Comment and Discussion

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Another Look at Nuclear Power?

Rear Admiral Evan P. Aurand, U. S. Navy (Former Assistant to the Director, Navy Program Planning Office)—The tremendous success of nuclear-powered submarines, espe­cially the Polaris missile submarines, has led to a wave of enthusiasm, both in and out of the Navy, for additional nuclear-powered ships in the Fleet.

The relative lack of fanfare in the United States for nuclear-powered merchant ships, as epitomized by the NS Savannah, has cer­tainly not indicated comparable support for nuclear propulsion in this field. However, a recent study of nuclear propulsion for mer­chant ships concludes that for high-speed ships carrying premium cargo, nuclear power promises economic competition with conven­tional steam propulsion. This study has re­ceived much attention abroad. Not only is keen interest being shown by both Japan and Great Britain in nuclear power for merchant ships, but more than a year ago West Ger­many laid the keel for a 17,000-ton ore carrier to be powered by a nuclear plant based on the Babcock and Wilcox Consolidated Nuclear Steam Generator design.

With the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), USS Long Beach (CGN-9), and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) the U. S. Navy now has the ships for an all nuclear-powered task force. In 1964, however, after a year’s delay, the Secretary of Defense directed that the attack carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA-67) be constructed with a conventional power plant. This was done in spite of the strong recommendations for a nuclear power plant from the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, and in the face of protests from the Joint Com­mittee on Atomic Energy in Congress. Cost- effectiveness studies have had difficulty in showing a clear-cut case for nuclear power in surface warships.

Unfortunately, it appears that a major as­sumption may have been unconsciously made in approaching the application of nuclear power to surface ships. After wisely making the first application of nuclear power to sub-

Marines, efforts, has been concentrated on the further application of nuclear power to surface combatant ships—carriers, cruisers, and destroyer-type ships. The chief ad­^vantages of nuclear propulsion for surface ships are long endurance, especially at high ^sP^eed, and the concomitant freedom from the ^requirenient for black-oil replenishments. In their enthusiasm for gaining this freedom, some nuclear power advocates have appar­ently ignored the fact that nuclear propulsion hoes not give freedom from all replenishment. Ammunition is a rapid consumption item ^Vvhich is as vital to the success of a warship’s tuission as is black oil; so is aviation fuel in the case of aircraft carriers. This makes nu- olear power in combatant ships an important ^accessory, but not, as in the case of sub­marines, a revolutionary development.

If our fleets were in the pre-World War II deployment of Altantic and Pacific forces °Perating from coastal bases, the effect of Uuclear power in combatants might be more ^ramatic. Today, our fleets are deployed around the world. The distances to be steamed from normal fleet deployment areas to cover our commitments are measured in hundreds, not thousands, of miles. This is not to say that even in this case nuclear power cannot show to advantage. However, it is more difficult to prove, under these circum­stances, that nuclear power is worth the con­siderable increase in initial investment costs when applied to the largest ships in the Navy. It can be shown that nuclear-powered air­craft carriers are relatively economical or al­most so if the initial cost is amortized over several decades. The Secretary of Defense, in order to accept this rationale, must be con­vinced that manned aircraft and aircraft car­riers will still be vital to national defense dur­ing the years 1990 to 2000. The decision to increase greatly the substantial initial invest­ment already required to create a non-nuclear- powered carrier striking force would be far easier to make if the construction time were shorter and the “break-even” point were not so far in the future. In this connection, it is important to note that the greatest marginal payoff will probably not occur until the last major combatant ship is “nuclearized,” hope­fully by the year 2000.

In the light of these economic problems, has the Navy taken a broad enough look at how to capitalize on the technological lead this country now enjoys in nuclear power? For surface ships, the main advantages offered by nuclear power are logistic, not combatant, in nature. Perhaps then the logistic force is where we should look in order to reduce the size and the risk of the initial investment.

Certainly the risk of military obsolescence

If a logistics ship, like the USS Shasta (AE-6), were to be nuclear powered, would she give the Navy a better re­turn on its nuclear power investment than does a surface combatant, like the USS Enterprise (CV AN-65 )? A con­tributor to the forum calls for a study of this aspect of making the Navy’s ships nuclear powered.

in logistic ships is relatively low. All of the armed services need sea logistics, and will for the foreseeable future. The payoff in logistic ships could probably be had in a shorter time. Reactors for such ships could be considerably cheaper, since they would be much smaller than aircraft carrier plants and would not have to meet the stringent requirements for combatant ships such as high-shock resistance.

