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Vice Admiral John T. Hayward, U. S. Naiy (Retired) — Having been intimately involved in both cases cited by Lieutenant Commander Johnson, I thought I might add some information, or an "Amen,” regarding his comments on the objectivity of such groups as Alain C. Enthoven’s Systems Analysis people.
Let us start with the TFX (F-111). No one really zeros in on the fundamental mistakes of this program. These were such that, in essence, whether General Dynamics or Boeing got the contract, it was doomed to exactly what happened. The real problem has been lost in the continual publicity about the award of the contract. Having seen this from the side of being Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) for Development and reviewing all proposals, and Vice President of General Dynamics, I can relate some of the mistakes. As DCNO for Development, we had begun development of the first fan jet engine
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. The U. S. Naval Institute pays an honorarium to the author of each comment or discussion published in the Proceedings.
for the Navy for a subsonic aircraft to carry a missile, known as the Eagle. The whole system was known as the "Eagle Missilier.” Grumman had the contract for the missile and Douglas the contract for the aircraft. It was a Mach .6 aircraft. The belief that one should put the performance in the missile, not the aircraft, came from a study made by Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville. It was based on a cost effectiveness look at every square foot of carrier deck for Fleet defense. This system died in the beginning of the MacNamara regime. There was really no rationale for this, except that he had to cancel something in the Navy. So here we had an engine with no place to go and a mere 50 hours on it.
Now to the TFX and how the foregoing fits into the problem. The requirements struggle between the U. S. Air Force and the Navy, when the Secretary of Defense decreed there was to be only one aircraft, was an epic one. The Navy wanted a Fleet defense aircraft, and out of the ashes of the Eagle Missilier rose the "Phoenix,” so aptly named, except it was now supersonic. The Air Force, at the dictates of General Frank Everest, wanted a deep interdiction aircraft with the capability of supersonic, all-weather flight on the deck. What a dichotomy, technically! Harold Brown, a good theoretical physicist but a lousy aviator, presided over this struggle as Deputy Secretary for Research and Engineering. It had the makings of a technical disaster from the beginning.
General Electric had an engine design just for this problem, and both Boeing and General Dynamics had made their design around it. On the great technical
knowledge of Systems Analysis, they were sent back to the drawing board to design around the TF-30 my fan engine for the Missilier. One never mentioned that the engine for the F-m was government furnished. It was quoted $250,000 a copy with the necessary thrust. They took a Mach .6 engine, pu‘ an afterburner on it, and wondered why they had trouble in the Mach 2 regime Years and millions of dollars later, it15 finally beginning to produce what 11 should—and you guessed it! It is tb£ engine in the F-14. My complaint is not that of Lieutenant Commander John' son’s, that they had a predilection this system, but that they compound^ the felony committed by the requifC' ments dichotomy by trying and making technical decisions at that level. It is tbf place for policy decision, not hardwa(C decisions. It is a shock to see the no* greatly publicized Defense Systems hc quisition Review Committee (DSARC)Jl the Barry Shillito and Johnny Fost£t level doing the same thing today. one at this level and in his present p°sl tion has the competence to make th£5t technical hardware decisions. WhJt comes out of this miasma will be [hf catastrophe of future hardware system' Now to the CVA-67. I had the Enterprise (CVAN-65), both as my flagsb'f- as TF-60 commander in the Medimf ranean and as task force commander 0 the striking force in the Cuban miss‘d crisis in the fall of 1962. I was the hr>1 flag officer to operate not only the terprise, but also the USS Bainbrid§ (DLGN-25) and USS Long Beach (CGN-* as part of a force. I was an outspok^ advocate of nuclear power for ^
Comment and Discussion 95
CVA-67, and wrote many strong appeals to Secretary Korth on the subject. In the fall of 1963,1 was then Commander, ASW Forces, Pacific. On 23 October, I received a message from the Executive Secretary of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, demanding my presence in Washington at a Congressional hearing on why the CVA-67 should be nuclear- powered. I informed my boss, Admiral U. S. G. Sharp, U. S. Navy, who told me to go. Unknown to me, the Secretary of Defense had informed the Committee that I was not available.
On Monday morning, 26 October, I went directly to the Senate hearing room from the airport. Senator Henry Jackson presided. Also present were Secretary Korth, Admiral McDonald, Vice Admiral Rickover, and Secretary- designate Paul Nitze. Also there was my old friend again, Harold Brown, a marvelous theoretical physicist, but completely without any nuclear ship operational experience. He was there to defend Secretary MacNamara’s position. (Just so you do not get the idea I am being super critical of Harold Brown, you should know that while head of the Weapons Research for the Division of Military Applications of the Atomic Energy Commission, he was hired as our theoretical physicist for the Livermore Laboratory. He never had a stronger champion than myself. However, he is neither an aviator nor an operational ship man.) This hearing is public now, and I am glad it is part of the record °f our fight for nuclear propulsion. Naturally, my only real friend and supporter that morning was the indomitable Admiral Rickover. We were right, hut lost the battle, as you know. She tvas not called the J. F. Kennedy then; 't was only weeks later that the President met his death in Dallas. It is a sad commentary that this ship is named for him,'and was obsolete before she even sEd into the water. When he had visited in the Enterprise, he was so enthusi- Jstic about the whole approach to nudear power. Having spent 43 years in rhe Navy, I look back on my testimony (hat bright fall morning in Washington 'Vlth no regrets. I never received any kudos from the Secretary of Defense nor 'he Systems Analysts, but I still believe were right. The CVA-67 will be our hst conventional carrier, I am sure.
"A United States Navy for the Future”
(See R. H. Smith, pp. 18-25, March; pp.
81-90, June; pp. 89-93, July; pp. 93-96, August; pp. 93-95, September; pp. 93-95, October; and pp. 93-95, December 1971; p.
94, January; pp. 105-106, February; pp. 102-105, March; and pp. 92-94, April 1972 Proceedings)
Captain Robert H. Smith, U. S. Navy (Retired)—It seems to be time—two years having passed since the publication of my Prize Essay caused some stir and a flurry of answering letters—to write a letter of my own to the editors of the Proceedings.
I was genuinely surprised at the considerable and continuing attention the national media gave to the essay. As regular readers of the Proceedings are aware, expression of strong and controversial views is not really all that infrequent in its pages. Indeed, in years past I, along with others, have expressed critical views on a number of matters of naval concern. One significant difference would appear to have been in the early recognition of the essay’s existence by an alert reporter from the Los Angeles Times, and its subsequent transformation into news.
My initial reaction, when the phone started to ring, was to turn down all requests for statements and interviews. However, a senior officer, experienced in dealing with the press, suggested that I submit to interviews. He argued that the interviewee is often able to get across important ideas that the news media, in their familiar concentration on the trivial or sensational, is likely to miss. In my case, for instance, the media totally ignored—and did so to the end—the primary premise of the article, viz; that a strong and effective Navy is indispensable to the security of the United States.
In several televised interviews, I spent considerable time trying to make this point. In one interview I speculated, not altogether tongue-in-cheek, that presumably CBS’s reason for publicizing my article was that it, too, was animated by a national concern for the well-being of the Navy. I went on to stress that the U. S. Navy is not the private plaything of professional naval officers, but is the Navy of all of its citizens, and its difficul
ties, therefore, should be the concern of all. With finger pointed straight at the camera, I reminded the network that it is CBS’s Navy, too. It was a waste of time. Virtually everything I wished to be conveyed was cut out, and what went on the air, out of 40 minutes of interview, was little more than a few minutes of boiled-down restatement of the original criticism of the 1052-class DE—which was not even the main thrust of the article. As to why this occurred—and I talked to the newsmen about it later—I satisfied myself that their reasons were not sinister; rather, it simply resulted from the inherent nature of the news-dispensing business itself. When we strip away the pretensions of the media as being singular guardians of the truth, news is a commodity that is packaged and sold like any other. And the news that sells best is tinged with drama and conflict. Most of what I had to say was apparently considered too dull, too esoteric to rouse the average viewer from his nightly torpor before the little screen; in short, it was not sufficiently newsworthy, and therefore had to be compressed to the very core of its controversy.
