From "Alfa" To "Inzanity" With The Small Ship Exec

Mark Twain said his father seemed to gain amazingly in wisdom as his son grew older. Execs fleeting up to skipper always feel the same way and are filled with gratuitous advice for the young men about to suffer through the same jobs. Hence this article.

The executive officer of a small ship can do anything provided: (a) he plans his job; (b) he budgets his time and conserves his energies by teaching others and delegating work; and (c) he believes it is more desirable to be the commanding officer of a tug than the exec of the Forrestal. There are, however, some other details of “exec-ing.”

In a recent Proceedings article¹ on the art of being an executive officer, it was pointed out that to acquire the confidence of the Captain is the new Exec’s first and most pressing duty. This is certainly true in the small ship as well as in the cruiser. The confidence of the Captain, however, will not precede self-confidence on the part of the Executive Officer. This self-confidence comes only from a firm grasp of the job . . . and this is not necessarily automatic.

More likely than not, anyone reporting for his first tour of duty as executive officer will be returning from his first tour of shore duty. Behind him may be about seven years of watch-standing at sea and several years of shipboard, head-of-department duties. But, also on his back are two years ashore during which a sextant has not been handled, a ship has not been conned, the Navy Department Instructions have not been combed, the BuPers Manual ignored, and a whole set of muscles have forgotten about the ocean’s rock and roll. From the day he reports to his new ship, he very likely will be Navigator, Training Officer, Classified Material Control Officer, Ship’s Secretary, Personnel Officer, and possibly Legal Officer, as well as being the Executive Officer, and even more important, a key figure in the ship’s battle organization. If he’s lucky enough to go to a ship he knows something about or to a command with whose routine he is fairly familiar, he will nevertheless find that in two years’ time Fleet, Force, Squadron, and tender routines, organizations, policies, instructions, and daily minutiae will have changed. To become competent in his job, the new Exec will have to study rapidly and thoroughly. This studying must start immediately, because every day that goes by without his having studied the PAMI Manual (which he somehow never got around to before) increases the probability that his seaman-yeoman will incur the wrath of the IBM machines and permanently derange the ship’s personnel records. No one else will really read the Security Manual! A daily allotted study hour on a planned basis is a necessity. (Don’t worry about rewriting the ship’s organization and regulations yet . . . first find out what they are and whether or not they are being observed.) This business of studying is particularly apropos in the case of the Instruction System, because the numerical designator system is not as simple an index as the last volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica (although it is doubtless intended to be). For all practical purposes, since this loose-leaf, non-bound, ten-foot compilation of miscellaneous information is subject to the whims of many people and the effects of being “squeezed” constantly, the wise Exec will go through the whole affair before too much time elapses. Reading all instructions is not recommended, but careful accounting of the periodic effective lists is necessary, plus a careful eye for the training, personnel, and operational instructions. The Exec’s efforts to preserve the sanctity of the one set of instructions that a small ship carries by requiring cross-reference sheets and gummed reinforcements is very worthwhile.

The routine of the ship (or its lack of routine) should be nailed down by the Exec as one of the great potential time-consumers. If a daily routine has not been established, start one. If one has been established, run by it and make changes gradually, logically, and with the fore-knowledge of the Captain. (Maybe he likes to eat his evening meal at 1500!) A daily and well distributed plan of the day is generally advocated by the “floating palace” sailors possessing an automatic mimeograph machine, but very often the smaller ships will find that a well thought- out and detailed standard routine at sea and in port will serve just as well (typed once and permanently posted), if used in conjunction with a Morning Order Book which is read and initialled by all officers and leading petty officers prior to quarters in port and during or before the Morning Watch at sea.

Unfortunately, the necessity for studying directives and manuals is always overshadowed by the fact that the ship must continue to operate, and its business must be kept up from day to day. The Executive Officer relieving during the early portion of a Navy Yard overhaul is a rare and lucky bird. A reminder to the new Exec that business must roll along whether or not he is quite ready is the daily flood of mail and traffic while in port. I know of no surer way for an Exec to bog himself down hopelessly than by failing to screen, route, and follow through on the mail on an immediate basis with each mail delivery. In spite of the many directives deploring the circumstances, the fact remains that most small ships receive regularly large volumes of mail which they do not require. I have even heard the thought advanced in Washington that it is “cheaper to mail it than to screen it.”