Black oil constitutes the sole, large-scale consumable in logistic ships. Nuclear pro­pulsion would thus enable these ships to be essentially logistics free. Once nuclear power is applied to such a ship, the price of high speed becomes relatively cheap, because as speed increases in a nuclear-powered ship the volume required for machinery and fuel does not increase at as great a ratio as in conven­tional ships. High speed in nuclear-powered logistic ships would pay off almost directly in ton-miles-per-day delivered. Higher speed would reduce the investment in stocks of material in the logistic pipeline. It would also reduce the exposure time to the submarine threat. The operational effects on the fleet served by such ships might be almost as im­portant as if the combatants were themselves nuclear powered.

To summarize, the logistic forces might be the segment of the Fleet where the costs of nuclear power and the risk of the investment are lower and the payoff is faster. A study concerning the value of nuclear power for the service forces is certainly worth a modest investment.

After the service forces, another nomination for nuclear power would be the troopships of the Military Sea Transportation Service. Here again, speed in crossing the oceans would have a direct advantage. The records established by large, fast transports in both World War I and World War II indicate that they are competi­tive with even today’s airlift in speed of de­ployment for units of division-size or larger.

The intent of this discussion is not to make a case, but to show that there is fruitful ground for study. If such a study indicates that these or other relatively inexpensive ships are suitable for nuclear-power plants, then in the time it would take to construct such a force the advances in technology and the eco­nomic lessons learned could very easily lead us to the next step, an all-nuclear-powered fleet. It could, perhaps, lead to such a fleet even faster than constructing a few, specifi­cally designed, nuclear-powered combatant ships from the keel up, as must be done now. It is conceivable that in the not too distant future, reactors will be small, light, and simple enough to be back-fitted into ships to replace conventional boilers.

If, on the other hand, an across-the-board study confirmed that combatant ships were the type of surface ships in which nuclear power should be first applied, the Navy’s case for doing so would be greatly strengthened.

"The Wit to See”

(See pages 34-41, August 1964 Proceedings)

Robert A. Lambert (Supervisor, Tech­nical Information Service, Defense Electro­magnetic Compatibility Analysis Center, Annapolis)—Commander Eckhart’s article is one of the more disturbing that has been written about the military man and machine relationship. There is no denying that some automation is practical and useful. But is this as true for the man and ship in war as it is for the man and ship in peace? Control of local situations from a national level is easily maintained during peace, and central control of tactical operations is desirable to the point of preventing conflict. However, if conflict does occur, can central control be expected to continue effectively?

The answer is “no” to both questions. In battle, central command and control can be lost; often local control can be lost; and the officer who has depended on the automatic command system for “decisions” during peace will be a hazard in war. A man who has not really commanded in relative calm cannot be expected to control affairs rationally in the confusion of war.

The article indicates the Navy is relying far

ENTER THE FORUM

Regular and Associate Members are invited to write brief comments on material published in the Proceedings and also to write brief discussions on any topic of naval interest for possible publication in these pages. A primary purpose of the Proceedings is to provide a place where ideas of importance to the Navy can be exchanged.

^t0° heavily upon computers and continual communications. This heavy reliance is un­fortunate, because it shows the Navy is basing the handling of a future war upon the unten­able premise of undamaged equipment and 'ntact communications. Equipment redun­dancy does not seem to be the complete nor the safe answer.

And what of the man, the professional naval officer, who looks back on a tradition of inde­pendent action? The tradition is dead; only }ts history remains. If a man wants to advance ^In his career, he listens to the dictates of the Present higher authority, not tradition. In this case, the superior is really the automatic command system. Will an officer oppose the system when he feels a “decision” is wrong? At first—maybe; but later—never. Repri­mands for not following the taped program '^v*ff insure that he conforms.

The result of this command system is pre­dictable. Local commanders will have become Used to communicating problems to a higher ^authority for solution. Their own initiative Powers will have atrophied just as an unused muscle withers.

Commander Eckhart does not draw any nard conclusions about the man-machine Problem. But the tenor of his final sentences ^shows that he is not really convinced that military automation is actually as good as it ^aPpears in the other 95 per cent of his paper.

In the past, warships went down with their ?Uns still firing and their colors flying. I suppose future men-of-war will sink with missile launchers empty and computer con­soles unable even to blink bravely.

