Personnel Handling in the Post-War Navy
(See page 187, February, 1945, Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Preston S. Lincoln, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired).— The ability of the post-war Navy to win and hold public and Congressional good will for its maintenance and to succeed in its recruiting campaigns will depend in large measure on the success of post-war officers in handling the short term “civilians in uniform” who will provide most of its man power for some time to come, at least.
Two years of service on the General Court- Martial of a naval district have convinced this writer that there was much improvement to be desired in the handling of enlisted men by many officers, and that at least 40 per cent of the cases reaching General-Courts could and should have been avoided by better indoctrination of officers and men as to the meaning and technique of discipline and more intelligent handling of disciplinary problems both before and at mast. This statement is made with full realization that at least 5 per cent of the naval inductees would have been rejected as pre-war volunteer recruits and would have been in frequent trouble with the civil police and courts and the various welfare agencies if not inducted into the Navy.
This situation is not strange in a Navy which in a little over two years had to increase its officer personnel from around 15,000, including Naval Reserves, in 1041 to over 300,000 in 1943. Necessarily, many thousands of men had to be commissioned who had no previous experience in handling men in civil life, and other thousands promoted to commissioned rank whose ideas of discipline were derived from Warrant or Petty Officer service in a pre-war Navy of limited size and comparatively long voluntary enlistments. Furthermore, the time allowable for officer indoctrination courses was so short and the need for training in paper work and the care and operation of material was so urgent that the subject of how to handle enlisted men was crowded out of most indoctrination curricula. Vice Admiral Taussig’s articles in the Naval Institute Proceedings for 1944 on the Administration of Naval Justice are authority for this last statement.
While the war was going on, the need for victory was so great that everything else had to be subordinated to this end, and the men who suffered needlessly from the effects of unskillful or negligent administration of discipline were as much casualties as those killed or wounded in action or accident. Now that the Navy is being reorganized on a postwar basis, however, there is no excuse for continuing poor administration of discipline, for intelligent and successful handling of enlisted personnel can be taught in a short time to officers who arc willing to learn. For sixteen months the writer gave a 3-hour course on the Administration of Discipline and the Conduct of Mast to the officer students at the Local Defense Force-Armed Guard School at Boston, and since the 6,000 plus graduates of this school went on active duty it is significant to the writer, at least, that fewer than a dozen cases came to the General Court of which he was a member, from the Local Defense Force craft and Armed Guard details of the Eastern Sea Frontier.
The details of good discipline and personnel handling are very simple in principle, but they require the application of intelligence and the sacrifice of time if the officer really desires to understand their values. The principles of successful handling of naval personnel can be found under the title “Further Notes on Leadership” on pages 40 and 41 of the Bureau of Naval Personnel Training Bulletin, Issue No. 14918 for May 15, 1944, and in Commander Radom’s article “Our Civilian Navy,” in the Naval Institute Proceedings for February, 1945, especially his suggestions for better personnel handling on pages 180-191 of this article.
Twenty years of research on the subject of “Human Engineering” at Stevens Institute of Technology and elsewhere have established that the ability to handle other men successfully is an aptitude which men either possess or lack in varying degree. Training cannot do much to compensate for lack of this aptitude but helps to develop it in those without previous experience in its exercise. The possession or lack of this aptitude can be reliably determined by tests developed at the Human Engineering Laboratory at Stevens Institute. These tests can be given in half an hour per person and have to be given to individuals by trained interviewers but they are very effective in determining the possession of aptitude of personnel handling and its degree. One test is a word reaction test, the other a test of vocabulary. Every successful executive tested by the Human Engineering Laboratories at Stevens and elsewhere (many thousands so far) has been distinguished by a vocabulary superior even to those of editors, lawyers, and college professors in its size and accuracy of use, regardless of the executive’s educational background. It would be very helpful to morale if all officers who had to handle personnel could be selected by means of these tests, even though they require individual administration.
The Boston Local Defense Force-Armed Guard School Course on the Administration of Discipline and the Conduct of Mast took only three hours in all to give, however, and can be given to officer classes of any size up to 250 students at once, in classroom or a ship’s wardroom. The writer was privileged to give parts of it aboard several ships while they were fitting out, as well as at the School. If the Training Division of the Bureau of Personnel would see its way clear to indoctrinate all officers retained in the post-war Navy in the successful handling of enlisted personnel, it would go far to promote better morale among its “civilians in uniform” and thus win good will towards the Navy by the public and Congress.
Early Days in Old Newport, Rhode Island
Dr. John S. Engs.—A recent note in the Oakland Tribune, giving a brief sketch of Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, awakens in me memories of early days in old Newport.