During a few months immediately following the Essay’s publication, I was approached by a TV network several times to participate in a "Special” ostensibly dedicated to solving the problems the U. S. Navy faces in acquiring its ships. My detailed inquiry into the probable format of such a show confirmed my initial doubts that anything constructive for the U. S. Navy would come out of it. More than once, however, while discussing with the TV people the possibilities of a special program, I pointed out that the average citizen might learn a great deal from a series of programs about the nature of seapower, the need for a Navy, and what kind of Navy it ought to be. I suggested that this would be more in the interests of the country than some public debate over some kind of esoterica called ASW, which could only reinforce the average citizen’s vague impression that his Navy appears to be confused. The suggestion was not taken up, nor is it likely to be. You will not sell much soap with that sort of programming.
Obviously, space does not permit detailed or individual reply to those
letters which were sent to the Naval Institute. To begin with, there were the loyal defenders of the status quo, e.g., those who, although conceding some problems in the 1052-class DE, believed that the Navy ultimately would find these ships very useful, and glad that it had bought them. A number of these letters came from officers serving in 1052s and, of course, their spirited defense of their ships is, up to a point, praiseworthy. And certainly any skipper who poormouths his own ship should be fired. On the other hand, the mature naval officer, if he is to make the most effective contributions possible to his Navy over the years, both at sea and ashore, must develop a rational, critical faculty distinct from the kind of spirit that he applies to the arts of personal leadership. Such a faculty demands that captain and crew do their loyal damndest to get the most out of the ship, while, at the same time, being clearly aware that the old girl is not Sophia Loren and that no amount of
cosmetics nor any number of charm courses, can ever transform her.
Passionate loyalties to the present, to an existing ship, an organization, a set of friends—whatever—become all too easily transmuted into both a justification for the past and, more dangerous, a commitment to the future. For those who have so vehemently maintained that the 1052-class DE can perform those missions originally staked out for her, it is only a comparatively small step for that vehemence to become a conviction that we ought to build more such ships.
Another category of letters expressed general agreement with my premises, but found my views incomplete here and there on many specifics. Some, while agreeing with my overall assessment of the problems and their causes, faulted me for being thin on specifics and prone to befog my cures behind vague and/or inspiritional rhetoric. A fair enough charge, I suppose. I can only reply that an author’s allotted 5,000 words leave him little room for cures. My funda
mental intention in the article was to incite the kind of vital and candid debate, long overdue, which could help to clear away the fog, the better to see those directions in which we ought to be heading.
In a number of these letters, annoyance surfaced over the praise given in some areas, the stinting of it in others. This is understandable when seen from the viewpoint of the partisans of one or another arm of naval warfare. But, if it appeared that a disproportionate weight of criticism was directed towards the 1052-class, this should be understood in the context from which that criticism was developed. The Navy has had a number of unhappy stories in development and procurement over the years, and others could have been chosen as examples, but the story of that class and its sonar is one I have known the longest and the best, and therefore it is most natural that I should let it serve.
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There was a category of letters—too few of these—in which some of these
Comment and Discussion 97
authors were stimulated to develop their own ideas. I say "too few” because this category seemed to include the most imaginative and the best. Certainly they came the closest to meeting my own hope for the unfettered debate on the crucial issues.
Finally, there were those letters from men who, while disagreeing with my premises, brought forth no new facts to buttress their points, but simply let emotion and out-worn cliches serve their arguments as best they could. They seemed to be saying that nothing has changed sufficiently in the last two decades to cause us to rethink our total naval problem. The dismaying feature of such barren arguments, and one which augurs badly for our future, is that while there are many and valid premises to argue the how and why we have come to certain of our strategic and systems cul-de-sacs, it is hard to see how such large numbers of people can seriously still defend some of the finished products we are introducing upon the seas.
What energies and talents we have squandered, and continue to squander, in defending the indefensible, in fighting problems instead of working towards the solution of those we can solve, while recognizing those problems that facts tell us are beyond our power to change.
One of the advantages the Soviets seem to have over us is in being able t0 put their human resources to work tn a more or less straight line towards solution of their substantive problems, rather than expending disproportionate amounts of energy in overcoming the ’nertia of the system, mountains of needless detail, the encrustations of bureaucracy, and the pressures of politics, it is ironic that the United States, for so long extolled as the exemplary show- ease of the virtues of the free enterprise system over allegedly overmanaged and ^efficient totalitarian states, is increas- mgly tempted to weigh its own mud- ^ed efforts and to look across the seas 'Vlffi a sense of puzzlement, dismay, and a tinge of envy. It is a melancholy com- mentary on the ebb of our skills and °Ur confidence that such an attitude c°uld develop. And yet, obviously, there Js no real cause for us to feel this way. he marvelously productive, exhilarat- lng> and inspiring accomplishments that
crown the efforts of people who see their objectives and are set free to go at them in the best way that they know how, have been proven time and again. We have experienced this in the U. S. Navy from time to time, notably, and most recently, in the development of nuclear power and Polaris, and it is a lesson still waiting to be read again, and with its heartening results to be duplicated in other areas. The Soviets are not ten feet tall, nor have they yet managed to repeal Archimedes law. What they have done is come to grips with their maritime problems, continually reassessing where they stand in relation to present needs and future objectives. And they have set about building the kind of seapower that is in harmony with both national policy and realism.
And, of course, they make mistakes too. We have seen some of them from afar. Yet, they seem to recognize them early, and learn from them. Apparently, too, they do not waste much time in deluding themselves that failures are successes. Nor, having made a mistake, do they seem to be compelled by their system to go into serial production of those mistakes.
We, on the other hand, have become like Gulliver—entangled, half-paralyzed by threads of our own weaving. There seems an endemic inability to pull anything off any more with satisfying results, and a growing suspicion in many that, if we do not mend our ways, history may record that putting a man on the moon was the last time the United States was able to do something wholly right.
The Navy, of course, is part of the nation, heir to its ills and a reflection of its times. But that does not mean that we, too, have to succumb to this virus of haplessness. The problems confronting the naval establishment today are enormous, but we can overcome them as surely as we have always prevailed against our most durable adversary, the seas themselves.
I am keenly aware of the many problems that are not of the Navy’s own making, difficulties imposed rather than generated by itself. I recognize the familiar devils of the Navy—and of all the Military Services—obtuse civilian masters, a heavy-handed Congress, an indifferent citizenry, an irresponsible and
shallow news media, slippery and slipshod contractors, a stifling and inflexible pyramid of bureaucratic power, and the jackals of journalism. Yet, none of these is our greatest enemy. The greatest barrier to creating the right Navy remains the naval officer himself. Within him resides the primary and enduring responsibility to make the Navy what it should be. The rest of the nation may exert great influence upon the Navy, but it is essentially a negative kind of influence, the power to cut, to impede, to delay, to block, to constrain. But only within the Navy resides the fundamental positive power to conceive, to imagine, to develop, to articulate, to defend, and to ram through the programs it believes it must have. And, if they are soundly conceived and well articulated, they will eventually be gotten. Despite Mahan’s pessimistic judgment that no Navy is capable of reforming itself from within, modern naval history furnishes examples to the contrary.