Lieutenant Commander Richard C. Smith, S. Navy (Commanding Officer, USS Diomas J. Gary, DER-326)—-Commander Eck- oart’s article effectively pointed out the vital ^need for all line officers aspiring to command ^{at sc}a to make every possible effort to acquire ^a technical comprehension of current techno- °gical developments within the Navy. I was ^specially gratified to note that Commander ^,j(:khart stressed the importance of a “thor- °^u?h technical comprehension” of radio wave Propagation. This is a field of study which I ^ecl is lacking in basic naval officer technical training. It is very difficult to convince tech- Uical personnel that no matter how sophisti­cated a particular data system may become, the successful operation of the system is still dependent to a great extent upon the vagaries of radio wave propagation.

Attention should also be directed to certain consequences of automation in practically all fields of electronic endeavor. As machines take over more and more of the routine tasks performed by man, the human operator is left with increasing freedom and greater re­sponsibility for the decision-making aspects of his task. At the same time, especially in mili­tary situations, the man must still be capable of taking over in cases of machine failure or destruction, situations which could readily occur in combat.

The increasing use of man-machine systems seems to carry other implications for human operator performance. Increasing teamwork within each such system is definitely required. Such teamwork is obvious in, for example, the various shipboard CIC and NTDS organiza­tions as well as in aircraft crews. This factor should become even more important in the space age. I believe that further research is needed to ascertain the relationships of social, temperamental, and motivational factors to human performance in such systems. We need to know, for example, which individuals can best tolerate the stress and strain involved in man-machine systems where communications are continually being exchanged between the different mechanical, electronic, and human elements.

In this regard, one might speculate that as the human operator gives up the routine, repetitive, and simple functions, and concen­trates on more complex ones, social and personality factors will of necessity become more and more important in his selection and training. There is a wide range of individual differences in the extent to which humans are able to make successful decisions. Some indi­viduals seem unable to make decisions with any degree of rapidity; others do so impul­sively, but with little degree of accuracy or of success. Little, if anything, is known today about the selection of individuals who can make relatively rapid and correct decisions in complex man-machine systems under condi­tions of stress. This field seems to warrant ex­tensive investigation prior to increased auto­mation within the Navy.

"Cost Effectiveness—Fact or Fancy”

(See pages 74-81, September 1964, and pages 106-107, December 1964 Proceedings)

Lieutenant (j.g.) Robert E. Sheridan, U. S. Navy—In his criticism of cost effective­ness, Commander Tucker has not only de­nounced it as the sole criterion of military decisions, but he has cast doubts about the validity of the growing role of quantitative analysis. His underlying complaint is that the role of senior military officers has been usurped by “whiz kids” employing quantitative analysis processes—processes which may be undependable and even fatal.

As Commander Tucker points out, the Navy was the first organization in the United States to use the type of decision-making known as quantitative analysis. Why, 20 years later, do we find senior military officers the victims of this approach to decision-mak­ing rather than the leaders in its use? What has led the civilian authorities to abandon re­liance on the military for strategic policies?

The record of the military planners is one which does not instill confidence. Not only the taxpayer, but the hard-pressed operating forces may well look with dismay at the funds wasted on such projects as the Vanguard satellite project, the Seamaster patrol plane, the 280-mm. atomic cannon, the Skybolt mis­sile, and the B-70 bomber. Taxpayers have seen billions of their dollars poured into proj­ects which were never completed or never became operational. The operating forces saw these projects pursued at the expense of the more practical and pressing problems fac­ing them. With the skyrocketing costs of the new systems, to have allowed the military to continue such a wasteful course would have been irresponsible on the part of the ad­ministration. The method of bringing the military to heel has been quantitative analysis.

Quantitative analysis is an attempt to make decisions logically in the light of known factors such as technical capability, budget limita­tions, and over-all policy, and unknowns such as program cost, effectiveness, and future technical progress. It is apparent from the re­cent history of military decision-making that these considerations had little weight in the planning councils of the armed forces during the last decade.

To place themselves back in the driver’s

seat in planning and decision-making in the Pentagon, senior military officers must learn to form their views on more than a purely military basis. They must not look at projects from a narrow, one-service outlook, but from the standpoint of the national defense policy-

Not only the military, but the whole country will be at war with the weapons and strategies that are chosen. These decisions are too important to be left in the hands of a group which cannot see beyond its own self interest.

