This year the Congress of the United States will allot the naval establishment a sum in the neighborhood of fourteen billion dollars. The money has already been earmarked. Some of it will be expended on research, some on development. Some of it will finance the maintenance and modernization of the mothball fleet. All of it, through one channel or another, will move toward the execution of one ultimate end . . . increasing our Navy’s effectiveness as a guarantee of the nation’s security. Yet, despite these mammoth expenditures, which buy for us the myriad articles necessary to the Navy’s operation, there is one commodity which is relentlessly dissipating. Fourteen billion, or one hundred and fourteen billion, dollars can not obtain for us that one unpurchaseable but indispensable item without which the finest ships, weapons and men are utterly useless . . . esprit de corps.
Esprit de corps, as one dictionary defines it, is a “sense of union and of common interests and responsibilities, as developed among a group of persons associated together.” We might feel free to call it pride in one’s self and in one’s fellows. We might term it a feeling of one’s personal importance in the framework of his organization. We might consider it a combination of these and other things, coupled with the desirable conditions ensuing from them. While we are about it, we might also wish we had it because, gentlemen, we don’t!
There exists today among the majority of enlisted men a general apathy where pride in service is concerned. The outspoken exponent of the naval service and all it represents is a rarity. The man who, on every occasion, speaks out for his chosen branch, who stands ready to defend it oratorically or physically, who always takes the pro side of the argument, and who yields no point, is considered by some of his fellows an oddity. Indeed, to some of them he is an actual curiosity and often, when they can bait him into making embarrassing statements, a source of amusement.
Proof is plentiful. To be convinced, observe any ship’s crew once “Knock off work” is sounded. The number of men who continue to labor, out of a sense of responsibility rather than &s a result of explicit orders, is shamefully few. When “Away, the athletic party!” is passed, the average sailor, unless he’s sure his procrastination will backfire, can shortly be found in the ship’s boat, pounding a softball glove.
Ask nearly any enlisted man what he thinks is wrong with the Navy. Be prepared to endure an hour-long tirade. Starting slowly and soberly, your informant will wax first hot, then profane, shift erratically from the detailed to the general, and wind up both physically exhausted and emotionally frustrated. He’ll be sorely hurt and ashamed, for, like a lover venting his spleen upon his mistress, he wounds himself most deeply when hurting what he holds dear. Though enamoured of his Venus he is haunted by the thought that her feet may be made of clay.
Sit in on a kaffee k latch while enlisted men are discussing the Navy as a career. Hark to the frequent utterance of expressions like “good deal,” “no worries” and “racket.” Especially note the marked absence of the words duty and responsibility.
Ashore, watch the mad scramble to doff blues and to blend into a colorless civilian background. Note the impressive buildings which house locker clubs, the by-products of this near-hysteria.
Eavesdrop on your shipmate as he converses with civilians about his naval career. Does he trumpet to the world that he is Navy and proud of it? No! Instead, he apologetically draws parallels, showing how provided meals, quarters, Naval Exchange privileges, and free hospitalization make up for what he is missing on the Outside! He prates of his lack of worries, of his not having to pay union dues, and of the pension waiting for him after twenty. It’s enough to turn your stomach!
What has happened to that fierce loyalty to ship and shipmate which burned, white-hot, through the Thirties? Where is that “old Navy” sailor, who pointedly informed you that his ship had the saltiest boatswains, the sharpest gunners and the most literate yeomen, and who politely volunteered to bat your unspeakable teeth through the length of your unspeakable gullet if you didn’t agree? To what shadowy limbo has been relegated the prototype who, with his trimly- squared white hat and his truculent disdain for things non-naval, made the hearts of his fellow-citizens sing “Anchor’s Aweigh,” as he strode masterfully by?