I have not yet mentioned the many letters that have come to me personally, from civilians, retired officers, and active duty officers, both junior and senior. These letters I received privately and they will, of course, remain private. It is up to their senders, at times and places of their own choosing, to make their own stands in their own ways. From those writers more experienced, and more senior in service, there is dismay that we continue to play the kinds of games that have served us so badly in the past.
Among the younger officers, I detected a strong current of awareness of their Navy’s current difficulties and problems, though their years deny them the experience to see many of their origins—and an exasperation that we cannot move more directly toward the solution. Many of these young men have seen Soviet destroyers close alongside their own, and have come to some definite and unsurprising conclusions as to the kinds of ships their Navy is building.
Many interesting records, clippings, quotations, and historical bits sometimes accompanied the letters. Among those was a copy of an article that appeared in The New York Times of 15 November 1961. It was based on an interview with Vice Admiral John S.
Thach, then Commander Antisubmarine Warfare Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet. I quote, in paraphrase:
This country has not faced up to one of the major problems of nuclear age defense. Present methods of protecting the United States against submarine attack "have been knocked out of the ball park.” The United States is not now equipped to guarantee the detection and tracking of Soviet nuclear submarines armed with short-range missiles. The marriage of the nuclear submarine to the missile means that the Navy is trying to find today’s quarry with yesterday’s equipment.
Admiral Sides, then Commander-in- Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet, expressed essentially the same ideas, and the same vision, in a speech reported in the Honolulu Advertiser, a month later. The date of these, and other prescient remarks, is pertinent. The radically altered nature and magnitude of the threat were clear in the vision of some naval leaders 11 years ago. Where was the response?
Another letter, sent to me by an officer whose family’s history in the Navy is long and honored, contained excerpts from a letter from Admiral William S. Sims to Rear Admiral Albert P. Niblack. Admirals Sims and Niblack—that, of course, is the way we remember these distinguished officers. But, the date of the letter was 2 May 1902 and, at the time, both were 15 years away from flag rank. In their 40s, they were lieutenants. Sims was serving in the USS New York on the China Station at the time he wrote Niblack. As Fleet intelligence officer, he stood no watches—either at sea or in port, which gave him plenty of time for thinking —and letter writing.
A year before, from China, Sims had written directly to President Theodore Roosevelt, "I am aware of the irregularity of thus addressing you personally, but the danger of the false impression, that is universal throughout the United States concerning the efficiency of the Navy, appears to me so great, and the need for prompt and radical reform therefore so extremely urgent. . . .” Sims had not yet been summoned home by Roosevelt when he wrote Niblack, his Naval Academy classmate (1880). When he was, later in 1902, he thought he was to be tried by court
martial, but instead, was empowered by • the President to overhaul the Navy’s gunnery. The significant thing about this Sims/Niblack letter is the power and candor of the language. Sims’s words are a reminder of how far we have backed away from the vigor of such expression. Today, even when great issues of profound impact and controversy surround us, the form and the language of dispute has been devalued- symptom of a politicized and public relations era carried to its own reductio ad absurdum— into the bland, meaningless language of compromise and soft soap. Here are a few excerpts from Lieutenant Sims’s letter:
I was finally forced to the conclusion that nothing would be done, except in the usual way—that is, some of the suggestions would be adopted in the course of years—the same old thing that has always kept us behind—the saving of the face first, and the improvement afterward.
The citadel to be attacked was not so much the blunders in materiel and the lack of organization as it was the insufferably colossal conceit, which was so complete in Washington that those in the various rings have the complete contempt for all outsiders.
The work of the Ordnance Bureau has been simply disastrous for the Navy. One good man with the brains to make a study of the requirements of shooting irons, would have saved us all this. It is the most colossal case of ignorance in history. Why should this be? Can this be allowed to continue with any hope for the future? Evidently not. That it still exists is apparent, and it is doing us dirt every day. Notwithstanding the long and ghastly list of failures above indicated, they still refuse to believe that the foreigners have long been doing things that they can’t do. With reasonable methods and this conceit destroyed we could lick the world. The history of it will remain as a warning, and incidentally, as a psychological curiosity; for it could exist in no place on earth outside of the greatest and the smartest and the most wonderfully progressive, up-to-date, intelligent, and great I-Am American Navy.
1 am playing this game to win or lose all. If I win (and success is assured) I will claim as my reward the privilege of being let alone. I am not looking for anything; and I will not get in anybody’s way. I admit a fondness for the repression of ignorant assumption, especially in a good cause. If we are to accomplish seri
ous and prompt reforms, we must be prepared to make any sacrifice for what we know is right. That will sound very old-fashioned in Washington, where diplomacy and policy are the watchwords; but as far as we naval officers are concerned, it is the only stuff that will win what we must have, or suffer defeat the first time we are up against something hard. Personally, I intend to fight this out to the very end; and I will not accept the least compromise for the purpose of saving any faces whatever. The situation is too critical for that. We will have to make a fresh start—have a change of heart.
I am perfectly willing that those that honestly hold views differing from mine should continue to live; but with every fiber of my corpse, I loathe indirection and shiftiness; and where it occurs in high places, and is used to save a face at the expense of the vital interests of out great Service (in which the silly people place such a childlike trust), I want that man’s blood; and I will have it, no matter what it costs me, personally.
The reasons that we professional naval officers so seldom air our internal disputes, and do not fight more fiercely or publicly for our convictions, are many. Loyalty, friendships, tradition, the habits of obedience that must prevail in any effective military organization—all play their part in encouraging, indeed often forcing, a spirit of cohesion and submission which carries with it powerful constraints. And we are acutely aware, too, that any publicly-aired dispute can weaken our Service’s case in battles with another.
But we must find better ways to heat, to listen to, and to heed, dissent if out Navy is to make itself into what it must become. Over many years, the pressures for conformity within the Navy—not overt, but nevertheless tangible and pervasive—have grown stronger. They grow out of the seeming necessity to promote and protect mighty programs whose financing, so tortuously extracted and won, can seem to risk no jeopardy- And, of course, the paradox is that the jeopardy grows in proportion to the very fragility of the program itself; thus those programs most in need of forthright criticism, reorientation, and perhaps demise, can least tolerate it.
Conformity, putting one’s nose to the grindstone, all pulling together for the team, getting on with the job—and
Comment and Discussion 99
submerging one’s minor doubts—is not a bad thing per se. Indeed, to a fair extent, it is indispensable if we are to make anything large move at all. But eventually we come to watersheds where the gap betv/een what we are aiming for, and what we ought to aim for, becomes too large. Then people must speak up and force the issue as best, and as hard as they know how.
A look at recent naval history may furnish some instructive lessons. The "old” Navy, the pre-World War II Navy, so widely considered to represent an undue emphasis on "spit and polish” and hidebound conservatism, one suspects is severely maligned by that too facile image. Because, when we reflect that that allegedly fossilized Navy managed to accommodate itself to, and to make room for, a totally new—and unproven in conflict—form of naval warfare; viz; carrier-borne aviation (and tacitly even to recognize its impending superiority), it is apparent that it was a Navy, despite its alleged barnacles, that Was capable of considerable resiliency of thought, adaptability, and imagination.
Not that there was not strong, internal opposition to the growth of naval aviation. That opposition is well known and keenly remembered by many. But far more significant is the fact that, despite that opposition, the Navy’s overall response, seen in the perspective of history, was to encourage the growth of a significant and capable carrier Navy, in fair readiness for war when it came, and also to have developed naval leaders who understood the potential of naval aviation and who proved from the outset that they could use it skillfully. Thus, when we compare the paucity of resources upon which the Navy had to subsist in the years after World War I, compared to the abundance we have enjoyed since World War II, it is instructive to contemplate the closed orthodoxies that have dominated our naval thinking in recent decades.