This mail can be divided into several categories: (a) that which is of no concern whatever (Instructions from the Comptroller telling Commanding Officers of Naval Stations how to pay civilian workers); (b) that which is of some interest but only to your father (Instructions for retired officers travelling in MSTS ships); (c) that which is pertinent to the operation or administration of the ship as important information but not necessarily requiring action (Information on how to insert strainers in a coffee pot); (d) that which requires action or reply on the part of the ship.

The knack of getting through this pile requires a sharp eye for originator (is he a “boss?”) addressee (is he talking to us?), and the action verbs (is he mad, resigned, or just curious?). The small ship Exec should read everything, note and route the important, instigate the action, forget the trivia, and pray that BuPers remembers him in time to save his eyes. At this point in a young officer’s career, if he has not learned it before, he will become a firm believer in speed reading for naval officers. Unfortunate as it may be, the small ship Exec should not and cannot get too interested in the background pages of a Navy Department Instructions until he has absorbed the little heart paragraph, “Action Required” and finds that he is on the spot.

A recommended method of handling the mail is as follows. First of all, segregate it into the categories listed above. Then make a tickler of the action items and assign the action officer together with an action date. Route the mail, preferably to the Commanding Officer first, if he likes it that way (include the trivia so he can sympathize with your lot and then throw it away). Get the remainder to your officers next. Here is the real test of your administrative ability. In a sense you must protect your junior officers from the mail, because if you don’t they will not spend their time with their men nor will they devote the time they should to personally administering their departments, to learning the ship and her operations, and to developing into sound practical sailors. This business of “protecting” the younger officer from the flood of paper by selective routing lest he forget that he is aspiring to become a competent fighting man is an important point. The Exec, poor devil that he is, nevertheless knows that he is beginning to climb out of the morass of routine reports and the harrassing details important only to a Gilbert and Sullivan “Ruler of the Queen’s Nayvee.” The Exec can see a patch of blue sky ahead. It’s his job to see that his juniors see blue water. While we are on that subject, it’s his job also to see that routine details are carried out without the Captain worrying about them. The minute that the Captain feels that he has to start working on the prompt submission of routine reports, for instance, the Exec is not doing his job and neither is the Captain. For that matter, Captain Hornblower notwithstanding, it is the Exec's job to see that meal hours are adjusted to feed the crew before general quarters.

On the other hand, junior officers do have to learn how to handle correspondence. They must be kept informed of data important to their jobs, and they must bear the responsibility for initially formulating the ship’s opinion on matters pertaining to their departments. Selective routing of mail, proper designation of the action officer, and rigid insistence on regular cleaning of officers’ baskets can strike a compromise here. A detailed ship’s organization chart with names filled in can be of great assistance to the new Exec in designating the proper action officer. It also serves to help him administer the ship in other ways and is very good for the orientation of new officers or men. Grabbing the first officer passing by keeps the Exec from being bothered by “hanger-ons,” but such action is not considered the smartest policy.

The junior officers should most certainly prepare the first draft of a letter on matters affecting his department, but his efforts to do so will generally waste a lot of his (and your) time unless you have laid out the ground rules for letter writing. Writing official letters is a favorite hobby of some officers, is scorned or feared by others, and yet practically every officer commanding a ship (be he lieutenant or captain) feels that he has the secret key. The point here is that the Commanding Officer signs the letter. Therefore his staff has the responsibility not only of presenting accurate and readable information but also of couching the letter in such terms as to reflect the personality of the Commanding Officer. Failure to do this at the rough draft stage merely wastes your time, the officers’ time, the yeoman’s time, and probably will waste the Captain’s time (which is distinctly not what you want to do). The officer best suited to analyzing quickly and accurately what constitutes a good letter in the opinion of the Commanding Officer is the Executive Officer. This analysis should be made early in the job, passed on to the wardroom in an instruction period, and adhered to. If this sounds like killing off individuality—forget it. That’s just what it is! If you don’t agree with your Commanding Officer’s view on letter writing, or if your officers don’t, tell the “old man,” tell him why, and then do it the way he says. You are not signing the letters; he is! Speaking of signing letters, a distinct understanding should be arrived at with the Commanding Officer (with Navy Regulations on the table, if necessary) as to local ground rules for “By Direction” and “Acting” signatures. Avoid like the plague any idea of some mail “going to the Captain” and some not. That is strictly big ship business and should never happen on a small ship.