He has been lost! While yet astride the seas he has drowned, sucked down into a swirling maelstrom which has transformed a fighting fleet into a “Big Business.” The man o’ war who once could be counted upon to buck the surf now drifts with the tide. He has undergone a curious metamorphosis, changing from a fighting sea rover to a “worker.” His needs are no longer the respect and admiration of his fellows for a job well done. They have been supplanted by the ambitions of his civilian counterpart— money, possessions, and security. In an age where socialism has tumefied from a threatening ideology to an independence- choking reality, Mister White Hat tends to look upon his naval career merely as a livelihood, attractive only for the physical benefits accruing to him from it. Like so many of his countrymen, he has been swept into blind worship of the goddess Success, and measures his achievements in direct proportion to his material possession, while words like duty, honor, and fidelity creep, neglected, out of his vocabulary.
Service in forces afloat is a profession worthy of honor. Since the dawn of civilization it has been the hardier breed of men who have set out from the shore in ships, displaying their readiness and might, that the aggressor might be forced to avert his lustful gaze from their native lands. For nearly two hundred years the United States Navy has attracted men of this breed. Their names blaze out at us from the pages of America’s history. In our top echelons they are the men who, several years ago, risked all in their fight to preserve the Navy’s very existence! Slightly lower they are recognized as the skippers of the outstanding units, ashore and afloat. Near the base of the organizational structure they stand out as the officers and men who, in spite of hell, high water, and passive obstructionism, “get things done.”
Today’s Navy suffers from a shortage of men of this breed in the enlisted ratings. We need thousands more of them. Since industry is competing with us in the recruiting of them, we must get them from our own ranks. We must increase the number of enlisted men who serve in the Navy motivated above all by love for it. Once we have multiplied the present number of this hardier breed many times, the problem of low esprit de corps will have been defeated.
Who can do the job? The author submits as his choice the Middleman.
Who is this “Middleman”? In civilian circles, the Middleman is the contact, the agent who brings two parties to a transaction or an operation together and helps them work out the affair to their mutual satisfaction. The Navy has its “Middleman.” He is the gentleman through whose efforts policy becomes practice. He is the Junior Officer, the “contact” between the upper echelons and the enlisted men. Our Middleman is the Ensign, Lieutenant, Junior Grade, or Lieutenant who supervises enlisted men at their work. We need the services of him and five thousand like him.
Why five thousand? This number was not chosen at random. Five hundred Middlemen would be too few to have an immediate and lasting effect. Fifty thousand would relegate the general effort to “policy.” Navy policy is always well-intentioned and certainly well-planned, but it is not always followed up in deed. Five thousand Middlemen, junior officers who agree that there is an esprit de corps problem, and who have an intense desire to solve it, are sought. They can do the job. Think of five thousand pebbles dropped into a lake. Each causes a ripple. Thereafter, though the eye cannot follow, each ripple spreads until it touches upon the ripple from another pebble. Thus the entire lake is changed. So can it be for the Middlemen. The ripple caused by each Middleman’s striving to change the thoughts and attitudes of enlisted men who do not feel as he does about the naval service will meet and mingle with the ripples initiated by other Middlemen. He will see esprit de corps rise to the height it once commanded, while the possibility of its again becoming a threat varies inversely.
What weapon should the Middleman wield? What means is at hand by which he can best influence the thinking and conduct of enlisted men along the lines he wishes? The weapon suggested by the author is to increase in each enlisted man his sense of personal importance. The Middleman who brings an enlisted man to the realization of his own significance in the over-all pattern will have given that man’s spirit a lift. Once that man appreciates that his services are needed, his “feeling of common interests” will increase.
How can the Middleman best use this weapon? The author offers to him three categories: training, discipline, and morale. Think of them as three attacking columns, with training the main body and discipline and morale as flanking forces. An advance by one eases the path for forward movement of the other two. Finally, when near the objective, the forces will be tightly integrated and the objective overrun. The author’s thoughts on advancing these forces are herewith set forth. If the Middleman will utilize them, he will find that high esprit de corps may be easily attained.