Numbers, production, hugeness, vast and unfulfilled programs—sheer size and preoccupation with hardware rather than imaginative and economical use of our resources—have characterized too much of our efforts over these decades.
Only in the development of nuclear power, and the harnessing of its potentialities in revolutionary new hulls (and much of this due to the will, vision, and energy of a single, extraordinary renegade) are we witness to an achievement comparable to the Navy’s grasp of the impending ascendancy of the aircraft carrier in that other era. Rather, our recent naval history furnishes more typically such patterns of our fixed thinking as, in the face of overwhelming evidence of the submarine’s exploding capabilities, resistance to acceptance of the fact and consequent unwillingness to begin to grapple with the imperatives of change.
from a small naval observatory
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It is customary, at the end of some such summing-up as this one, for the writer to include a final pious hope that, all sides having had their say and sufficient heat having been generated, controversy may be allowed to subside and all of us buckle down again to the serious business of building that Navy of the future which we now see more clearly. However, any expression of such sentiments at this time would be prema-
ture. It is not yet time for controversy to die down. The issues are too many, too critical, the points of view too divergent, and often fundamentally irreconcilable, to pretend that we can paper over these abysses of disagreement with soothing words and the spurious paper of compromise. I conclude with the hope that controversy may continue—not at all the shallow controversy of words and emotion for its own sake, but the clash of profound disagreement which will eventually provide illumination—so that at least a decisive majority can understand the facts and see the directions in which we ought to proceed.
I have been both appreciative and admiring of the Naval Institute’s willingness to see the pages of the Proceedings increasingly become a means of helping to generate this light. It will be profoundly healthy for the U. S. Navy if we can continue to air these issues, and I trust the Proceedings may remain one of the essential forums.
"A Look at Our LAMPS”
(See M. R. Bonsignorc, pp. 26-31, December
1971 Proceedings)
Lieutenant (j.g.) John T. Marino, U. S. Navy, Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron Light 31 — It was stated that two possible disadvantages might result from the decision to use the SH-2D. First, structural modifications to the hangar would be required on board the DE, DEG, and DD hulls. This is true, but the use of any presently operational aircraft, with capabilities similar to those of the SH-2D, would have required modifications in the hangar area. The hangars were designed for the small, unmanned DASH, and not for a manned helicopter with multiple capabilities—ASW/ASMD, utility, and SAR.
"Secondly,” the author states, "should the SH-2D have difficulty in achieving its goal in terms of mission performance and livability aboard small combatants, the future of a carefully tailored 'follow-on.’ aircraft may be jeopardized.” This could have been said about any aircraft that might have been chosen as the interim LAMPS bird. Whatever the aircraft chosen might have been, if it were found to be lacking in the areas of mission performance and
livability, the solution would be to determine why and how and then to use this data in the development of the ultimate LAMPS aircraft. Of course, the ideal situation would be to know the desired mission capability parameters, anticipate all problems before they occur, and based on theory alone, design, build, and operate the perfect LAMPS aircraft. Since considerations of money, time, and known and unknown prob
lems do enter into the picture, the SH-2p was chosen, because it was deemed thc' best able to meet the established criteria- It also was stated that the first td1 SH-2D aircraft were to be deployed (,n board ships of the USS Truxtun (DL<jS' 35) and USS Belknap (DLG-26) class*5 exclusively, with the Knox (DE-io,:^ class to receive LAMPS detachments aftef additional aircraft had been readied. Th'? is not so. For example, on the ^'t'1
Comment and Discussion 101
Coast, the first four detachments are assigned as follows: DET-i on board the USS Sterett (DLG-31), DET-2 on board the USS Harold E. Holt (DE-1074), DET-3 on board the USS Marvin Shields (DE-1066), and DET-4 on board the USS Truxtun.
Operationally, in addition to interest in the critical landing, tie-down evolution, great attention is now being focused on the ability of the detachment to keep the SH-2D "up” and flying and on the success of the proposed tactics, which are basically derived from the VS community with modifications as necessary to account for the capabilities or limitations of the SH-2D. Only time at sea and hard work will give the answers.
From personal experience in HSL-31, I have encountered nothing but enthusiasm, a belief in the LAMPS concept, and 4 strong desire to make it a successful program. In addition, it is a chance for aviators to operate in the small-ship environment which is the backbone of (he Navy.
[Ed. Note: See also "LAMPS in the Gulf of Tonkin,” p. 115, this issue.]
The Attack Helicopter”
(See J. C. Cook. Jr., pp. 97-98, October 1972
Proceedings)
Caplain John H. Daly, III, U. S. Marine Corps— In outlining plans for future 'raining of attack helicopter pilots, Lieutenant Cook has overlooked several v>tal facts. In advanced flight training, the student naval aviator is taught for 'he first time to use the aircraft as a weapons system. Because of the existing constraints of time and money, each advanced flight training syllabus logically must direct itself to those areas 'hat are vital or common in either the let, multi-engine, or helicopter flight environment. For example, the ad- Vanced jet student receives training in air combat maneuvering and not in Photo reconnaissance techniques, in line "nth this concept. In training naval av*ators, the goal of the Naval Air Gaining Command is to produce a naval aviator who is firmly grounded in fhe fundamentals of flying either jets, helicopters, or multi-engine aircraft.
The training of attack helicopter P'lots lends itself well to this form of Masoning. At present, the Marine Corps
has only three attack helicopter squadrons, and as Lieutenant Cook points out, the Navy has none. Even if the armed helicopter does become a viable part of the LAMPS package, which I think will occur, there will still be no requirement for the majority of naval aviators flying helicopters to become qualified as attack helicopter pilots.
The Naval Air Training Command is not the place to conduct such specialized training. Training a proficient attack helicopter pilot is a relatively expensive process at a cost of approximately $75.00 per 2.75-inch rocket motor and $90.00 per thousand rounds of 7.62-mm. minigun ammunition. Skilled personnel must also be diverted from other areas to support this additional training requirement.
This opinion should not be construed to mean that naval aviators should not be trained as attack helicopter pilots. Having spent one year in Vietnam as a Cobra pilot, I fully realize the tactical significance of the helicopter gunship, whether it be Cobra or Huey. Frankly, the Naval Air Training Command is not the proper place to accomplish attack helicopter training. At present, naval aviators are receiving their gunship training as specialized flight training in operational training air groups as designated naval aviators. The fully qualified attack helicopter pilot is an extremely valuable commodity in both a monetary and tactical sense. The funds and assets that will provide the necessary training for this aviator must not be frittered away to give a morale boost to student naval aviators.
Equality? Or Preference?
Commander Murland W. Searight, U. S. Navy—The past autumn saw a series of violent personnel eruptions occur on board widely separated ships, all focused on racial tensions. There were race riots on board the USS Hassayampa (AO-145) and the USS Kitty Hawk (cva-63), allegedly started by black sailors. Shortly thereafter, some 130 sailors on board the USS Constellation (CVA-64), mostly lower rated men and mostly black, walked off the ship and refused to return, claiming that they were suffering from discrimination. The Chief of Naval Operations
is on the record as having viewed these incidents as evidence that the Navy, in general, and its leaders in particular, have not fully supported his drive for "one Navy,” free of racial bias. His remarks following this turmoil have made it abundantly clear that he will press to erase the last vestiges of discrimination against minority groups from our Service. I respectfully submit, however, that 1 see both the causes and the proposed cures in a somewhat different light, with some sobering implications for the future of the Navy.
Let me set the scene by getting two points established. First, I will generally direct my remarks toward biases affecting our black shipmates, though they could easily apply to any other minority group. Secondly, I consider myself to be a morally sensitive, socially aware human being, and I assert without proof that I understand what "racial bias” is, and that I abhor it.
