Comment and Discussion

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The “Red Fleet”

Ten Years After

Professor Claude P. Lemieux, U. S. Naval Academy.—A careful examination of the past year’s issues of the Soviet Navy’s daily newspaper, Sovietsky Flot, indicates that the postwar years have been the most signifi­cant in the history of that establishment. The junior arm of the Soviet defense organization, the Red Fleet, was on the eve of a long-prom­ised expansion when World War II broke out. Aside from lend-lease vessels, no signifi­cant development in ships was possible dur­ing the war, and postwar naval construction had to wait for the major recovery of the country’s industrial capacity before substan­tial additions to the fleet could be made. Nevertheless, the last half dozen years have witnessed a doubling in the total tonnage of Soviet warships, chiefly in cruisers of the Sverdlov-type, destroyers of the Skoryi-type, and submarines derived from World War II Ger­man types.

While few specific references to these vessels are made in Sovietsky Flot, their presence is felt >n the many photographs of naval activities. The big cruisers are often shown both in detail and in full silhouette, and while the photo­graphs are fuzzy by our standards, their mere existence presents a great contrast to the air­tight secrecy of ten years ago, when no Soviet officer dared so much as mention a Red Fleet warship by name.

Availability of Soviet Periodicals

The acquisition of Soviet military periodi­cals by exchange indicates a significant alter­ation of policy. The last continuous series of the Krasny Flot (now Sovietsky Flot) to fall into °ur hands was sent to us by a former pupil of purs on foreign station. On several occasions ^ln 1946 Soviet officers on mission promised most affably that both Krasny Flot and Morskoi

Zbornik would be readily available. “Our new naval attache, Admiral X, is a former editor of the £bornik, and will be pleased to work out an exchange.” Needless to say, our request was turned down by Admiral X. In the mean­time, Soviet agencies could procure dozens of copies of our periodicals. Indeed, Soviet or­ders for American military journals in the war period exceeded those of all other foreign governments combined. In 1956, the Saltikov- Schedrin library of Leningrad, acting as the Soviet clearinghouse for book and periodical exchanges, began an extensive campaign for procurement by mutual agreement with American libraries and publishers. Our 1957 collection dates from this policy.

The reasons for this traditional furtiveness have puzzled foreign observers. Perhaps the most logical explanation, aside from Stalin’s pathological love of secrecy, is that the Soviets have not cared to advertise their backward­ness in technical matters. As soon as they had planes, ships, atomic reactors, or even earth satellites, they were only too happy to use them for propaganda effect. The parade of Soviet cruisers and destroyers, which began at the 1955 Spithead Review, has been ex­tended to the major ports of Europe. The great atomic center at Doubna has been dis­played to foreign journalists, and a 1:50 scale model of the atomic ice-breaker Lenin will be shown at the Brussels Exposition this year. Thus, despite the appalling backwardness of the Soviet Union in transportation, housing, and consumers’ goods, the Communist Party feels that it can profitably advertise the evi­dence of technical achievements as applied to the armed forces.

The Growth of Party Influence

Perhaps the most striking change that has taken place in Krasny Flot during the past ten years is its evolution as a socially conscious or­gan representing an elite portion of Soviet so-

ciety, both from the military and the party angle. In 1946, while interpreting a conversa­tion between an American officer and a Soviet Lieutenant General on the United Nations staff, I asked the rather elderly Russian wheth­er army and naval officers were generally party members. His reply was brief: “Poda- vlyayushchim boVshinstvom, nyet!" (“By an over­whelming majority, no!”) The fleet news­paper seemed to bear this out at the time. In fact our analysis of Krasny Flot ten years ago led to the conclusion that “except for the presence of articles on certain phases of life in the armed forces, the contents of Krasny Flot and Krasnaya ^vezda differ very little from those of Pravda and Izvestia.”^[1] Today Sovietsky Flot (the name change from Krasny Flot is in keeping with the change in party vocabulary) emphasizes party indoctrination much more than the usual party organs. Quite aside from the routine statements of national import, articles specifically directed at the conduct of Communist (i.e. party) activity account for about 25% of the space in Sovietsky Flot. The term “communist,” which is used sparingly with regard to the rank and file of citizenry, appears frequently in reference to persons or activities described in the fleet newspaper. It should be noted in this regard that the soz- natel'ny (politically conscious) Soviet citizen will usually correct a foreigner who speaks of “communism” in describing Soviet society. The term “socialist” is used, since the ulti­mate communistic objective of the party is still considered to be rather remote. Whether or not our estimate of naval officer member­ship in the Party of 1947 is accurate, we are quite sure that nearly all active officers of to­day are either Communists or Komsomols,^[2] i.e., they have a common “moral-political” out­look which makes the Soviet Navy the strongest support of the Communist Party at this time.