First, training. A crew well trained is a cocky and confident one, with a “feeling of union.” They know their jobs thoroughly, together with the importance of each. A Middleman who furthers the training of the enlisted men about him will have taken a first giant stride toward success.
1. Get your Division’s training program of paper and into action. Use your influence with those above you to get those impressive schedules and neatly-typed lesson plans, which too often gather dust between administrative inspections, into the hands of capable instructors. It will pay dividends in esprit de corps. Look at the record of the cruiser in which I had the privilege of serving for a short time. Her Commanding Officer was an ardent believer in full training for all hands. Her Middlemen handled the program which resulted in the crew’s getting that training. Nearly 100 per cent of them completed courses at Navy schools, ranging from Fleet Gunnery School through Fire Fighting, Damage Control, and Photo Interpretation. Dozens of her Middlemen and petty officers completed the course at Class C-1 Instructor School, USNTC, San Diego. The Middlemen drew up schedules, classes were held, and all possible learning passed on by the more skilled of her crew. Result. . . more than 60 per cent of her candidates for petty officer ratings in July, 1951, were successful in obtaining advancements! Of the non- rated men striving for SN or FN stripes, over 90 per cent got them! Compare that record with that of your ship. I have. The ship in which I was serving in 1950 produced but two successful aspirants out of 54 being examined for advancement to Pay Grade E-3!
You’ll have difficulty in excusing your ship’s failure to match that cruiser’s mark, since her training program was perfected while in Korean waters, operating against the Communists!
My cruiser has no esprit de corps puzzle to solve. No one wants to leave her for another ship. Every member of her crew has that “sense of common interests and responsibilities.” He wants to stay on a ship where he can count on his shipmates. He knows that they as well as he have the stuff to do a thorough job of fighting their ship.
2. Bring it home to your petty officers that they must train their own replacements. The Navy cannot afford to hire enough civilian pedagogues to teach all its fire control strikers how to chase down a casualty in a power drive, nor to teach all its machinist’s mate strikers how to set up a difficult job on a lathe. It must use its own teachers, the petty officers who acquired skill and experience under the tutelage of their predecessors. The need to maintain a strong Navy is an unassailable fact. If that is to be accomplished, then the core of that Navy, its petty officers, must be competent, efficient men. Whether our future petty officers will be competent and efficient depends upon how much knowledge is passed on to them by today’s rated men. The Middlemen must show each wearer of a crow how vitally his services are needed for insuring that a trained replacement is ready to fill his spot as soon as he himself moves up a step in the ladder.
3. Get the tools into the hands of the strikers. Every Middleman must see that this is done. Too often we find petty officers doing jobs which could and should be delegated to seamen. Putting the tools for working into the hands of the non-rated men will have many favorable results. Here are a few:
a) Seamen will experience a new sense of importance. They will no longer feel that their share of the Division’s responsibility is confined to sweeping, painting, and running errands. They’ll acquire a sense of “belonging” and will feel that the Middleman is recognizing them as more than sweat and grunt laborers.
b) In time, seamen can take over semi-skilled jobs. This will free petty officers for the more necessary duties of instructing and studying to increase their own professional knowledge. Here the Middleman can furnish a large number of non-rated men with a new source of pride, checking and maintaining their “own” pieces of gear. Seamen will feel that this training helps them advance and that they are “part of the show.”
c) Three types, who cause much unrest, thereby lowering esprit de corps, will be eliminated.
The first of these is the petty officer who trusts no one’s ability but his own. He can be found on every ship, grabbing tools from his strikers and completing jobs himself. He tries to do everything and accomplishes nothing—except, perhaps, turmoil. The Middleman should seek out this man and convert him at once. He can block the road to higher esprit de corps. He defeats the establishment of “common responsibilities,” by preventing their delegation.
The next is the striker who, his tools having been torn from his grasp, is resentful. He feels that he has ability and resents not being given the chance to display it. Don’t lose him! He’s potentially your best petty officer and can develop into a Middleman’s disciple.