Both action letters and routine reports tend to rise or fall on a sound tickler system. There are more tickler ideas than there are good administrators, and so, for a small ship, only the following thoughts are offered. The tickler should be so very simple that you will adhere to it and the third officer can manage it without calling you up when you are on leave. To borrow a phrase from the “servo” engineer’s book, it should be a “closed-loop system” so that it stands out until the letter or report is finally mailed. One very successful executive officer that I know makes a practice of handing his monthly or quarterly report tickler around the wardroom so that periodically every officer has to chase down the whole report system and in doing so learns why his own reports should get in promptly and accurately the first time.

While we have been discussing correspondence, the business of running the ship has kept on. There are decks to be scrubbed, heads to be cleaned, meals to be prepared and served on time, leaves to be considered, new men to be processed, schools to be assigned, examinations to be given, and, most important, a Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill to be kept up to date, complete, and accurate.

On a small ship, one Watch Quarter and Station Bill generally replaces the divisional bills used on larger units of the fleet. This being so the usual tendency is to hope that the Executive Officer, assisted by his submarine Chief of the Boat, or surface ship Chief Master at Arms, will together (not having anything else to do) keep it up. That is a bad practice. Ideally, each small ship Department Head should be required, with his petty officers, to keep continually abreast of this bill . . . coming to the Exec with advice and ideas on whom to employ where. Considerable trouble and dissatisfaction can quickly develop in a small ship through inconsistencies or inaccuracies in watch, quarter, and station assignments. Misunderstandings also arise when cleaning stations are not specifically and exactly assigned man by man. It is the Executive Officer’s function to keep a daily eye on this bill, but he should make his officers and petty officers breathe life into it rather than allow himself to become a daily auditor. In a similar line the Exec of the small ship must get through the entire ship once a day with particular emphasis on cleanliness in the “sensitive” spots, such as the mess, the heads, the berthing compartments, and the galley. The Exec should be thoroughly familiar with every department, including the Supply Department but excluding, of course, the Medical Department, and should be able to call any officer to account for the condition of his spaces and equipment. This daily stroll of the “Number One” conflicts with study, correspondence, navigation, and personnel administration, but there is absolutely no substitute for it. Every Captain should require it as firmly as he requires the Exec’s personal report of muster and the ship’s readiness to move.

As the ship moves in and out of port and through pilot waters, the Executive Officer- Navigator really begins to feel the time pinch, since his presence on the bridge is mandatory a good deal of the time. Here, as in letter writing, his only salvation lies in not only becoming personally expert but also in establishing a cast iron rule of procedure regarding the participation in the navigation problem by the Officer of the Deck, the senior quartermaster, and the quartermasters of the watch. Regulations are quite clear on the subject, but free time for the Navigator results only from their being understood and carried out rigidly and by having junior personnel properly trained to comply. The Navigator can get the ship out of port, take a good departure cut, lay down a DR track to the operating area, and jump below to his other duties, provided that he is absolutely certain that all course and speed variations or ship control casualties will inevitably be reported to him immediately and that very frequent cuts will be taken by his quartermaster of the watch or the Officer of the Deck. A well-trained, non-watch-standing, leading quartermaster is also a very necessary adjunct to the Executive Officer-Navigator. This man’s work on charts, publications, and his ability to lay out voyage planning work and to prepare for celestial navigation can make or break the Navigator. The small ship multi-duty Navigator should seriously consider going to considerable lengths in having his celestial navigation problem laid out in advance and should lean towards the short cut methods invented primarily for aviators. Although a debatable point, it has always seemed to me on the small, low, spindrift-flecked bridge of a submarine that the possible one or two mile extra precision attainable with long calculations was nullified by the probable altitude errors in sextant work and certainly not justified in view of the time required when well at sea. HO 289 and the precomputed stars are the small ship navigator’s friends. A time-waster that can be throttled is the ship’s log. Make up standard entries, require that the logs be written before leaving the deck, and refuse permission to go ashore if this is not done. A call on the morning watch for the delinquent mid-watch non-log- writer will cure the at-sea problem. It is well to remember, of course, that letter perfect navigational procedures and navigation practice are rightfully expected of any United States ship . . . regardless of size.