Lieutenant Commander D. J. Klein, U. S. Naval Reserve—As a reserve officer and as a research scientist periodically called upon to contribute input information to military sys­tems studies, I am astonished by the picture presented by Commander Tucker in which a military study is made with only guesswork as a nutrient, and the results of the study can be reasonably countermanded by the judg­ement of the military officers in authority. This picture assumes that the input data were actually available (in the readily available professional experience of the military offi­cers), but were not used in the study. Unfor­tunately, this is all too often true, but not for the reasons set forth by the author. I have ob­served the progress of a good many such studies, albeit of a preliminary nature, and have yet to find a military man of experience at the source of the data. The implication of this lack of communication on the use of manpower and tax money is very disturbing to a taxpayer.

The purpose of a mathematical analysis is not to generate information, but to reduce known information to usable form. The solu­tion of a problem is not the answer to a formulation, but rather the “answer” to the input data, produced by the use of the formu­lation as a tool. The judgment of the military man should properly be applied in weighing the reliability of the information which is supplied to the study. The judgment of the systems analyst must be applied to the con­struction of the solution and, at each step, a small cost effectiveness decision should be made. Finally, the answer, which may not be simple in form, must be reviewed in the judg­ment of all parties so that errors may be pin­pointed and corrected.

The logical method, often called the scien­tific method, can hardly fail to make a vast

all

intermediate steps rather than being used

exercising ^first time

contribution to a complicated systems prob- ^^ern' provided that it is critically evaluated at

^to “refine” a set of hastily assembled assump- hons to produce a set of worthless conclusions.

If the experienced military officers are too ousy or too headstrong to participate in load- Jng the data into a problem, they deserve the headaches of the present system. If the “young civilian intellectuals” refuse to take this in­formation and weigh it properly, they are neither intellectuals, nor scientists, nor ana­lysts. In either case, the country is the loser. If behooves the Department of Defense to find ^a solution to this communication problem.

Protection of Merchant Shipping”

(See pages 40-47, September 1964 Proceedings)

Commander B. Bruland, Royal Norwegian ^^avy (Staff, Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic)—At dawn on 21 September 1964, 18 merchant ships flying six different na- honal flags entered Weymouth Bay, England. I he ships were taking part in a 3-day NATO convoy exercise named MERCONVEX EIGHT.

In this exercise, for the first time in peace­time a real convoy was formed and sailed nuclear-age tactics. It was also the .    that antisubmarine helicopters par-

heipated in the protection of an actual mer­chant ship convoy. Four of the ships in this Allied convoy were flying German colors. ''ho would have believed 20 years ago that German merchant ships would be in Allied ^c°nvoys?

The convoy exercise was only part of a ^;irgc-scale NATO exercise, but it was an °Peration which evoked great interest. Almost ^a11 NATO nations sent observers. And even fhe Soviets sent observers: One of their ^trawlers joined the convoy on the first day of fhe exercise.

The exercise reflects a growing interest in NATO for the control and protection of Merchant shipping. Does it also indicate a ^tllajor turning point?

Since World War II, most nations have given relatively little attention to naval con- f^r°l and protection of shipping. There has ^Deen a tendency to believe that the sailing of Merchant ships in convoy is outmoded in the context of a nuclear war and that a future '^Var cannot be won by maritime commerce.

The general opinion has been that to form a convoy is to offer the enemy an easy, vulner­able target.

It is obvious today that this way of thinking is not shared by NATO’s top maritime com­manders. Nor is it shared by the Standing Group nor the NATO Council. These author­ities are aware of the importance of keeping the ocean roads of commerce open in a war where nuclear weapons might be used. Furthermore, the maritime commanders be­lieve that this can be accomplished and that organizing and sailing of merchant ships in convoy still is the best solution for bringing thousands of tons of supplies across the seas.

The NATO Council’s authorization of a large sum of money for the chartering of merchant ships for MERCONVEX EIGHT gives reasons for reflection and optimism. The con­clusion can be drawn that NATO today is convinced that the alliance will remain so strong after the first phase of a possible nu­clear war that it is now planning and exercis­ing the next important step, namely the re­supply of the NATO countries on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

"Ford Island”

(See pages 77-91, October 1964 Proceedings)

Scott McKenzie—This pictorial by Lieu­tenant Commander Wise was very interest­ing. However, the caption for the photograph of “Battleship Row,” taken in early 1942, identifies one ship as “the sunken battleship Tennessee (BB-43).” The ship concerned was actually the battleship West Virginia (BB-48).

