For some time I have believed that the naval educational policy does not provide for the now junior officer pilot. He falls, with other line officers contemporary in age and grade, into the more or less inelastic “outline” of the Naval Educational System.
The system is based upon rank and time. The passing years bring experience and greater responsibilities in both executive and command functions. These systematic steps according to General Order 22-35 are:
- The providing for the development of doctrine and military character.
- The equipping of officers with sufficient knowledge to interpret, correctly, the strategic disposition and tactical decisions of higher command.
- The providing of a thorough grounding in the principles and methods of naval strategy and tactics and in joint operations with the Army.
- The equipping of those in high command with a thorough knowledge of our nation’s policies and the correct conception of the strategy necessary to secure our national success.
These steps with reference to time according to the “Outline of Naval Educational System” are:
- —1st to 17th year
- —18th to 26th year
- —27th to 32nd year
- —While in high command
The aviation officer is a line officer. There should be no difference outside of their specialization. But this very specialization restricts the majority at the outset from attendance at the Postgraduate School.
Bureau of Navigation Circular Letter 86-31 with reference to the Postgraduate School reads:
The plan for officer education contemplates that eventually all line officers shall take the general line course at the Postgraduate School, when ordered to their first tour of shore duty.
The basis of this plan is that every line officer, while maintaining a thorough general knowledge of the naval profession, shall have special knowledge of at least one branch of that profession.
The non-pilot officer after 7 continuous years of experience in various departments on various types of ships is given a “refresher.” The “Outline” calls for 175. Of this number 12 will be aviators.
Apparently the aviator does not need a “refresher.” Aviators pride themselves on qualifying at every opportunity as officers of the deck under way at sea in formation—even to top watch in the engineering divisions. Every outward indication is that of thorough familiarity and competence. Yet can this be absolute when on carriers they can only periodically swing within the orbit of ship routine? Patrol boats at present are far removed though they are rapidly assuming dimensions, characteristics, and responsibilities of the smaller ships, and in the observation and scouting squadrons attached to battleships and cruisers we find the aviation detachment an appendage of the gunnery division, manned by 4-6 officers. On the whole, the aviator will be absent too much to “team in harness” week in and week out as the non-pilot officer is accustomed. Their very numbers are also contributory.
Perhaps this is not necessary. The ship’s officers’ responsibility may be said to start in the internals of the ship and carry out to gun range, the aviator’s responsibility to commence at gun range and extend to the limit of his plane’s endurance.
If so, this entails knowledge beyond that of his contemporary in age and grade aboard ship, requirements the “Outline” meets only beyond the seventeenth year of commissioned service. The present squadron commanders average 16 to 18 years; their immediate juniors, the section leaders, from 11 to 16.
Forgetting the immediate juniors for the moment, let us investigate the qualifications of the present squadron commander, neglecting experience and using instruction and self-instruction as a criterion.
First, a numerical graph, Fig. 1. The ordinates are numbers in the class or group commencing with 1917 to and including 1930. The abscissa are classes and groups between classes. The unnumbered blocks are non-academy graduates in their respective seniority and (X) indicates additional numbers in grade of lieutenant resulting from non-selection (1937 Register used for figures throughout this article).
Each block’s size corresponds to the numbers in the class or group. The black area denotes the percentage designated aviators. Twenty-two per cent of the numerical total of all classes and groups in 1917 to and including 1930 are aviation officers.
Figure 2 is a percentage block graph of these classes and groups who have attended the Postgraduate School. The solid line ordinates are percentages of non-aviation officers to the total of non-aviation officers who have, in each class or group, completed postgraduate instruction, and the dotted line ordinates are similarly computed for aviation officers against the total of aviation officers.
These aviation officers normally become operating specialists, but a portion of the course pertains to strategy and tactics.
Necessarily, all cannot attend the Postgraduate School. But an ordinate of 163 and an ordinate of 12 drawn across Fig. 1 manifests the disparity of utilization of this educational facility when 22 per cent of the total are aviation officers.
The final recourse then for the aviator is completion of the Junior War College course or the correspondence course in strategy and tactics. Figure 3 is a percentage block graph of this. The Junior War College class, although optimistically calling for 62 officers, rarely attains an average of 15. Of these, only 2 or 3 will be aviators. The class of 1924 (Aviators 1919-20) is the last class graphed as having completed the course. All those to the right indicate correspondents. Here the aviator approaches the non-pilot officer’s achievements. However, if the ordinates of Fig. 2 are added to those of Fig. 3, the disparity is even more pronounced.
Figure 4 concerns attendance at the Chemical Warfare School. Here again the dotted line falls below the solid one. This figure is included as chemical warfare is considered by many to be best adapted to and employed in aviation.
These graphs are indicative of the handicaps that the aviation officer must contend with when he seeks his proportionate share of the Navy’s educational institutions.
For the immediate juniors, their opportunities will have been even fewer.
You will ask why the concern about the juniors? What difference is there between the non-pilot and pilot officer of the same age and grade in discharge of their duties? The present system is working well if admiration by foreign services is approbation. Time, we may suppose, will bring all things, but the word “eventually” can hardly be a synonym of “preparedness.” Are we not making the age-old mistake of being material-minded and overlooking training?
We must constantly keep in mind an immediate “M” day, when in the ensuing period the aeronautical organization will divide and then divide again. Officers will rise to command ranks from positions well below the present section leaders. The first reserves will know how to fly but they will have an insatiable thirst for the knowledge of how to correctly employ this scintillating weapon of opportunity.