In 1946 one could sense the preparations for a long-term program of political regenera­tion in the armed forces. I can recall a con-

versation with one of the Soviet attaches just prior to the cold war that succeeded VJ day. I had asked for a candid opinion about the possibility of travel in the Soviet Union, not on an official mission, but to study at first hand the language and mentality of the peo­ple. The answer was polite and in the nature of what our world calls an understatement. “Ah, yes, tourism. We would certainly like to receive tourists. They would bring money, and that we can always use. But it will take a long time before we can accommodate them. Just now the country is in a mess. We have a huge housecleaning job ahead of us. Now you know very well that your mother never cared to have guests in when she was houseclean­ing!...”  _          _

Today the housecleaning is finished. Soviet crews can be sent to foreign ports with confi­dence that they will not defect and that they will behave exactly according to instructions. We had an opportunity to observe the crew of the Ordzonikidze in Copenhagen some months ago. The character of their shore leave varied from day to day according to the criticisms leveled at them in the daily press. To every question put by strangers ashore they had a stereotyped answer. Their conduct was excel­lent, but somewhat disappointing to the Danes, who expected their guests to have a bit more spirit.

It is thus no accident that junior officers de­picted on the pages of Sovietsky Flot frequently bear the title Kommunist before their military rank. They were probably graduating from a Nakhimov school toward the end of the war and have known no other way of life than that of party discipline. As for the senior offi­cers, they are not recent party members, since there is scant evidence that the Party recruits members from the older generation. From the obituary column in Sovietsky Flot (one of the few sources of Soviet biographical data avail­able to us), we find that most rear admirals are members of the Party. The typical rear admiral of today is in his late forties or early fifties. If he is a graduate of the Naval School {Frunze is the equivalent of Annapolis, Krilov is the Soviet War College), he is probably of the class of 1934 and became a party member around 1939 or 1941.

The rapid promotion of officers who were also dependable party members accounts for

the present political character of the fleet. While there is no evidence that the present echelons are not technically and militarily competent, they enjoy the solid confidence of the Party leadership, and seem to personify that tradition of a “politically conscious navy” which both as truth and fiction has been as­siduously fostered by the bolsheviks. As Colonel P. Ulianov, Candidate of Political Sciences, put it: “Educated and led by the Communist Party, Soviet officers, generals, and admirals during the postwar period have matured still more in military and political aspects. . . . The Soviet armed forces are justly proud of their experienced cadres of generals, admirals, and officers. Many of them participated in the War of National Defense. Our command cadres are made up chiefly of Communists and Komsomols'’’ (Sovietsky Flot, January 12, 1957).

Book Reviews and Notes

Sovietsky Flot reviewed some four dozen books in detail during the year 1957. While this represents a considerable increase over the number mentioned in Krasny Flot during 1948, the arid character of the Soviet listings should be sufficient to cause their naval per­sonnel to turn to technical manuals for diver­sion. Reference books are seldom mentioned. One textbook on nautical astronomy by Vice­Admiral N. N. Matusevich, a brief work on damage control, and a small technical dic­tionary are the only ones mentioned, the last two most unfavorably. Aside from a number of short brochures on recent military actions,

Russian history is treated only in three works on the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese conflict: Ternovsky, Defense of Sevastopol, Bori­sov, Feat of Sevastopol, A. T. Sorokin, Russo- Japanese War. Serious works on contemporary Soviet military history are not mentioned, possibly because there is almost no Soviet na­val action to discuss. Short novels and Action­ized biographies for the young are fairly nu­merous.