To be mentioned before leaving the Exec’s navigational duties is the matter of his status as Navigator with regard to the other officers and their departments. He will do well to remember that as Navigator he is a Head of Department and thus owes a certain amount of time to his departmental personnel on the one hand, while he is forced to be on guard against favoring his own men on the other. This point comes up frequently in a small ship since there are a number of “all hands” functions, such as loading stores, for instance, where the Executive Officer often becomes arbiter in the matter of which department has a legitimate excuse for cutting down on its working party—all in the day’s work, but nevertheless important and vital to the integrity of the Exec’s position in the ship.

Concerning this point of the Exec’s standing among the officers of the ship, there are several things that the new Exec should think of if he has not already considered them.

First of all, he must remember always that his real authority and effectiveness in the ship (apart from the surface prestige of this rank) derives directly and only from the Commanding Officer. As such, any inclination to depart from the voiced or unvoiced but understood policies of the Commanding Officer should be severely checked well before they become apparent to anyone else. More so than perhaps in any other comparable human “unit” the small ship runs harmoniously and well only if the Exec and the Captain are as one. There is no middle ground or halfway measure in this, since, if for no other reason, there physically is not enough room for two ships in the small space available. Ideally and practically, a small ship is a good ship if she exemplifies and is molded completely to the personality of her Captain. This is true regardless of whether he is a good officer or one of those brilliant officers. A poor Captain will murder a small ship and will not be discussed further. This exemplification and molding must be accomplished through the Executive Officer who succeeds in his job only if he wholeheartedly assumes the duties of Chief Staff Officer, Foreman, and Prime Mover. In this line it is very important to the well being of the ship that the Executive Officer act conscientiously as a sounding board for the Captain. By this I mean that periodically he should review the course of the various ship’s policies and the spirit of the crew and then inform the Captain of how things are going in general. He must be alert to spot trouble areas and to advise the Captain as to the success or failure of various policies that may be in force. In some cases this requires a good amount of moral courage, but in all cases it is successful only if done with tact, understanding, and in private. Remember also that the law says that the Captain can punish ... it does not say that the Executive Officer or any other officer can. Extra instruction, tough work assignments ... all of these may fall within the province of the Exec and other officers, but the practice of “pulling liberty cards” or assigning unofficial extra duty should not exist. Punishment, as such, is a prerogative of the Commanding Officer under the law and cannot be delegated. To do so will inevitably create trouble, distrust, and discontent.

Second, the question of who is running the wardroom. On a small ship the Executive Officer should be undisputed master of the wardroom and all its details. While he must not and cannot interfere with the Head of Department’s communication with the Captain on matters concerning that department, it should be realized that the level of experience amongst the young officers in a small ship, the small space available, and the small number of people, do not permit the building of departmental empires. The experienced Exec can and should help young departmental heads a great deal both in administrative and in technical matters. The trick is to do this without being cornered into doing his job. A good way to start off on the right foot without worrying too much about popularity contests is to study the last administrative inspection report of the ship and to inquire as to the present status of noted deficiencies. This serves mightily in solidifying the wardroom. If omissions are apparent, the officers can happily join in hating the new Exec. If a high state of administration is revealed, the wardroom at least knows that the new Exec is aware of it. In any case the work of the ship can go forward. Personal pettiness in dealing with officers should be assiduously avoided, but there is no reason for failing to voice a firm and pleasant “no” to routine requests to go ashore when the necessaries to administration have not been taken care of. It need never be brought up in a smooth running ship, but beneath the Executive Officer’s velvet glove always lie the hard facts that he controls the shore leave of officers and also is responsible for preparing the rough draft of their fitness reports.

