, really competent petty officers. To replace them will come raw recruits, willing and intelligent certainly, but needing years of training to make their weight felt.
The Germans were faced with this problem in the creation of their second modern navy as they had been in the creation of their first. Their admirals have emphasized that while ships can be constructed in a very few years or months, the efficiency and effectiveness of a fleet depends largely on the training and ability of the petty officers and officers who fight it. And they gave as one of the reasons for their unpreparedness in 1939 the fact that they had only had five years to build up their trained force of officers and petty officers when they had needed twenty.
It is worse than useless to sit in the wardroom over a cup of coffee and complain about the lack of good petty officers. It is true that demobilization is still with us, that the “G. I. Bill of Rights” is still siphoning off many of the best petty officers and petty officer candidates. It is true that there is a tremendous task ahead and that it will require the greatest exertions of all hands to cope with it. Yet it is a golden opportunity to produce a new and better type of petty officer whose ability and aptitude is of a higher order than that of his prewar predecessors. We can cast a new and more perfect mold for our new junior leaders.
The burden of making good petty officers rests ultimately upon their division officers. Of course all officers have a degree of influence in the making of good petty officers; even those few who normally have no direct dealings with enlisted men can have a decided effect upon them by their bearing, dress, and conduct ashore. The commanding officer has an influence second only to that of the division officer in that he enforces discipline and lays down the policies to be followed on board. But the division officer is in direct contact with his men every day. His position as the final link in the officer chain of command places on him the conclusive responsibility of leadership, example, and training. Upon the division officers of the Navy must rest the blame if our petty officers remain ineffectual and ill-trained. Therefore the division officer’s problem bears looking into carefully.
There are several definite, concrete things that each division officer can do to improve the quality of his petty officers. The first and foremost thing I will skip over lightly as being obvious and not requiring elaboration—this is the officer’s own performance of duty, his bearing and dress, and his character. Naturally no one could expect a slovenly, inept officer to build up petty officers. An officer who is not respected is useless. Hence the division officer must rigidly apply to himself and his every act the highest standards and be sure he himself measures up to the example he would like his men to follow. Many excellent books have been written on military character and leadership, and there is no one of us who cannot profit by their study. Yet many of the things that one learns in this study and by experience are grossly neglected unless a periodic rededication to fundamentals is practiced.
To begin with, the division officer should take a long, careful look at his men and find out what kind of people they are. The better he knows his men the better he will be able to influence and lead them. It has always been a source of wonderment to me that a course in applied psychology is not included in the primary education of every naval officer no matter how brief his training. Surely the division officer in making his decision as to whether to use the carrot or the prod, those two basic motive forces for inducing a donkey (or a human being) to work, or in what combination they should be used, must use all of the principles of psychology which he can learn through experience or study. The better his insight into human nature the better will be his prescriptions. It should be clearly understood, however, that a different prescription must usually be used for different men. Different levels of intelligence, education, background, and interest in the work at hand as well as all of the many variables of human character dictate a separate and well considered approach to each man’s problems.
For many men a quiet talk with an officer they respect, during which their shortcomings are discussed and the proper performance clearly presented, will work wonders. Many of our petty officers do not understand what is expected of them—no one has bothered to tell them. They know perhaps that they are reprimanded for little things frequently, that they have no real authority over their men, and that they are vaguely unsatisfied with themselves and the Navy as a result. But they are never told by their officers what they can do to help themselves out of their difficulty.
One friend of mine took over a new division and noted that each time the leading petty officer of his division mustered the men at quarters he had to nag and shout at the men to get them to fall in quietly and in a reasonable semblance of military formation and that talking sometimes continued until he took charge of the division himself. He said nothing for several days hoping for improvement. But things merely started getting a little worse each time. So he called the petty officer aside and in a friendly but direct way called his attention to the situation and asked him why it was. The man admitted that he was baffled and also quite nettled at the behavior of the division. “Well, Jones,” my friend said, “your methods so far have annoyed the men too. When you give a command at quarters you must insist on its instant and complete obedience in silence before you go any further. When you come to quarters have the men fall in silently and with their hats squared. Wait until it’s done properly. Then dress them up. When that is done and the men are silent and in a really military formation, then and only then take your muster. Any man who is unruly bring to me after quarters.” Needless to say the difference after a few days was remarkable. That petty officer grew in self-confidence and ability and found his hold on the men away from quarters much more secure. The opening battle to make that man into a really effective leader and petty officer had been won.