Perhaps the most significant change of pol­icy is reflected in the reviews of several major works on military history by non-Soviet au­thorities. It must be remembered that the So­viet system, while making accessible a com­plete documentation to workers in specific areas, does not tolerate any circulation of un­authorized foreign writers within its borders. Hence, the publication of foreign military writers whose accounts necessarily conflict with the strictly limited Soviet version of his­tory can only be justified as examples of “western falsification of history” (a standard term) and must be hedged in with adequate safeguards in the way of notes, prefaces, and suitably damning reviews. Since the trans­lated editions are unauthorized to begin with (Soviets do not adhere to international copy­right agreements), the editors and translators can omit or interpolate where policy requires it. This year’s “falsifiers of history” include: Samuel Eliot Morison (Battle for the Atlantic)-, Admiral Pierre Barjot (Vers la Marine de l'Age Atomique); George F. Fuller (Second World War); Theodore Roscoe (Submarine Operations in World War II); V. Borghese (The 10th MAS

military equipment, ships, planes, etc. These studies vary in length from 750 to 1,500 words and are generally succinct, well- written, and based on exact documentation. About one-fourth of these articles during 1957 were on American and NATO sub­marine potentials. Since this is apparently a major preoccupation of the Soviet nav a strategists both defensively and offensively, ¹¹ seems worthwhile to mention some of the titles: Fueling Submarines at Sea (U.S.A-), Characteristics of New U. S. Submarines; Floating

Flotilla)-, and Marshal Kingston-McGloughry {Direction of War).

The major criticism of most of the works mentioned is that they do not devote sufficient attention to the fact (sic) that the Soviet forces won the war singlehanded. For instance, the Pacific submarine operations described by Theodore Roscoe were “falsified” because the author should have been telling about the war on the Eastern Front. If the Japanese mer­chant vessels were sunk in the Pacific, it was because “Axis morale was being destroyed through Soviet feats of arms against Ger­many.” The final victory over Japan was a “simple matter once the Kwantung army had been destroyed by the Soviets.” Similarly, Morison tends to assume that the war was won in the Atlantic rather than on the Soviet- German front. “While expatiating for 400 pages on the insignificant operations of the American Atlantic Fleet, Morison does not say a word about the heroic struggle going on in Russia.” It should be remarked that, ac­cording to the Soviet version, “Germany was so weakened by its attack on Russia that the war could have been terminated years earlier had not the ruling circles of the U. S. A. and England deliberately prolonged it for their own imperialistic reasons aimed at exhausting the Soviet Union and assuring for themselves a dominating position in the world.”

“Despite the historical truth, he (Morison) dares to state that the Soviet Union could make its armies more effective in battle only by receiving seaborne armaments and sup­plies from the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. The falsity of such a statement can easily be proved by the simple comparison of the size of lend-lease and our own national production during the period of the war; the first constituted in relation to the second a mere 4 percent.”

The technique of juggling chronology and statistics for a desired historical effect is stand­ard practice with Soviet critics. A ground swell of public cynicism has apparently not yet slowed up this system.

The only foreign book that aroused any en­thusiasm or approval in Soviet reviewers was a muckraking work by Helen and Scott Near­ing, U. S. Today} From the review we are in­terested to learn about “the American con­centration camps and the general degradation

due to the social system.” Further, it seems that “despite the high productive level of the United States many strata of the population live in acute need. According to the statistics of the Bureau of Labor, one-third of American families do not have enough for the minimum level of health or the minimum decent stand­ard of living.”

A large share of anti-Western propaganda in the Soviet press is quoted directly from American newspapers. Our headline-hungry press provides an inexhaustible supply of ma­terial, which even slightly out of context can make us look quite depraved. However, the ease with which Lieutenant-Commander V. Nikolaev transforms wartime Tule Lake relo­cation center into a peacetime concentration camp is quite consistent with Soviet manipu­lation of chronology.

Data on Foreign Navies

A little over a year ago, one of my recent pupils now serving aboard the Mitscher sent me a copy of Sovietsky Flat dated July 18) 1956. My attention was called to the article “Tendencies in the Development of Squadron Leader Destroyers in the U.S.A.” The author, Captain of the 2nd Rank Larin, indicated that his material came from the pages of the foreign press. However, the Mitscher's C. O. had observed that either the writer had access to unusually good source material or our handouts to the press are much more exten­sive than they should be.

The edition of Sovietsky Flot for 1957 con­tains over 60 specially edited articles of a factual nature on various aspects of Western ^[3]

Submarine Bases of U. S. Naval Aviation; Devices for Hunting Submarines from the Air; U. S. Mid­get Submarines; Submarine Tactics in the U. S. Navy; American Submarine Construction Program.