Will these now junior officers know the answers? Can they build, and build rapidly, a unit equivalent to that in which they have but lately been “just pilots”? Rapid expansion and heavy attrition will wreak havoc in the first team. Let us look to the substitutes on the bench.
Necessity dictates that our educational system be shore based. Shortage of aviation officers precludes proportionate participation in existing institutions. Perforce, any additions to these now lie within the present aeronautical organization ashore. An approximate tabulation of aviation officers attached to the various stations follows:
Bureau Activities 50
Aircraft Inspectors 10
NAS, Anacostia 15
NAS, Norfolk 20
NAS, Philadelphia 20
NAS, San Diego 25
VN-8D5, Annapolis 3
NAS, Pensacola 85
FAB, Coco Solo 42
FAB, Pearl Harbor 80
Under Instruction (P. G.) 36
Miscellaneous 10
General Order 22-35 in part reads:
At each shore station where large numbers of officers are assembled schools based on that of the junior class of the Naval War College will be conducted on an entirely voluntary basis for the training of such officers that desire to attend. It is desired that Commandants of shore stations encourage the formation of such classes.
It would seem that Pensacola, Coco Solo, and Pearl Harbor have the requisite number for such classes.
It might be claimed that such a school is not necessary. The existing correspondence course in strategy and tactics should suffice. But it may be inferred from the wording of the above General Order that classes modeled on the junior course at the War College would be more beneficial. An objection to the establishment of such a school might be based on the poor showing, the 15 per cent to 18 per cent of Fig. 3, who have voluntarily completed the correspondence course. Why isn’t the percentage greater? Some claim stress of work—operating schedules—reports—incorporating innumerable changes in the latest “buzzsaw”—radio operators’ tests. Others believe it inapplicable. This fault might be laid at the door of those in command. We have all participated in fleet problems where the executive officer has carried the interest of the entire wardroom by means of chalk talks, discussions, and running information as to what is being attempted and what is actually being done. On other ships a fleet problem has meant Condition One, Station 632, Course 095, Speed 12.
These same objections are going to be offered against the establishment of aviation tactical schools.
The facilities already exist—the publications applicable are available as well as the material, reference libraries, and lectures necessary. There are sufficient aviation officers who have graduated from the War College to outline the course. The course could be short enough so as to create the minimum of interference with normal operations. It must not be voluntary. In addition to the specified chart and board maneuvers, recent aviation experimental practices could be reviewed and unsolved problems discussed. Perhaps the greatest value would be in the planned reading course pertinent to the practical work at hand—guidance to the future study and research that inevitably follow aroused enthusiasm.
Training of aviation officers does not lie within the confines of the present system. Dictates and requirements of its own do not permit it. The time element is as incongruous as the duty. If you will capsize the “Outline” and compare it with the roster of a major combatant ship, each officer from the commanding officer down will dovetail in the “Outline.” The more the responsibility the greater the training in time, experience, and pertinent instruction. Where does the aviator fall into this “Outline”? He is near the bottom, though we can venture the thought that he possesses the abilities and qualifications of his running mates. Yet it is important that this officer, especially, be able to interpret, correctly, the strategical disposition and tactical decisions of his leaders.
Major combatant units are commanded by officers so trained. Minor units all are in direct communication with qualified and experienced leaders within the command. Units on detached duty will perforce be independent, and it is in this category that aviation finds itself.
Scouting and patrol entails extremely brief, accurate, and informative reports. Decisions of the utmost importance hinge on the ability of these aviation officers to see and know what they are seeing and then report it intelligently. Baudry’s formula for conservation of time is perception plus understanding plus reflection plus orders equals movement. Unseen, these officers group about the admiral’s plotting chart.
Independent duty above all else requires indoctrination. When communications are jammed, the tactical situation shifting rapidly, imperative missions may become a waste of striking power delivered with a minimum of effect on the tactical situation.
Need for such a school has been voiced for many years in the aviation arm of the Fleet. It is the question of taking time— to make time—in time. And when the time comes, these aviation officers will possess the training and indoctrination necessary for analysis, decision, and competent command.
★
Our First Naval School
Commodore William Bainbridge arrived at Boston in his flagship, the ship of the line Independence, on December 7, 1815, from duty in the Mediterranean. He remained in command of this ship and the Boston station for several years. Three days after his arrival he addressed a letter to Chaplain Cheever Felch, establishing the first naval school for officers ever organized in the United States Navy. The letter reads:
United States Ship Independence
Boston Harbor, December 10, 1815
Sir,—I have to direct you to open a naval school within the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in such apartments as Captain Hull may assign to you, for the purpose of instructing the officers of the squadron in those branches of mathematics which appertain to their profession. The school must be opened every day of the week, Sundays excepted. The hours of study must be from nine a.m. to one p.m. You will daily report to me the officers who attend. Once a fortnight you will make me a general report of the respective branches of study in which each officer is engaged, accompanied with candid remarks on their conduct, attention, and progress.
I am, etc.
William Bainbridge
The Rev. Mr. Felch
In October, 1819, Commodore Bainbridge was ordered to serve as president of a board of captains to convene at New York, to examine midshipmen for promotion. This was an outgrowth of his naval school, and was the first examination of midshipmen.—Louis H. Bolander.