During the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Tennessee was inboard of the West Virginia and was not sunk although she suffered two bomb hits. The West Virginia was sunk after being hit by six or seven torpedoes and two bombs.

"Fishing Boats and Their Gear”

(See pages 58—65, November 1963, and pages 112-113, July 1964 Proceedings)

Commander C. H. Blair, U. S. Navy— Lieutenant Commander Martin’s commen­tary on my article “Fishing Boats and Their Gear” led me to examine a copy of the clas­sified publication to which he refers, Soviet Bloc Fishing Fleets and Scientific Research Fleets. While the publication is quite complete, its

high classification limits its usefulness. I feel that there is a real need for an unclassified volume covering the world’s fishing boats and their gear with a format making it readily usable by bridge watches on both merchant­men and men-of-war.

Lieutenant Commander Martin states that there is no Soviet trawling-factory ship like the vessel shown in Figure 4 with my original article. In rebuttal, the August 1962 issue of Shipbuilding Equipment describes, in detail, a B.23-type stern trawler then under construc­tion in Warsaw, Poland. My sketch was based on the plan of this vessel published with the Shipbuilding Equipment article. The plan clearly shows tandem stacks and the text states:

An unusual feature of the general arrange­ment of the vessel is the funnel placing. In­stead of the normal, centrally located funnel the B.23 has two winged-out stacks, one carrying the main engine exhaust and the other auxiliary machinery exhaust. This ar­rangement allows the funnels to be placed further aft without obstructing the working deck space, permits 360° vision from the wheelhouse and removes exhaust noise away from the accommodation spaces.

As to the length of the fish deck and slip­way, my sketch shows them very nearly the same proportion as the B.23 plan, occupying about one-half of the waterline length. The Soviet stern trawler Tropik also has a slipway and work deck extending from the stern al­most to the center of the ship. From these considerations, I feel that my sketch is ac­ceptable as typical of at least one class of stern trawler.

Lieutenant Commander Martin also speaks of “paired trawlers” which are also “termed ‘medium trawlers,’ ‘luggers,’ or ‘drifters’ depending upon the reporter.” In my article, I tried to point out the great difference be­tween trawling, which generally involves a net dragged along the bottom in quest of demersal fish, and drifting, which utilizes long gill nets set near the surface for pelagic fish. Trawling and drifting are quite different techniques. Fishing vessels tend to be func­tional in design. Trawlers and drifters are therefore quite different in appearance. The words are not interchangeable.

In my opinion, the loose phraseology com­mon in the intelligence community and in the

Polish Maritime News

This scale model of the Polish stern trawler Albakora shows the twin stacks, slipway, and work deck found in the B.23-type fishing boats. Note the bipod mast, which straddles the slipway, and the twin booms. This vessel is 227 feet overall in length and can make 14-knots.

Fleet is neither necessary nor desirable. The professional seafarer knows the names of his gear and his ships, and he uses those names; so should the naval officer. It should be a point of pride as well as an aid to accurate ob­servation and reporting to call each type of fishing vessel by the proper name.

"Work Study Groups”

(See pages 52-57, November 1963, and page 113, July 1964 Proceedings)

Captain Leon I. Smith, Jr., U. S. Navy (Director of the Policy Division, Bureau of Naval Personnel)—I was privileged to be mid-wife to the Work Study Program and the current healthy state of the Work Study Groups is a source of personal satisfaction- More important, however, this was a wonder­ful example of a program which was estab­lished without massive conferences, and which

"'as even innocent of committees.

The story began in London during the ^rr'id-l 950s. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten

Burma, then First Sea Lord, was faced with drastic reduction in forces and personnel in the Royal Navy. He set about finding ways of ensuring that the remaining forces were em­ployed to maximum effect. Imperial Chem- ^lcal Industries, Ltd., a United Kingdom in­dustrial complex, was showing a handsome Profit. One of the reasons for this profit was the use of some 1,600 people engaged in what ^ls commonly referred to as industrial or man­^agement engineering. Admiral Mountbatten’s suspicion, well-founded as it turned out, was that the Royal Navy was ripe for such a

Program.

Accordingly, Imperial Chemical Industries Undertook the training of teams of Royal Navy °Bicers and ratings, and these in turn set up ^a Work study organization in the Royal Navy ^c°nsisting of some 14 teams of officers and Petty officers directed by the Royal Navy School of Work Study which was established *n Portsmouth.