Topics related to submarine warfare are likewise numerous. One article on the large U. S. hydrographic vessels emphasizes that these units arc a concomitant of the atomic submarine, and that their work is necessary for effective use of the far-ranging Nautilus, Sea Wolf, etc. Additional articles are devoted to submarine photography, demolition work by frogmen, electromagnetic methods of measuring ocean currents. Articles on avia­tion and guided missies are likewise treated quite frequently. Areas of interest are indicated by the following titles: Is American AA Defense Airtight? (on the Terrier missile); Guided Missiles in U. S. Squadron Leaders; Liquid Fuel Rockets; Plans for Re-arming U. S. Aviation; U. S. Em­barked Aviation; American Early Warning Sys­tem; Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles; Use of Helicopters in a Naval Theater; Guided Missile Ships (several articles); French Helicopter Carrier Cruiser. While wasting no time on superfluous words, the tone of all technical material un­derlines the “aggressive” purpose of all NATO and U. S. military units and weapons.

Reader Participation

Aside from the political and technical phases of Sovietsky Flat already discussed, there is relatively little attention paid to the “public relation” side of the journal. Despite one or two lengthy articles on the need for “self­criticism,” one finds almost no examples of this Communistic dodge^[4] in current issues of Sovietsky Flot. Three of the book reviews on glossaries and manuals are strongly con­demnatory, and one Captain writes a severe criticism of the neglect of foreign language study in the fleet and the naval schools.

Humor is almost totally absent in the 1957 Sovietsky Flot. Even the fel'ton⁵ which some­times borders on the cleverness of traditional Russian satire in Pravda and Izvestia is rare in the fleet daily. Political cartoons of the bestial style found in the “humor” magazine Krokodil and reminiscent of the wartime anti­Nazi drawings are becoming more frequent. The almost exclusive target of these and other barbs is of course the United States of Amer­ica. Several alleged reader questions are used as sounding boards for discussions of the fol­lowing “capitalistic lies”: Disappearance of Classes in Capitalistic Society; The So-Called National Communisms as Soviet Stooges; Local Self-Government in Bourgeois “Democracies." In fine, reader participation in Sovietsky Flot is less than it seemed to be in the Krasny Flot of ten years ago.

At first glance, the four-page daily news­paper of the Soviet Fleet looks as boring and uninspiring as any other periodical from the gray world behind the Iron Curtain. Indeed, no Western reader would study these columns without a specific purpose in view. However, its content reflects the activities of a fleet that has grown from an almost insignificant ton­nage at the end of World War II to one that rivals some of the leading nations of the West. When we consider that the entire maritime technical development of the forties took place without the participation of the Soviet navy, it is all the more remarkable to find Soviet personnel of 1957 thoroughly con­versant with all phases of naval technology. While the fleet newspaper does not reveal many specific details of Soviet devices, its brief articles on Western units and weapons are more complete than one could find in any of the other European naval journals. In addi­tion, it is apparent that all such articles are edited specifically for Sovietsky Flot. Finally, it is carrying out its mission in the fullest politico-military sense of the all-out party agitator.

A Bad Signaling Mistake in English Marine Art

(See pages 837-838, August, 1957 Proceedings)

Captain G. Villiers, Royal Navy, Re­tired.—Arising out of Commander Hilary Mead’s article in your August issue entitled

⁶ The fel'ton, in contrast to the feuilleton, its French namesake, is a short satirical essay on current abuses or foibles either in Russia or abroad. It is the only source of humor or racy language in the Soviet press, but rarely attains the level of old Russian satire.

“Signaling in English Marine Art,” I am re­minded by that photograph of the Naval Re­view at Spithead in 1911 and one of the most serious mistakes in flag signaling which has ever been perpetrated by a marine artist. I was present at that Coronation Review, be­ing the Signal Officer on the staff of the Rear Admiral commanding the 5th Cruiser Squad­ron who was flying his flag in H.M.S. Shan­non.

Mr. Wyllie, Sr., was an old friend of my Admiral and had been invited by him not only to witness the Review from the Shannon but to remain on as his guest for ten days after the Review, during which time the fleet would be exercising in the North Sea on pas­sage to its more northern bases.

The Fleet put to sea immediately the Re­view was over and Mr. Wyllie, who must have been in his 70’s, spent every available moment on the Admiral’s bridge making amazingly rapid and accurate pencil sketches of the 5th Cruiser Squadron carrying out var­ious movements. He explained to the Ad­miral that his ultimate intention was to select one of these sketches from which he would make a painting of the 5th Cruiser Squadron at sea and send it to the Royal Academy.

I at once impressed on this famous artist that in that case it was absolutely essential that the correct flag signal ordering the movement should be painted in the picture, to which he immediately agreed, and I under­took to supply him with the correct informa­tion, by flags depicted in coloured chalks, as soon as he showed me which one of his sev­eral sketches he was going to select for his Academy picture. He promised to do so.