The last is the individual who performs only the legal amount of work. When not directly supervised he is prone to caulk off. Teaching him skills, then assigning him definite tasks for completion, will put him under pressure. In most cases he will come through. By using the “velvet hammer” treatment on this individual, the Middleman can quickly help him arrive at the point where his naval prowess will be a source of pride to him.
The above hints may have already given birth in you to new ideas for utilizing training towards raising esprit de corps. Let us now examine the field of discipline. If the Middleman will adopt the following procedures, he can rapidly win enlisted men to his beliefs and thereby increase the number of that “hardier breed” mentioned earlier.
1. Establish firmly the position of your Chief Petty Officer. Fifteen years ago, the Navy’s Chief Petty Officer held the acclaimed office of liaison between the Middleman and the enlisted ratings. As the universally-recognized link between the wearers of serge and the wearers of melton, he commanded honor and respect. Today it is not so. The author lays this to the fact that his position, which slipped during the past decade, has not been re-established and upheld. If a Middleman accomplished this aboard his ship, he would immediately profit through the increased efforts of the many Chiefs who are merely sweating out transfer to the Fleet Reserve, sulkily idling meanwhile because they feel they’re being overlooked. There are many ways in which the Middleman can recover the lost services of the men of this group, as well as spurring the rest of the Chief Petty Officers to greater efforts, by instilling in each an awareness of his personal value. A few examples follow.
a) Convey to your Chief that you consider him a man apart, to be accorded respect and privileges nearly on a par with those of commissioned officers.
b) Require that he be a model of honesty and integrity and that he insist upon the same allegiance and obedience from his juniors that you demand from him.
c) Grant him marked privileges, purely on the basis of his wearing the hat. Make sure that his juniors know this, and inform them that these same privileges will be theirs upon accession to the rating of Chief Petty Officer.
d) Trust the Chief as you would a fellow officer. If he flagrantly violates that trust, he should not be allowed to maintain his present rating.
e) Fix him firmly in the chain of command, between yourself and the enlisted ratings below his. Permit no by-passing of him, by anyone, in either direction. Go to him with and for information, and insure that others do the same.
Once the Chief realizes that he is the hub about which the Division revolves, your Division will begin operating in the black. The naval service wishes its Chiefs to be the information centers of their respective divisions. The Middleman must make that policy reality. By re-affirming the Chief Petty Officer’s position, the Middleman instills in him his sense of importance. Thus are the ingots of order and organization solidly cast.
2. Impress each petty officer with his own significance. The Middleman will have partially accomplished this through the training medium. However, he should also make his petty officers aware of how their example affects their juniors. This can be done by conducting a few simple tests. One is giving a petty officer private permission to go unshaven for several days, then pointing out to him how quickly his men start appearing at quarters in the same hirsute condition. Another is suggesting that he study the “sharper” petty officers aboard, to determine for himself the favorable effect they have on those under them. Once he’s convinced, insist that he display no poor example for his men to copy, that he be a model of dress, bearing, and deportment. Demand that he maintain a constant awareness of his position and that he require the same of others. Lead the way by meticulously respecting that position yourself.
The above actions on the part of the Middleman and his petty officers will be difficult to carry out at first. So few men in the Navy today maintain a constant awareness of position that such behavior seems alien. Nevertheless, with 5000 “apostles” spreading the creed, such an attitude will shortly come to be regarded as less “chicken” and more like ordinary conduct for naval men.
The final area to be cultivated is that of morale. It is indisputable that esprit de corps varies directly with morale. When morale is high, men are happy, cheerful, willing to work and to praise their officers, ship, and chosen service. When morale is low, the opposite is only too true.