For two and a half years these teams, ^Vv°rking afloat and ashore, assembled valu­able information. In some cases, the most remarkable fact was that an inefficient condi- h°n had so long endured. For example, new ratings arriving at a shore receiving station ''’ere trudging miles from office to office, col- ecting initials on check-in sheets. The solution ''’as to collect representatives of all the offices ^at a central check-in location. The great ^savings in man-hours were measurable. Not Measurable was the improved morale.

A mail room at a shore station furnished an example classic enough that it became a ^standard problem presented to embryo work study practitioners. The mail room was dis­covered to be overloaded with personnel who '^Vere needed only because the room itself was completely disorganized. By analyzing the fuctions that had to be accomplished and ^Setting up facilities to match the ordered flow

Work, the work force was cut by about 80 Per cent.

A fairly spectacular finding appeared in ^le routine painting of submarines, which, for reasons apparently unknown, always took two '^veeks. As this painting normally took place ^0ri open marine railways, the work study

people recommended the addition of an inex­pensive tin roof which allowed painting to be done without regard to the notorious British weather. It developed that the painting could then be accomplished without fail in five days, and the resulting increase in operational availability of submarines was the equivalent of adding several submarines to the Royal Navy.

The First Sea Lord, impressed by these re­sults, ordered officers—including the most senior flag officers—to be given short indoc­trination sessions in this field. Reception to this orientation was by no means unani­mously cordial. Many officers, in all ranks, felt the work study personnel ought to be returned to traditional duties, leaving effi­ciency programs to civil servants who were presumably not above employment on such tasks. It is also fair to report that some of the recommendations of the British teams ran aground on British tradition. The work study personnel looked askance, for example, at the midday ration of grog, feeling with some justification that efficiency might be expected to improve if grog was issued after working hours. British naval logic, however, held that those men deserving shore liberty might be short-changed grogwise, and this recom­mendation was rejected.

By 1959, Admiral Mountbatten felt he had enough in the way of tangible results to invite Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, then Chief of Naval Operations, to send officers to Britain for a look. That spring, a naval aviator cap­tain from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), a commander from the Bureau of Naval Personnel, and myself representing the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Personnel and Naval Reserve), crossed the Atlantic to visit the Royal Navy School of Work Study as Admiral Burke’s representatives.

We were impressed by what we saw. How­ever, we were at that time by no means in agreement that the U. S. Navy necessarily had need for a similar program. For one thing, and with all respect due to our British cousins, the Royal Navy was then probably far overdue for the introduction of manage­ment engineering techniques. Investigations into grog-rationing, better means of handling coal on shore stations and the like tended to

give us cold feet. At the same time, we were all fairly well in the dark as to the scope of similar programs which we were certain al­ready existed in the U. S. Navy. We decided to defer our report until we had investigated the existing U. S. Navy programs and had reflected more on the British effort.

The U. S. programs, if they could be called that, proved to be a heterogeneous collection of management endeavors ranging from highly scientific approaches in some quarters to occasional pamphlets and dusty desks in others. Two facts emerged clearly: First, few of the then existing programs involved the operating forces, except indirectly. Second, few uniformed naval personnel were in­volved in any of the existing programs. In­deed, we found that various bureaus had con­tracted for the services of civilian manage­ment consultants at prices that were, at least to us, astonishing. One firm, for example, had been paid $75,000 for personnel studies made in an aircraft carrier. Eventually we found ourselves in complete agreement—we would recommend an austere, pilot-model, work study program, to be aimed primarily at the operating forces. Admiral Burke, in approv­ing this, also left the ultimate future of the program to be decided by results after a reasonable period of effort. The project was assigned to the DCNO (Personnel and Naval Reserve), and I was given the task, on an additional duty basis, to get it under way.

To begin the job of gaining “acceptance” of the new program, I wrote up a paragraph or two which was included in the “dope sheet” that Admiral Burke sent to flag officers. This gave me the modest bit of “black-and- white,” without which nothing gains much currency in the Pentagon. We soon heard from the vice president of the management con­sultant firm which had had the contract in the aircraft carrier. We met, but his interest faded when it became apparent that I had a clear task, but not a dime. This intelligence tended to foreshorten the interview but he contributed the names of some U. S. firms that might help us, of which more will be said later.