The day before he disembarked, he showed me three different sketches of three different manoeuvres. I therefore made out in coloured chalks the three different flag signals which had been used to order these movements. I also explained that as in each case the ships had commenced to execute the manoeuvre, he must show the flags on Shannon's signal hal­yards in the process of being hauled down. In order to avoid any possibility of mistake, I pinned the appropriate coloured chalk flag signal to each of the three sketches in his presence. The next day he left the ship to re- turff'by train to his studio.

Months elapsed, during which I doubt if I

gave the matter another thought, until one morning, when the ship’s mail arrived, there appeared in my cabin a large package which, on being opened, proved to be a signed copy of the artist’s original picture, with a note say­ing that the original had been hung in the Academy and that he hoped I would go and see it when next in town. On looking at the signed copy again, I think I must have nearly passed out! The picture showed the 5th Cruiser Squadron in two columns with the port column in process of turning to starboard towards the starboard column, led by the Shannon, and a flag signal in the process of be­ing hauled down in the Shannon which plainly and unequivocably ordered the port column to turn to port! What could I do? What ought I to do?

I first broke the news to my Admiral whose advice was, “I shouldn’t worry; I doubt if any visitors to the Academy will notice the mistake.” I then wrote to the Captain Super­intendent of Signal Schools at Portsmouth, explaining the careful steps I had taken to avoid the possibility of such an awful blunder and suggesting that my coloured chalk sig­nals must have been detached from their re­spective sketches and that the most famous marine artist of his day had just used the first one which came to hand. Did he think I could ask Mr. Wyllie to withdraw the picture and correct his mistake?

It was some few days before I received his answer in which the Captain Superintendent told me that as one of the cruisers in question happened to be refitting in Portsmouth Dock­yard, he had gone up to London with her Captain and taken him to the Academy to inspect the picture and that as this Captain had himself failed to detect the blunder, he thought the best policy was to let sleeping dogs lie.

Maybe this was sound advice, but it made no allowance for the indignation seething in the breast of a young naval officer at the ap­palling thought of a wrong signal being made from a Flagship in which he was serving as Signal Officer! So the moment I found my­self within reach of Portsmouth, I hastened to the great man’s studio with the signed copy he had given me and told him it would re­main for ever hanging back to front unless he agreed to correct it. The artist was truly con­trite and in due course returned the copy to me, displaying the correct signal.

In addition he said he would have gone up to the Academy and corrected the original, but the picture had already been sold! So to this day someone has in his possession this unique example of “a bad signaling mistake in English marine art.”

REAR ADMIRAL ROBLEY D. EVANS

How “Fighting Bob” Earned His Name

Lieutenant Commander Lloyd M. Har­mon, usn (ret.).—The recent fiftieth anni­versary of the commencement of the world cruise of the Great White Fleet under the command of Admiral Robley D. Evans brings to mind the peculiar incident which gave him his sobriquet “Fighting Bob.” He did not re­ceive that name for some deed in battle but for defending the Lord’s Prayer.

During Evans’s cadet days at Annapolis he broke regulations by hanging a small framed copy of the Lord’s Prayer over his bed. This had been a gift from his mother and its place in his room had been in accordance with her instructions. During a routine room inspec­tion the O. O. D. told his orderly to remove this unauthorized item. Young Evans there­upon struck a pugilistic pose, indicating in no uncertain terms his readiness to fight in order to keep it in place. The amazed inspect­ing officer referred the matter to the Com­mandant.

The Commandant duly decided that the Secretary of the Navy should make a deci­sion. Meanwhile Evans’s home town friends had sent a resolution to the President in the young officer’s favor. The outcome was a spe­cial order permitting the Lord’s Prayer to hang over “Fighting Bob’s” bed. The name stuck.

Proposed “Arizona” Memorial

Captain Richard L. Fruin, mc, usn.—I have decided to write regarding the proposed memorial at the site of and including the sunken Arizona. This prospect always has had unpleasant, disquieting, distressing, and some­what embarrassing connotations to me. To pour $500,000 into a permanent overlay above a shifting, disintegrating mass of de­struction and ruin is not in keeping with my sense of the fitness of things.

Whatever money is put into this project is only the beginning, since thousands of dollars yearly doubtless will be poured into it. The site is difficult to reach. It would be so much more practical to construct on the mainland side a suitable memorial, such as a library. I also feel strongly that the Arizona should not continue to be listed as a commissioned ship of the Navy. There are literally hundreds of sunken hulls for which this practice would be just as appropriate.