The author has a suggestion for increasing morale. It is somewhat of an innovation for the Fleet, but the writer firmly believes that it will prove itself in merit. It’s greatest single feature is that it is regenerative, not only springing from training and discipline but contributing to them as well. It is the Aptitude Report System, used in grading NROTC Midshipmen at the University of California at Berkeley, and at similar institutions. To put a workable system, patterned on this one, into action aboard your ship requires a minimum of paper work. The Middleman needs but a small cardboard box for a filing cabinet. He can get one from GSK, by asking the Storekeeper for one of the cartons 3X5 file cards usually fill. He will need one ream of mimeograph paper and the services of his yeoman for about two hours.
Have the yeoman cut a stencil such as this: “Today (date) the following was observed of (name and rate), indicating that he is/is not advancing in military/professional proficiency; (a two-line space here for remarks). Signed (name and rate).”
Four to six of these can be made on one stencil. Making up 2000 Aptitude Slips will cost about $2 of a Middleman’s departmental funds. Distribute them among your petty officers. Keep some for your own use. Order each petty officer to make out at least one each week on every man junior to himself. Establish the rule that one is to be made out on a man every time he is commended or reprimanded.
The Middleman will have to adapt the above system to his own ship and men. Only a general outline has been drawn here. Once he starts using the Aptitude Report System, he should collect all slips regularly, locking them in his room and using them for reference as needed. Let us now look at a preview of the possible returns on this two dollar-two hour investment.
First, the Middleman will have a detailed picture of the behavior and progress of every man under his command. Though each report will be subjective, the sum will provide a sound basis for objective opinion, since each man will have been cross-graded by several seniors, rather than one who favors, or one who dislikes him. Second, the Middleman will have a concrete basis for approving or disapproving special requests, the cause of much dissension among the wearers of the white hat. The man who merits extra consideration will get it. The man who has done nothing to merit it will have his requests denied. The man who frequently seeks special grants will have to exert far more effort than the man who seldom seeks favors. Third, competition, the soul of enterprise, will have been initiated. With your men vying with each other in their efforts to boost their standings, your Division cannot help but move forward.
The Middleman who uses this System will have the confidence of his men. They will have confidence in themselves also, since their sense of importance, of being part of the show, will have grown, due to receiving the recognition due their efforts.
Recommendation of the Division Officer plus approval of the cognizant Department Head are the only requirements for granting early liberty on many ships, provided that it does not commence prior to 1300. Suppose a Middleman was successful in persuading his Head of Department to let him grant several unsolicited early liberties each week, as rewards for extra accomplishment. Then he would, basing his choice on Aptitude Reports, be able to make an occasional announcement, at morning quarters, where all could hear, similar to this one: “Since Seaman Jones has been reported to me by his petty officers as having put forth extra voluntary effort during the past few days, he may have 1300 liberty today if he wishes.” Think of the effect on his men! The graders will feel that their opinions and recommendations carry weight, while the gradees will realize that they are not unnoticed.
A Middleman who had to accompany one of his men to mast could consult his Aptitude Reports and possibly say this to his Commanding Officer: “Sir, it appears that Smith is guilty. However, I have reports here from his seniors which you might like to see. They indicate that he is doing an excellent job of a rather tough task. I consider him an asset to my division and would like to see his record kept clear, so as not to defeat his chances for promotion. I’m sure he realizes his mistake and, if you can see your way clear to excusing him this time, he will not cause you trouble again.” This Middleman has shown proof of this man’s strivings to his Commanding Officer, thereby illustrating to that man that his contribution is noticed and appreciated. That man now knows his importance and will try to add to it.
There is your job, Mister Middleman. It comprises nothing that is at variance with existing regulations and policy. It requires no herculean effort on your part. All it entails is setting yourself to one purpose, building in others the same affection for the naval service you possess. Use the forces of training, discipline, and morale to create in every enlisted man you encounter, a “feeling of union and of common interests and responsibilities.” Bring home to each one of them how vitally he is needed, if we are to keep what has been ours since 1776. Stress his importance. When every sailor in the United States Navy can pause in his work, look about him, and say to himself with confidence, “Why, if I left, they’d miss me around here!” your battle to raise esprit de corps to its highest possible pinnacle will have been won.