I decided to locate groups in San Diego and in Norfolk in view of the concentration of operating forces in those two areas. Almost immediately I had an “unofficial” letter from

an officer who viewed with alarm such mat­ters as office-space, writing paper, telephones, and the like. It was clear that we were going to need a little financing, but in the interim the two naval districts concerned were re­quested to support the newcomers as best they could.

“Work study” was determined to be an internationally agreed term, although not generally used in the United States. However, it seemed to offer a name distinctive from the many management engineering activities al­ready in existence, hence it was chosen to be incorporated in the names of the two groups-

The modus operandi of the program was pat­terned after the existing British model, as there was little else to go on. Since then many changes, all for the better, have been intro­duced. In the original model, however, I decided on two teams of career, unrestricted line officers, half of them aviators and half non-aviators, with a rank spread from com­mander to lieutenant (junior grade). The en­listed men were originally to be six chief petty officers in each group, all volunteers with 12 to 15 years’ service. We were granted a nomi­nal amount of money, and the program was barely solvent.

It was then necessary to arrange for the training of the officers and chief petty officers of the two groups. It seemed that the first product of the new program ought to be the accomplishment of the training at no cost to the government. My superiors greeted this idea with enthusiasm. The British agreed to fit in the classroom training of the two U. S. Navy groups without charge. All this was done by correspondence.

Field training of a practical nature seemed more properly done in the United States. The question was where? The name of Procter and Gamble appeared for several reasons. Im­perial Chemical Industries had received some of its own initial training from the venerable soap company. Of particular interest to me, however, the former president of Procter and Gamble, Mr. Neil McElroy, was then the Secretary of Defense. I reasoned that Procter and Gamble would not be likely to decline a request for assistance coming from someone in the Pentagon. Accordingly, I wrote to the head of the industrial management depart­ment of the firm. Later I learned that Procter

^and Gamble immediately cleared my request with Mr. McElroy’s office to make certain he 'vas not against the idea. He was not. In the first half of 1960 we had two groups trained ^and, aside from travel money, there was no ^c°st to the government. What remained was, °f course, to see if our efforts had all been Worthwhile.

Response from the operating forces was at first understandably timid. Commanding officers were loathe to admit in writing that fficir efficiency needed any improvement and ^st’H less anxious to call in an unknown team Which might too late be revealed as a group °f hatchetmen. A few had a pet project, often involving an increase in personnel allow­^ance, and wanted a work study team to Prove it.” In a case or two, the project Proposed was valid but did not offer enough |ⁿ the way of widespread application to pay tts way. Nevertheless, sufficient, potentially ^Valuable projects gradually were proposed, ^and in a month or so the two groups were fully employed. A short time thereafter we fi^a<l a backlog of requests.

By the summer of 1961, with my own time in ffie office of the Chief of Naval Operations drawing to a close and, with several projects Completed or under way in the two groups, ¹¹ seemed a good time to take stock as had f[1]^een planned originally. Some facts seemed Hear:

Work Study Groups set up a work study sec­tion in ship design.

•       The Fleet Work Study Groups paid for themselves several times over in improve­ments either recommended or implemented. Accordingly, the two groups were continued in a permanent status. Actually all doubt about the future of the program vanished shortly before the official review by the Chief of Naval Operations with a letter from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Installa­tions and Logistics. He congratulated the Navy on having instituted a program designed for self-improvement and wished the project long life.

•       Experience had shown that the results of work study projects usually fell within the purview of the Deputy Chief of Naval Opera­tions (Logistics) rather than the DCNO (Per­sonnel and Naval Reserve), hence the “home office” was changed.

Some latter-day reflections on the intro­duction of the Work Study Program and re­lated matters are:

•       Once a decision has been made by a re­sponsible authority, implementation can often be left to a minimum staff, with minimum direction, in the Pentagon as well as in the Fleet. Indeed, the administrative checks al­ready built into our system effectively prevent a program from getting too far off course, hence the smaller the required staff the clearer becomes the responsibility of the staff—and the sooner the Navy can expect results.

•       Management techniques such as work study ought to be included in the under­graduate education of professional naval officers. A general order cannot of itself create a manager any more than it can a navigator or an engineer.

•       With the President and the Secretary of Defense once more directing attention to our management of men, money, and materials, our Work Study Program is no cure-all and is merely one of several such endeavors in the Navy. However, aimed as it is primarily at the operating forces, we cannot be far wrong in these times with a program that keeps ask­ing the questions: Why? Is there a better way?