Now it is true that the new Exec, as I have said, is not coming on board to enter a popularity contest. Beware, however, of oversimplifying this statement! Remember that if the ship, without being a “crack ship” in all senses of the word, nevertheless has a certain prestige as a “good ship” amongst her crew and her squadron mates, then there is probably more to her than may meet the eye of the young fireball X.O. Before succumbing to the temptation to curl his lip and state or even infer that “all this will change,” the new Exec had best tread lightly and find out for himself what his ship really consists of. A good happy ship that gets her jobs done on schedule is not to be lightly trifled with simply because some aspects of her administration are patently sloppy. Her previous employment schedule and work load and the characteristics of her Commanding Officer and of his wardroom officers must be taken into account. Under tough schedules and with little officer experience many a fine skipper has been forced to concentrate on fundamentals to the exclusion of refinements for months of his tour. Failure to understand this and to share in it can ruin the new Exec before he gets started.

Practically everything that has been discussed or suggested so far requires a training effort on the part of the Executive Officer. This article is not going to devolve into a review of training methods and techniques, but it should always be remembered that in the final analysis the Exec’s function as Training Officer can be his single most important contribution both from its effect on the current operations of the ship and on the molding of the officers and men growing up in the ship. Aside from this, failure to properly train the officers and men of the ship will leave the Exec with an impossible job.

There are a few training wrinkles not found in most manuals that I will mention. In the first place, the Exec’s job is made easier when he puts out the idea that if the ship is running properly then, whether anyone realizes it or not, there is an effective training program already in existence. Its effectiveness can obviously be improved if the various aspects of the program are laid out on a calendar so that even the junior seamen can see whether or not important things are getting the consideration they should. I & E is wonderful, but it shouldn’t replace training at battle stations! Some sting can be taken out of the Exec’s insistence on a posted training schedule when it is realized that it can be annotated as you go along and filed in place of that dread (and so often “gundecked”) item known as a Training Log, so much in demand by inspecting parties during administrative inspections. Some people like a weekly schedule, some a more extensive one, some a training “plan of the day” affair. For small ships, I advocate a quarterly calendar job showing the ship’s prospective operations as laid down by the ship’s operational “bosses,” plus a detailed weekly breakdown into hours of the day. The quarterly calendar goes along well with the requirement of keeping the crew informed in advance of where they are going and what they are going to do.

Another wrinkle is the individual training record. Every naval organization has, at one time or another, prepared a wonderful little individual data card on which to list the training “exposures” made on every officer and man. These cards are very impressive to an inspecting party but take too much time to bring up to date the night before the inspection. My feeling is that the training accomplishments should be listed for individuals on a large poster available to all hands and that entries of continuing importance to the individual should be recorded in his service record. The poster in public view stimulates individual competition and shames those responsible into keeping it up. The other little card I advocate throwing away since its existence, even if kept up, simply tends to keep the service record from being used as it should be.

Training Officers forget that on a small ship most enlisted men identify themselves as far as their daily work goes more strongly with a Watch and Liberty Section than with their department. This identification can be used to striking advantage in training up the crew of a small ship because the seeds of competition are imbedded already by the multitudinous evolutions that must be handled on a watch basis. Where some large ships have pointed up the benefits of establishing a periodic “score board” for training competition between departments, I have found that a similar scoreboard on the operational readiness of watch sections is very valuable and perhaps means more to the crew. From a practical viewpoint also, extra liberty rewards are easier to handle on a small ship from a section basis.

Although it is necessary to avoid vitiating Head of Department or Division Officer responsibility in this matter, the appearance and smartness of the crew can be worked up from a section basis also. For many small ships, especially those providing extensive services to other commands, Fridays-in-port are required for drawing stores and material inspections. If Saturdays, traditionally the day of Captain’s Personnel Inspection, are regularly made an all hands inspection day in a small ship, very often individual crew members may go for weeks without a decent shore break. The idea of a regular weekly two-section inspection (the oncoming watch in dungarees and the off-going watch in blues) very often is the answer.