Some men have to be particularly encouraged and helped, and the division officer must provide this help even though it means extra work—the dividends are large. Others who know what should be done but who persist in evasion and a careless performance should be dealt with firmly. The toleration of an incompetent or sluggard by a division officer will quickly break down the morale of his men who must do double duty to make up for the one who won’t or can’t pull his own oar. Give him low marks; if necessary, have him broken. But never give up until you either have a good petty officer or a good seaman.
The use of the carrot has always been found particularly useful in civilian and military life. A man must have a desire to be a good petty officer to be a really good one. So we must set high standards and stick to them, but at the same time we must make it a respected and privileged office. We should seek out suitable rewards and “rates” to add to the modest pay raise which a man gets when he is promoted. We must back up our petty officers and stimulate the essential sense of responsibility that is so often lacking today.
As far as rates and privileges go, many readily suggest themselves. Special consideration should be given on liberty, special requests, assignment to working parties, cleaning stations, watches, locker and bunk assignments, and so on. Not that any idea that “the chief doesn’t get dirty” should spread, but rather that the rated man is somebody and is treated with extra consideration.
The “backing up” of petty officers must be done with strict fairness. No insolence or disrespect to a petty officer should escape its merited drastic punishment. Neither should any tendency towards bullying or unreasonable harshness be permitted. Yet the men should feel that an order from a petty officer must be obeyed as if it were an order from the division officer.
A sense of responsibility is easier to foster where there is a pride in one’s organization and a feeling of proprietorship over certain equipment and the assistants who help take care of it and man it. Both things should be carefully developed by the division officer. A healthy competition coupled with a specific assignment of duties and equipment to each petty officer will go far towards this end. Make a man responsible for something and hold him to strict account for it and he soon discovers a pride in how well he is doing in relation to others. If he doesn’t, something is lacking in him and it calls for careful study to find out where the trouble lies.
Perhaps the best way to make a petty officer want to do a good job is to have him feel that he has your confidence and trust as a division officer and that you give him responsibility without hesitation and let him do the job without interference as long as he does it well. If he feels that he is bypassed and useless he will be bypassed and useless. If you ask his advice occasionally, he will be delighted to give it to you, secure in the knowledge that he is a valued member of his organization.
Among the best indications of a man’s self-respect and military character is his attention to his own appearance. If he is habitually dirty and unshaven and if his uniform is worn carelessly and in a sloppy manner, it can usually be said that his performance of duty, his pride in his ship and in the service and his self-respect are also haphazard. Of course no one can be clean all the time and work too; it often is difficult for the men to shave when water is rationed or the ship is in heavy weather. But the man who always has an unshaven “morning after” look and comes to quarters with a frayed hat and torn jumper just doesn’t have the self-respect and character to be a good petty officer. Each petty officer must understand this and be encouraged and required to set a good example in his appearance.
With the powerful stimulus of war gone we must face the fact that morale in some sections of the Navy is not what it could be. While many factors enter into the ebbing of spirit and enthusiasm which seems to follow every war, among the most important is a lack of firm, intelligent leadership on the lower levels, and the resultant decay of discipline and efficiency. Why are our men so lax in their wearing of the uniform ashore and on shore stations? Why is it that a junior officer ashore never (well, hardly ever) gets a salute even right outside the Admiral’s office building? I cannot in conscience blame the men. But I do blame the commanding officer who permits it, all officers who wink at it (and my guilt is no less than yours), and those division officers whose leadership and ability have so evidently not met the challenge. Marks of pride in the service like the proper wearing of the uniform, and those traditional evidences of mutual respect such as the salute are an excellent indication even to the casual observer as to the state of affairs. As for the salute, I think we should abolish it or require its use in a proper and dignified manner as it deserves. Impotent or unenforced regulations tend to destroy the effectiveness of the regulations which are enforced.
The officers of the Navy have a heavy responsibility. We must keep ourselves ready to fight in spite of these postwar doldrums. Every one of us must be ready to take on quickly the responsibilities in an expanded Navy of those now quite a bit our seniors. It follows that each of our petty officers should be a potential temporary officer. It is going to be a hard struggle.
Graduating from the Naval Academy in 1944, a year earlier than had originally been scheduled, Lieutenant Steele received instruction as Technical Air Observer at Jacksonville Air Station, and then graduated from the Submarine School. His subsequent submarine experience includes wartime operations against Japan as well as peacetime cruises in the Arctic.