It appears to me that many blacks are asking not for equal treatment, but for preferential treatment. From the lowest ranking seaman on board the Constellation to the senior officers on the CNO’s Minority Affairs Council, we frequently hear assertations that the injustices of the past should exempt black from the (white) rules of the present: that whites must accommodate to the racial and cultural differences that arise uniquely from the black experience. Two examples will illustrate the point.
While I was attending a prospective commanding officers’ course, the type commander’s minority affairs representative conducted a seminar on race relations, during which he told of being required to escort a white woman to an official function overseas. Being married, he resented the order. It was particularly outrageous, he explained, because blacks take a much more serious view of the sanctity of marriage and fidelity than do the whites.
A few months later, some minority affairs representatives from Washington addressed commanding officers in my home port. One of their anecdotes dealt with how one Army unit handled cultural differences. Indians in this outfit were repeatedly late for military evolutions, allegedly because the concept of time and punctuality was alien to their culture, at least in the sense of the white
American experience. This Army unit, recognizing this racial or cultural difference, solved the problem by simply ignoring tardiness by Indians.
In these two cases, the points made went unchallenged, and in retrospect, I am certain they did go unchallenged because (1) we were there to be educated in racial matters, and (2) any objections to this instruction would have been interpreted as stemming from bias and ignorance. The last point is especially distressing, because today it goes without saying that any person refuting such statements from an official minority spokesman is automatically subject to the charge of racism and bigotry. Even if the objections are forthright and valid, perhaps seeking clarification, the critic may be accused of reacting to biases of which he is not even aware. This charge is echoed by our most senior admirals, seemingly without a full appreciation of its dangerous implications. First of all, there is a strong presumption of guilt, and the accused is without a defense. Who will make the determination of this unconscious bias? The alleged victim of the bigotry? The minority affairs representative? The Chief of Naval Operations? And on what evidence?
Two allegations of racial injustice in particular need closer examination. The first is that blacks are assigned a disproportionate number of menial jobs with less opportunity for advancement, and the other is that blacks are punished more frequently and more severely than whites for similar offenses. At the outset, let us agree that both statements are demonstrably true, but let us further inquire as to why this is so and what might be done about it.
Opportunity in the Navy is officially geared to qualifications, and advancement is geared to performance. There is nothing sinister in the assignment of a newly-reported recruit with a GCT score of 30 to some non-technical (i.e., menial) billet, whether he be black or white. Many years of experience have validated Navy standard test scores as predictors of success in those fields that require skills measured by these tests, such as reading, math relationships, spatial orientation, and the like. It happens that most low scorers on tests come from the lower socio-economic strafejof
America, and a disproportionate segment of them are members of minority, ethnic groups. For reasons rooted in history, ghetto schools for example, they are not as well equipped to compete as those upon whom fate has smiled more benignly with better schools, a better learning environment. With this premise established, the question is—what to do? We can admit otherwise unqualified people to the skilled rating groups and to the commissioned ranks through OCS and the Naval Academy.
We can actively recruit minority members and give them additional training (Project Boost) to qualify for these programs, perhaps even shave the qualifications here and there to make a quota and to ensure that our leadership is "racially balanced.” To achieve this end, we might even set aside these minimum qualifications for some, so that we have proportional representation in all ranks and ratings. Of course, this approach brings with it the corollary that those who had lower initial qualifications must subsequently enjoy "equal” promotion opportunity on a quota basis, again with a waiver of minimum requirements. Is this right? Is this what we want? A clear answer to this question is owed to all of us, both black and white alike.
The question of equal justice is similarly more complicated than might appear from the viewpoint of the aggrieved minority member. It is well established that a disproportionate share of civilian crime is committed by minority groups, usually against other members of the same group. It is not surprising that this same situation is carried over into the Armed Forces. From my own experience and that of other commanding officers known to me, blacks do offer a disproportionately high share of disciplinary problems, although the degree seems to correlate more closely to the offenders’ general backgrounds than their skin color. Obviously, this presents a dilemma to the commanding officer faced with an offense to be considered. It has been made clear that he may be called upon to document his impartiality toward minority groups in his disposition of disciplinary cases.
In the case of a white accused, the CO is obliged by custom, regulation, and justice to weigh the evidence to deter
mine guilt or innocence. If he reaches a guilty finding, he exercises his judgment for a proper punishment, considering matters in aggravation or mitigation, the deterrent effect on the accused and his shipmates, the previous record of the accused, and the recommendations of his seniors, leavened by his own experience and compassion. In the case of a black accused, he is constrained to more rigid rules of evidence for an initial finding, and to the assignment of a statistically balanced punishment, for he knows it to be a good bet that, sooner or later, somebody will demand proof that he has been "fair.” This raises the unsettling specter of "compensatory injustice.” This is a dreadful situation; let me submit an example.
Captain Blank holds mast on black Seaman Jones for being AWOL. Considering all factors (write your own script), he decides to award the accused a severe punishment. A few days later, black Seaman Smith is ten minutes late for muster because his alarm clock stopped. Since Seaman Smith has no previous record of offenses, is highly regarded by his division officer and leading petty officer, and generally enjoys a reputation as a conscientious worker, Captain Blank ordinarily might not even hear the case at mast, but refer it back to the division officer for counselling. Not now, however! Here is a heaven-sent opportunity to document his impartiality by bringing the hapless seaman to trial and awarding a light sentence to make everything even. Who will argue that true justice was done in this case, no matter what documentation the command is able to produce?
It may be (and is) realistically argued that, for reasons just set forth, minority groups are at a disadvantage in terms of initial opportunity, advancement opportunity, and liability to disciplinary sanctions. Before it is asserted that this must be redressed along racial lines, it must be established that these disadvantages arise from ethnic considerations rather than from factors that are independent, or at most secondarily, related to racial considerations. To me this is the heart of the problem.
No person of good conscience can maintain that blacks, American Indians, Mexican Americans, et al., should be
Comment and Discussion 103
initially categorized as having inferior potential simply because of ethnic background. It is, however, essential by every reasonable yardstick that every person meet the same minimums of initial selection and the same criteria of performance for subsequent advancement. Similarly each person appearing before the bar of justice must be judged solely on the merits of the case in question. Ethnic background, religious belief, and political persuasion must be separated from qualifications and performance standards. Everyone must play by the same rules. Compensatory injustices do not foment justice.
From the viewpoint of many experienced commanding officers, it is very difficult to visualize some 130 white sailors refusing to report for duty (before national network television cameras), and then being treated as gently as those on the Constellation. Whatever the complaints of the dissidents, there appears little question of their direct disobedience of lawful orders, for which the penalties could be construed to be unusually lenient. Such apparent prefer
ential treatment, seemingly based to a significant degree on racial considerations, does not alleviate racial tensions; it exacerbates them. This is the fatal flaw and ultimate tragedy of unequal treatment in the pursuit of racial equality. Let us stop this foolhardiness of trying to compensate for previous injustices by now using reverse discrimination. Rather, let us strive for real equality now and in the future.
Anti-Discipline:
Military Migraine
Major Winston D. Chapman, U. S. Marine Corps {Retired)—The December I960 issue of the Proceedings featured an article,* which was considered brash for those days. It took under attack the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMj) and the "new era of naval leadership,” which was, at that time, enjoying
*See H. R. Lund and W. D. Chapman, "Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1960, pp. 67-73.
a meteoric rise in favor among great military minds. The general conclusions of the article, written jointly by active duty naval and Marine officers, were that discipline in the naval Service was even then being rapidly eroded. Widespread attempts to replace enforced discipline with motivating devices like pro-pay, good-guy leadership, relaxed military standards, democratic equality, and the like, would invite anarchy in the ranks, the authors said. They compared discipline under the UCMJ with discipline under "Rocks and Shoals”—Articles for the Government of the Navy.