The Exec’s function as personnel officer can be summarized by saying that in a small ship he must know as much about the practical job of keeping personnel records as any yeoman. To do this he must study the BuPers Manual and the PAMI Manual religiously and he can be helped by attending one of the short Ship’s Office Administration courses given by the Fleet Training Commands. (While he is over there at the Fleet Training Center, why not take another week out and attend the short Naval Justice Course?) Getting back to service records, however, two small points will go a long way towards improving them and making them more useful. First, insist on the ship’s officers using them habitually when interviewing their men; errors are cut down by this. Second, make it a practice on your ship for the individual man to examine his own record at least every six months. It is his personal record of naval service and as such he should be acquainted with its contents. When this is the case, you will find that the yeoman is more careful about leave entries and pay vouchers. Also emergency data forms will miraculously start keeping up to date, and perhaps a would-be minor offender will be reminded that he does have a record which he wants to keep unsullied. The idea of it being difficult for a man to see his record serves only to create a mysterious uneasiness amongst the crew as to what the “front office” is doing.

The Exec must work through his officers. He must avoid very carefully any diminution of officer prestige or authority by contravening (or even appearing to contravene) their orders as department heads. On the other hand, the leading petty officers, and especially the Chief Petty Officers of a small ship, fulfill in actual practice, as well as in concept, many of the functions of large ship division officers. For this reason, the Executive Officer must have frequent and direct communication with these petty officers in order to communicate the spirit of various command policies. The small ship Chief carries a great load of responsibility, and his prestige on board should reflect this. The small ship, as much as any organization on earth, requires the personal touch. Never begrudge the direct and personal interview with the new men coming on board. Their Department Heads will be doing this, but in a small ship the Exec should also, for in doing so he establishes a direct approach that progressively raises the tone of the ship as a whole. This interview should be put off, if operations do not permit it to be a relaxed moment, but it should not be omitted.

Having listed so many things that the small ship Exec must do to keep on top of his job, it seems well to add a few points of personal caution. First of all, the Exec must come to a good understanding with his Captain concerning when he is required and when he is not. For an officer who should be working at maximum capacity to keep his ship on top and whose job can never be “closed out” at any specific time, it is highly necessary that proper sleep, exercise, and recreation be included in the time budget. Many “number ones” seem to feel that they have to be “on deck” whenever the Captain is out of his bunk. Nothing could be more detrimental to the smooth running of a small combatant command! The Captain must have the Exec and his experience at his finger tips at battle stations and for potentially critical maneuvers such as entering port, coming along side at sea, and maneuvering in a fog. He needs his daily coordinating influence at fixed hours in port during the routine day. But at sea, each Captain should give strong consideration to having the ship’s second most experienced officer up and alert at times when he personally will not be. To achieve this means rest hours for the Exec. Submarines, of course, have their own organizational peculiarities, but their not infrequent practice of having (within strictly defined limits) a daytime C.O. and a nighttime C.O. on patrol can go a long way towards producing the ultimate in hair- triggered readiness at sea.

Not the least of the Exec’s problems, of course, is his own professional advancement in rank as well as in practical experience. He must allot time for his own promotional studies, or he cheats himself and eventually goes sour. Similarly, he must take every opportunity to improve himself as a practical seaman in ship-handling and battle tactics. An officer “fleeting up” from Exec to C.O. in the same type should be a boon to his new ship. This will not be the case, however, (administrative giant though he may be) if he has not been working at his landings and, in the case of submarines, his own approach and periscope techniques.

The small ship Exec’s day is a long one; no question about that! Yet, I know of no other job where the opportunity to really achieve tangible and specific results exists in greater measure. The Exec, in a sense, is a cultivator. By the sweat of his brow, by his own hard work, by his foresight, by his intelligence, and by his patience he can day by day see the fruits of his labor grow and blossom under his direction. In later years, looking back, I believe most officers who have shared the experience will feel a shade of nostalgia knowing that bigger jobs and greater authority ultimately rob us all of the pleasure of growing things by our own hand.