Sea Duty
During the Spanish-American War, my uncle, being at the time Chief of the Bureau of Equipment, braved the wrath of one of West Virginia’s coal barons when he pronounced the baron’s coal unfit for use in the Navy. The baron, who was also a Senator, came storming into the office of the Bureau and wanted to know why his bid was not accepted. My uncle told him why. “Very well, young man,” said the Senator, “we’ll lift you from your soft job and send you to sea.” “Nothing would suit me better,” said my uncle. “In wartime we all prefer sea service: it pays dividends; land service doesn’t.”
Admiral Luce at Newport
According to the clipping, Admiral Luce was from 1881 to 1884 in command of the training squadron and later president of the Naval War College. I think that it was during those years that he became a permanent resident of Newport. It must have been at times during those years that I had a glimpse of him leaving his residence on Kay Street, followed a few paces behind by his coxwain Jack, the finest specimen of jack- tar in our Navy at the time. Jack was the pride of the water front. One never saw his uniform other than immaculate, and when serving as orderly to the Admiral, his inimitable sea roll added to the glory of our old Navy.
Lopez Wharf
Prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century there were no gathering places on the water front of Newport for retired merchants and seafaring men except the counting rooms of the more prominent merchants of those days. One was on Commercial Wharf where Lawt and John Coggeskall carried on a ship chandler’s business; another was in the rear of Mr. Barker’s store where army and naval officers and a few town merchants were wont to foregather for an
Discussions, Comments, and Notes
1945]
afternoon hour or so to discuss events of the past; another comprising half of the office space in the rear of Finch Engs & Co.’s Store was a few blocks north on Thames St. at the head of Lopez Wharf. Our family acquired Lopez Wharf and some adjoining property early in the nineteenth century. After I moved to the Pacific coast that property and a large area south was sold to the government for use by the Navy. Aaron Lopez, who came to America about the year 1746, was, I believe, the original owner. The old warehouses running east and west on the north side of the dock were still in use as sheds for choice lumber when I left for California in 1890. A new shingled roof and other refurbishings had been attended to in 1877. The original swamp-cedar shingles, hand-split and shaped, allowing for loss through weathering must have been nearly an inch thick at the butt. My father told me, at the time, that in its construction, timbers taken from an old slave-pen were used.
In the days prior to the Revolutionary War full cargoes of rum were sent to the “Guinea Coast” in the ships of Aaron Lopez and other Rhode Island merchants; it was there bartered for rich cargoes which were brought to America and sold, some in the West Indies, others in Newport. Beginning years ago, grave problems sprang from the landing of those return cargoes; to this day they are far from being settled by our lawmakers.
Captain Marin
On a day when the old ferry building at the foot of Market Street, San Francisco,
1499 was still in service, 1 sat on one of the wooden benches watching a group of Navy neople waiting to pass through the turnstile. It was like being with people I knew. Without seeing me my father entered. Stopping in front of where I sat he stood gazing at them with an expression of admiration. Then I spoke to him. He sat at my side and said, “Isn’t that fine! The finest gentlemen in the world are the officers of the United States Navy.” Among his closest friends at the close of the Civil War were naval and army officers. Shortly before his death some forty-odd years ago, he told me of several incidents that occurred in his younger days. Among them was his first meeting with Captain Marin. “On the day I met Captain Marin in Bob Barker’s store they were discussing the Civil War. The Captain, who like Admiral Luce was a veteran, narrated how in the early days of the war, while cruising in the Mediterranean, lie entered a Spanish port. After saluting the flag at the entrance he saw farther in some British ships whose flag he likewise saluted but received no answering salute. After waiting some time he ordered his gig and was rowed over to learn the reason, which the flagship seemed to find difficulty in explaining. Before returning to his ship he said, ‘I’ll give you the necessary time to find out.’ Then he was rowed back. The answering salute to his flag came just as he reached his own ship. ‘My ship,’ said he, ‘was a little d— tub of a sloop of war but if the salute had not come, I would have launched a broadside though they would have probably blown me out of the water’.”
............................................................................................................... ■— ★ ----------------------------------------------------------------
However defensive in origin or in political character a war may be, the assumption of a simple defensive in war is ruin. War, once declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not be fended off, but smitten down. You may then spare him every exaction, relinquish every gain; but till down he must be struck incessantly and remorselessly. . . . Seaworthiness, and reasonable speed under all weather conditions arc qualities necessary to every constituent of a fleet; but, over and above these, the backbone and real power of any navy are the vessels which, by due proportion of defensive and offensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks.—Maiian, from an article “Preparedness for Naval War," Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, March, 1S97.