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The two authors said: "Iron discipline in a military organization is equivalent to the case-hardened steel gears in a ten-ton truck. When power is applied to the gear train, each gear in turn moves without slippage or loss of power. No gear can refuse to turn because it is inescapably meshed with its fellows.” They drew comparisons between the effect of gears and the effect of belts and friction pulleys which would slip and burn under a heavy load, declaring that no design engineer in his
right mind would consider replacing the gears in that truck with belts and friction pulleys, simply because the ratio of power applied to power out would be tremendously reduced. An attempt to make that truck carry a heavy load up a steep hill would likely result in great tragedies in the transmission, leaving the truck helpless to move, much less transport anything. Thus did they characterize the effectiveness of the military system brought to a condition of indiscipline by the UCMJ. It was a system without gears, relying instead upon belts and pulleys.
With this as a fundamental analysis, the authors went on to describe the limitations imposed upon officer and non-commissioned petty officers in enforcing discipline. They disputed the so-called "achievements” of the new era of naval leadership, suggesting that all the feverish efforts to placate and please subordinates would eventually result in a climate of contempt for seniors in general, but especially at the working level. They said that juniors would feel little desire to achieve exalted positions when they observed that those above them were actually paper tigers, powerless and ineffectual, objects of mockery.
The article was extremely unpopular among new era officers. It drew fire from a number of influential sources in the Navy and there were sneering rebuttals. One strutting missile declared that "A poor workman blames his tools.” Another impaled it with the term, "anachronistic.” And one disputed its tenor by pointing to the success of the loosely- disciplined citizen soldier in the War of Independence. This "success,” by the way, is not borne out by history. "Given the means by the Articles of War promulgated in 1775 for the enforcing of minimum discipline for the very survival of his forces, let alone the winning of the war, Washington was finally able to weld his handful of continentals into a dependable hard-core of battle-worthy troops. Invaluable aid in this direction was provided by a few volunteer officers from abroad, notably Baron Friedrich von Steuben, graduate of Frederick the Great’s system of training. The full effects of the hardening process were slow in coming. Hence, the candid military historian finds more to regret and to criticize than to praise the
military record of the War of Independence. Instances where the continental forces met and defeated relatively equal numbers of British troops and German mercenaries in open battle are few. On several occasions, victory or at least a drawn contest was turned into defeat. . . near disaster in instances . . . when militia contingents broke and ran.” The foregoing is from an article under the heading "United States Army” in the 1955 edition of Encyclopedia Americana. Colonel Herman Beu- kema. Professor at the U. S. Military Academy, was the author.
Any pretense that modern military "discipline” reflects a marvelously recaptured precedent simply does not hold water. Nor is it by any stretch of the imagination a bold, new precedent. It is as old as the oldest profession of all. The name of it is decay, a disease which has infected ever)' besieged military system in history at one time or another, often just before final collapse.
Interestingly, the U. S. Army recently became enmeshed in the toils of antidiscipline, complete with unregulated hair styles, beer in barracks, and so on, only to discover that—wonder of wonders—such things bred surliness and loss of control. So the Army restored many of its traditional standards, with an immediate resulting upswing in morale. It might be counted as amazing that experimentation in these areas would even be considered, in the face of military history. But, no doubt some budding genius is even now working, with Quixotic fervor, to eliminate the uniform—entirely. This would surely be popular with anti-war dissidents.
There seems to be a theory, among proliferating numbers of highly- educated and supposedly gifted persons of great honor, that the ancient laws of human nature have been repealed, or at least modified to accommodate Utopian ideals for social intercourse. If there were a shred of evidence to support such a theory, there might be some excuse for the experiments being conducted with such disastrous—and predictable— results. To echo the sentiments of that unpopular article of I960, "It is grossly inconsistent to maintain a force expressly for the purpose of waging inhuman and bloody war (which violates every principle of God and man), while
at the same time requiring that force to operate with weakening principles which invite anarchy in its ranks.”
Great strides toward achievement of equalitarian leadership have been made since I960. Those who fairly itched to institute programs for destruction of authoritarian order and discipline have seen their dreams come true. The harvest has only started, but it already appears destined to provide us with a magnificently surly and uncontrollable force of "fighting men” seldom equalled in modern times. Perhaps, when mutiny becomes as common as being absent without leave, there will be awakened an inkling that something has gone awry.
If mighty America is to be treed at last, through the follies of propaganda-fed philosophy, it premises a tragic record in history for men who, knowing better in their hearts, simply shrugged and swallowed rather than rise in angry defense of their country’s survival.
Nuremberg in Perspective
Richard A. von Doenhoff— The consideration of questions and problems regarding war guilt brings to mind the trial of the major German war criminals at Nuremberg* following World War II. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) along with the subsequent proceedings undertaken by the Allied Control Council, arc not only the best known attempts to establish culpability for high crimes of state, but also, the Nuremberg proceedings from 1945 to 1949 represent perhaps the most thorough and successful effort in history to stigmatize an entire regime, its leaders, its ideology, and its criminal practices- The years since then have witnessed a change in the popular concept of the trials’ impact on civilized nations. Some of these modern concepts are (1) that Nuremberg firmly established the prim ciple that citizens of a nation must not go along with policies which they believe to be wrong; (2) that a Nuremberg precedent can be cited to the effect that
• Set R. M Anccll, Jr., "Grand Admiral Kid Docnitz: Reflections at 80,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceeding1, this issue, pp. 120-121.
Comment and Discussion 105
nations are to be held legally accountable for political and military actions which are popularly held to be morally reprehensible; and (3) political and military leaders can and should be judged as war criminals solely on the basis of so-called Nuremberg precedents. Regardless of the validity of these concepts, General Telford Taylor recently observed that the changing ethos of Nuremberg is the reality with which the world must reckon today, while setting the record straight might be a "useful historical exercise.”
The substance of General Taylor’s assertion is undeniably correct, and historians are fully cognizant of the importance of myths and changing concepts >n the shaping of events. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon historians and other scholars to examine Nuremberg objectively and, in the light of documentation and perspectives which were not available to the trial participants. The great legal and moral controversies which continue to surround the trial, and which also contribute to the Nuremberg myths and realities, are questions of fundamental importance. Only through a close scrutiny of relevant facts and careful analyses of issues raised during 'be trials, can Nuremberg’s strengths and weaknesses be identified and measured in terms of their significance to today's society and nations. By the same token, a scholarly and disciplined examination of these facts and issues will help historians to render evaluations on the nature and extent of German guilt in 'World War II.
One of the historian’s most perplex- lng problems in undertaking a study of 'he Nuremberg trial is his approach to the complex and multifaceted questions contained therein. The student of Nuremberg merely has to look at the Breat mass of books, theses, mono- firaphs, and articles written by lawyers, inrists, political scientists, and journal's to gain a realization of the monumental task before him. There is little comfort in the knowledge that most of 'hese publications appeared prior to the k'c 1950s, and that considerable quantises of rich pertinent source material ^ave since become available with the Please of many formerly classified or Pdvatc files.
There are, naturally, as many ap
proaches to the study of Nuremberg as there are problems and issues. In looking for a logical and consistent approach, however, the key seems to be within the cases of each defendant and each organization indicted under the Tribunal Charter. Several authors have used this approach with varying degrees of success—the most recent being Eugene Davidson in his The Trial of the Germans. Invariably, however, these authors attempted to describe the 30 trials in the space of single volumes, and none went much beyond the published testimony and documents appearing in the official trial records. In the case of the International Military Tribunal, the Secretary-General produced 42 volumes of trial transcript and documents, popularly referred to as the Blue Series. Documents presented into evidence and printed in this series were collected for the purpose of either convicting or exonerating the defendants on specific charges. Located in the Archives of the major wartime Allies (predominently in the U. S. National Archives), in various other repositories, and in private hands, are thousands of feet of official records, personal papers, and other sources which were not used during the trial, but which may shed additional light on the actions and motivations of various defendants.
My own research into the trial of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz may serve as a warning against rendering premature generalizations on the IMT, and it illustrates some of the pitfalls historians may encounter when studying the trials. It should be recalled that Doenitz rebuilt Nazi Germany’s U-boat arm from 1935 to 1939, and served as commander- in-chief of U-boats from 1939 to February 1943. When Grand Admiral Erich Raeder resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in 1943, Hitler appointed Doenitz to that post. Two years later, Hitler drafted his Last Will and Testament shortly before committing suicide in the Berlin Fiihrerbunker, and designated Doenitz to succeed him as Reich President with Josef Goebbels acting as Chancellor. After notification of Hitler’s death on 1 May 1945 by Martin Bor- mann, Doenitz dismissed Heinrich Himmler from his post of Reichsfiihrer SS and Joachim von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister; then he ordered the arrest
of Goebbels and Bormann should they appear at his headquarters in Flensburg.
During his 23-day tenure of office, Doenitz urged the Wermacht to hold the eastern front so that—as Doenitz himself explains it—nearly two million German soldiers and refugees could flee from the Russian sector into American and British-controlled territory. Eight days after he assumed his new post, Doenitz supervised the military’ surrender of Germany’s armed forces and began preparations to deliver Germany into the hands of the Allies. Subsequently, on 23 May, he and his Cabinet were arrested at Flensburg and flown to a prison in Luxembourg.
The International Military Tribunal indicted Doenitz on Counts One, Two, and Three (Common Conspiracy, Crimes Against Peace, and War Crimes). The Tribunal found him innocent of participating in the conspiracy to start the war, but determined that he was guilty of waging aggressive warfare under Count Two and of violating the customs and laws of warfare under Count Three. Consequently, Doenitz was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment at Spandau.
In this author’s opinion, the legal case against Doenitz was exceedingly weak from the outset of the trial. The heart of the prosecution’s case against him was the conduct of U-boat warfare in violation of various international treaties and agreements. The Tribunal refused to assess any criminal culpability on these grounds, however, because of parallel actions undertaken by the British and American navies during the war. What remained in the Doenitz case were peripheral charges regarding his preparations for war, the positions and ranks which he attained, and vague references and statements which the Tribunal construed as evidence of Doenitz’ complicity in illegal policies and actions of the Nazi regime. The final judgment, then, rested largely on charges of moral and political responsibility rather than on more formal high crimes of state.
Specifically, the Tribunal—in a most remarkable statement—decided that Doenitz’ pre-war preparations of his command constituted an act of aggressive warfare. Telford Taylor recently wrote that, "On that basis, every commander of combat troops or ships would
have been equally guilty, but the Tribunal’s opinion showed no awareness of these far-reaching implications.”
The Tribunal further noted that Doenitz alone issued operation orders to his U-boats, and that the operations staff reserved for itself only decisions on the number of U-boats to be employed in operational areas. This, the Tribunal concluded, constituted proof of Doenitz’ high position in the Navy from the outbreak of the war, and that he should assume responsibility for waging aggressive warfare. In point of fact, my examination of Doenitz’ copy of his U-boat Command War Diary (B.d.U. Kriegstagebuch) reveals that in the crucial months of 1939, the operations staff reviewed Doenitz’ recommendations for operation orders and these orders were subsequently issued directly from Berlin. In at least ten instances during September to November 1939, the operations staff issued direct operations orders simultaneously to Doenitz and to the U-boats at sea.
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In its judgment on Doenitz regarding Crimes Against Peace, the Tribunal
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noted that his promotion to Com- mander-in-Chief of the German Navy in January 1943, adequately demonstrated his personal value to the German war effort, and his complicity in Germany’s illegal war activities. Both Doenitz’ and Raeder’s memoirs, published after the trial, betray the poor foundation for the Tribunal’s statement in this instance. Raeder resigned his position after an argument with Hitler over scrapping Germany’s capital ships. He recommended Admiral Carls to succeed him, with Doenitz as a second choice. Hitler apparently chose Doenitz over Carls, because he thought Doenitz would accede to his recommendation to abolish the battleships and large cruisers. Within a month after his appointment, Doenitz informed Hitler of his support for Raeder’s position on the matter. He concluded that it would be far more costly to scrap the ships than to leave them.
It is possible to raise similar questions on almost every point of the Doenitz judgment. A plausible explanation of this verdict may be that the Tribunal
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found it impossible to exonerate Hitler’s j designated successor of all culpability and responsibility, and consequently, the Tribunal felt obliged to render an unfavorable judgment.
In many respects the Doenitz case was unique, and it may be well to regard it as atypical from the other cases before the International Military Tribunal. This is most certainly true in view of the fact that Doenitz was not originally indicted on Count Four (Crimes Against Humanity), as were most of the other defendants. These questions regarding the Doenitz case are not, of course, intended to cast doubts on the validity of the other judgments, or on the trial pro- J ceedings. Indeed, are historians prepared , to render general conclusions on Nurem- berg at all? For instance, have historians ' sufficiently evaluated the quality of documents and testimony entered into evidence? Do historians know what pertinent documents were not examined or used by the prosecution and the defense? The answer to these questions remains "No.” While historians and others may make tentative evaluations of the proceedings and individual cases, these must necessarily remain provisional until studies are refined and until we come to grips with some important fundamental issues.
One of these central issues pertains to the availability and selection of documents introduced into evidence during the trial. As I previously pointed out, the German documents printed in the Blue Series represent only a small fraction of the total documentation created by the National Socialist State, and they were used for a specific purpose. Examination of the Doenitz trial reveals that some pertinent documentation was not entered into evidence by either the prosecution or the defense. In some cases, these papers reinforce the Tribunal’s final decision, and in a few instances they provide grounds for further inquiry. Nevertheless, there is substantial unpublished documentation giving information on the background and motivations of various actions initiated by Doenitz during the war. Since his counsel, Otto Kranzbiihler, was prohibited from screening these files under the rules of the Tribunal Charter, there was no opportunity to evaluate this information and perhaps bring it to the Tri-
Comment and Discussion 107
bunal’s attention. Naturally, this exam- pie is limited to the Doenitz case, but there is reason to believe that similar unpublished and unexamined documentation exists for other trials.
Ultimately, the Nuremberg historian must come to grips with the question of the trial itself. These proceedings undertaken by the Allied governments should be evaluated in light of other proposals made at the time, the motivations of the various nations participating in the trial, and the achievement of stated objectives. In January 1945, Henry L. Sdmson, Edward R. Stettinius, and Francis Biddle pointed out to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the powers could elect to execute the most notorious Nazis by executive agreement. Parenthetically, Britain adhered to this proposed solution until April 1945. Stimson, Stettinius, and Biddle, however, felt that such summary retribution would violate the most fundamental principles of justice held by the powers, and it would also encourage Germans to regard their deceased leaders as martyrs. The Soviet Union, as a matter of record, viewed the proposed war crimes settlement in a different light. As early as November 1942, Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov expressed his displeasure at the thought of an executive agreement dealing with the major war criminals. Rather, he wanted "full dress political trials” apparently similar to the Soviet purge trials of 1936 and 1937 on an international scale. In support of this concept, the Soviet Judge (General Nikitchenko) stated on 19 July 1945- four months before the trial opened:
The fact that the Nazi leaders are ' criminals has already been established. The task of the Tribunal is only to determine the measure of guilt of each particular person and mete out the necessary punishment.
'Historians must assimilate as much information as possible regarding these proposals, evaluate the conduct of the trial and the rules under which it operated, and render conclusions on the end results in relation to the participating nations’ original ideas and ideals.
The values to be derived from an intensive study of the Nuremberg proceedings are both intrinsic and instrumental. First, we should be able to gain a better understanding of the problems
confronting the trial participants, and we may define more closely particular strengths and weaknesses embodied in these trials. Second, Nuremberg represents a valuable tool for historians which can be used to gain a greater insight into the roles played by the German leadership from 1933 to 1945. Third, and possibly most important, historians have an opportunity to describe and assess the changing characteristics and applications of Nuremberg principles, by setting the record straight and determining the validity of some of these principles.
This is a difficult and challenging task, and one which is often exciting and emotional. Recently, I asked Admiral Doenitz’ counsel why German historians have seemingly neglected Nuremberg, especially in view of the great impact the trials had on the course of their nation’s postwar development. His answer was quick, "They don’t have the courage.” I think we do.
Postgraduate Selection
Commander Edward H. Monroe, Jr., U. S. Navy— Recent experience with the Postgraduate Selection Board brought to light a number of inconsistencies indicative of a rather widespread lack of understanding among naval officers of the Navy Postgraduate Program. Current directives advise that Navy’s postgraduate education is programmed to provide individuals with higher education levels for assignment to specific billets in areas where advanced education is necessary to performance of duty. With Navy’s ever increasing emphasis on sub-specialization, and repeated shore tours for officers in the same specialist categories, it is important to understand thoroughly the criteria for postgraduate selection.
Despite manpower reductions, fluctuating higher education level requirements, and the apparent small proportion of selectees to applicants, the Navy has an annual problem of filling technical seats. While total numbers selected generally equate to available selection quotas, individual academic qualifications for admittance to degree candidacy, and personal availability for reassignment, account for much of the loss in postgraduate utilization. The
Postgraduate Selection Board selects into a "bank” of officers for future PG assignment. Availability of primary and alternate selectees therefore becomes a detailing problem, over which the individual selectee can exert only limited control. Academic qualifications, curricula choices, and professional performance are another matter entirely. The individual officer exerts positive control over these criteria for selection, and it is the cumulative inconsistencies and omissions, noted in reviewing several thousand records, which have led to the conclusion that many officers are not sufficiently aware of what can be done to enhance their potential for selection to one of the postgraduate education programs of their choice.
The Navy postgraduate education is primarily a voluntary program. If no field of study is requested, the officer’s record is submitted to the board for review, for possible eligibility for various technical curricula. He is, however, not competing actively with officers who have listed programs specifically by first, second, and third choice. Eventually, he may be provided an opportunity to attend a course for which he is qualified, but only after a survey of primary and alternate selectee availability indicates that a seat is still open. If only one field of study is requested, and quotas or other factors preclude selection, the record receives a second review in the same manner as those in which no choices were indicated. If the officer seriously aspires to PG selection, he should list three curriculum choices, otherwise, he may not be competitive with his contemporaries.
Care must be given to the choice of courses listed. An officer with a liberal arts baccalaureate degree, whose transcript contains little or no mathematics or science, cannot meet eligibility requirements for direct input to a master’s degree in technical subjects. Even the management courses require certain minimum mathematics qualifications. In such cases, there is little possibility of selection to technical curricula, unless the applicant establishes eligibility through supplementary or "spare-time” courses achieved since graduation from college. Chances for selection to the Basic Engineering Science curriculum at the Naval Postgraduate School, Mon-
terey, also are enhanced by off-duty study. When choosing PG fields of study, maximum possibility for selection can be attained by picking those curricula which most directly relate to the officer’s educational and professional background. For example, an officer with an undergraduate major or minor in Foreign Affairs, who perhaps has completed a successful overseas tour, could very well request Political Science (680) as his first choice, International Relations (671) as second, and Intelligence (990) as third choice, or any combination thereof. The same system follows when one is eligible for the management (soo series) courses; request three choices, as quotas may be available in the third choice and not in the first two choices. Officers highly qualified for technical postgraduate education have an even wider variety from which to select three choices. Above all, programs requested should be based upon qualifications, eligibility, and background. The Navy’s goal is to provide the best possible specialists and sub-specialists to fill defined requirements; not merely to grant graduate education as a reward for past performance or as a career incentive.
A final step in making PG choices is consideration of the institutions where courses are offered. To accept a candidate for a graduate degree, civilian educational institutions generally require a baccalaureate degree with a "B” average, and scores from the verbal and quantitative sections of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), or the Admission Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB). Higher scoring on the verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE, i.e., above 650, may also offset a slightly lower undergraduate average, as might a distinctly high (A or B) average in the undergraduate major courses, when the major relates directly to the requested PG program. Basically, the high professional performer with an academic record of "C —” or below, has little chance of selection unless he takes additional courses to improve his qualifica
tions and his average, or unless he scores very high on the GRE. Naturally, acceptance by individual colleges cannot be predicted with total accuracy, but the preceding general guidelines may be followed by the PG selection boards to prevent selection of officers who subsequently fail to be accepted by the appropriate institutions. The Naval Postgraduate School can accept high professional performers slightly lower in academic averages, with minimal science and mathematics qualifications, because of special courses in fundamentals available there, which provide additional preparation for advanced technical degree candidates when necessary.
Although academic eligibility is critical to selection for PG curricula, professional performance as reflected in reports of fitness, awards, and other correspondence is equally important. Officers chosen for advanced education must be high performers, whose records indicate that their dedicated efforts will continue after achieving the greater expertise provided by the advanced education. Mediocre performers who are academically qualified generally fall outside of the course totals. Poor performers are not considered qualified for advanced education, just as they are not considered qualified for many other Navy programs. All other factors being equal, professional performance will determine where an individual will be evaluated with his contemporaries, and may well make the difference as to whether one is a primary or alternate candidate, or whether he falls below the selection board quota. As in most Navy programs, professional performance is a major determinant in selection for PG education.
After criteria have been met, courses chosen, and all appears to be in order for board consideration, the candidate for selection faces his final hurdle—the condition of his service record. During recent board deliberations, many deserving officers, lieutenant (junior grade) through commander, did not receive favorable consideration because of miss
ing or incomplete college transcripts, lack of evidence of having received a baccalaureate degree, no documentation of "spare-time” courses completed, missing fitness reports, and no record of GRE or ATGSB scores. In most cases, Bureau of Naval Personnel representatives are able to advise individuals whose records are inadequate. Nevertheless, each officer is responsible for his records, and should have them reviewed periodically to be certain his academic history is fully included. Without sufficient information available for PG board members to determine qualifications, there is little chance to achieve selection to any choices.
In summary, postgraduate selection is based on professional performance, academic eligibility for the study program requested, and academic qualifications for acceptance at the institutions conducting the chosen program.
A review of effective instructions and notices reveals that most of the foregoing is well defined, but a review of records during a PG selection board however, shows a strong need for greater emphasis and wider distribution of information on postgraduate selection. Only in this way can the Navy, as well as the individual officer, achieve maximum benefit from this advanced education program.
"Buoys Will Be Buoys”
(See J. F. Meade, pp. 74-79, November 1972
Proceedings)
Ernest B. Brown— In his paper, Lieutenant Commander Meade brings attention to the fact that the widespread custom in the merchant marine is to stop taking bearings when a pilot is on board. The latter practice can be readily substantiated through study of grounding cases other than the SS Northern Gulf case.
If anyone has doubt as to the normal merchant marine practice of plotting cross bearings, I suggest that he should attempt to locate a drafting machine (parallel motion protractor) on board a merchant ship.