SPECIALIZATION VERSUS AMALGAMATION
By Lieutenant Commander S. J. Zeigler, Jr. (C. C.), U. S. Navy
From time to time articles appear in our service papers advocating amalgamation of certain staff corps with the navy line. More elaborate essays appear in our professional publications. Occasionally recommendations on the subject find their way to committees of Congress. The alleged advantages of amalgamation vary from monetary saving by the omission of staff initials following officers' names in official correspondence, to improvement in warship design, and even to changes in human nature which will eradicate differences of opinion.
"Amalgamation," a recent article in the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, by Commander N, H. Goss, U. S. Navy, discusses the amalgamation of the Construction Corps. Although many of the arguments for the maintenance of one group of specialists, or staff corps, apply with equal force to other staff corps as well, this discussion will be restricted to the Construction Corps.
That a "Navy versus Construction Corps problem" exists at all, or even that a Line versus Construction Corps problem exists is seriously doubted. If such a problem does exist in the minds of any line officers, and is allowed to continue and increase, it may lead to failure of cooperation and loss of efficiency. However, the real problem which constantly engages the attention of the naval constructors is rather the one of the Construction Corps for the Navy. The Construction Corps is an integral part of the navy. Its only reason for existence is for service to the Navy. It has no independent measure of success; its sole index of efficiency is the degree of success or failure of the fleet, which the Construction Corps' function is to design, construct and maintain. This fleet, the performance of which gauges the merit of the Construction Corps, is operated by the Navy Line. What reason could there be for any other attitude on the part of the Construction Corps than one of energetic, whole-hearted, cooperative support of the Navy Line? There are other influences toward cooperation such as warm personal comradeships engendered between present line and construction officers by five or six years daily association in the Naval Academy and in steerage messes, at the age most conducive, to lifelong friendships. This initial association is a powerful influence for cooperation, and is augmented by the mutual respect resulting from later duty in which line officers and constructors find themselves on the same stations engaged upon closely associated work towards a common result.
It is but natural that from the source, training, and life-work of naval constructors they constitute a loyal element of the naval service. They are an intelligent, hardworking, and efficient group of naval officers, who give their lives in service without any hope of ever reaping the ultimate reward always possible to their classmates who remain in the line, the opportunity successfully to meet an enemy in battle.
Prima facie proof of the esteem with which the parent Line of the navy regards its offspring, the Construction Corps, lies in the fact that it is possible, year after year, for the Construction Corps to recruit from the Navy Line officers drawn from the best material which each Naval Academy class has to offer, young officers, energetic, ambitious, patriotic and eager to serve their country to the best advantage.
Naval constructors do not claim to be able to manage destroyers, battleships or fleets better than the line officers in command. Yet we constantly hear, though possibly not seriously advanced, the converse, that line officers could design ships and manage navy yards better than naval constructors. However, at the present state of human development, an engineering project of the magnitude of our navy could not successfully be operated by a managerial personnel composed of a homogeneous type of jack of-all-trades, any more than could a present-day fleet be successful if composed of a homogeneous squadron of vessels. The modern era is one of the specialist. Just as a modem fleet requires distinctly different types of vessels, a large engineering organization such as the navy requires different special types of personnel.
The trained and experienced surgeon, supply officer, engineer, and constructor, in addition to the executive line officer, who, by the way, is only another type of specialist, are just as necessary to the successful creation, maintenance and operation of a modern navy as is the inclusion of battle cruisers, scouts, destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers, in addition to battleships, in the material composition of the fleet. There is no more reason to an argument that a homogeneous officer personnel is superior to one made up of well balanced groups of specialists than there would be to an argument for a fleet composed entirely of dreadnoughts, or for a turret crew composed entirely of gun-pointers.
The modern organization of navy personnel with its separate corps of specialists is the outgrowth of evolution extending over the entire period of naval warfare, just as modern fleet composition is the epitome of warship design derived through the slow evolution of type with its progressive branchings into separate diverging types, and embodying the accumulated wisdom of the ages since the days of the homogeneous fleets of Egyptian galleys.
The American Navy is probably the most complex engineering organization in this country. Industrially it is of the same order of magnitude as the United States Steel Corporation. Its property investment exceeds that of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Although the mission of the navy is that of national insurance, while that of a private corporation is to earn dividends for its stockholders, the principles of good management are the same for the navy as for any manufacturing or transportation concern. It is not difficult to imagine how the directors of the General Electric Company would receive the suggestion that their staffs of specialists be scrapped, and that instead the entire work of the company, including research, design, promoting, contracts, accounting, etc., be carried on by all round factory superintendents with a practical "shop point of view," Let us picture such an experiment having been tried out on the General Electric Company a few years ago. The results not only would possibly have been that we would still be without electric drive for battleships, but certainly that the company would now be in the hands of receivers, or finally liquidated.
One of the arguments often advanced in discussions of amalgamation is that transferring a staff corps -to the navy line would not deprive the navy of the special services now rendered by the staff corps, since the same officers after amalgamation would continue to be specialists; additional young officers of the line as required would be given special training, and assigned duty at intervals similar to that formerly performed by the corps, and thus the value of the specialist would not only be retained but also increased, because the young line specialist would have a "seagoing point of view." Is this argument sound? We would like to believe that it is, but we are afraid that it is not.
For a few years after the amalgamation of a staff corps, before the group of individuals amalgamated began to be seriously depleted, the function of the late staff corps would very probably continue to be discharged efficiently. Indeed we have a precedent for this in the amalgamation of the old Engineer Corps. However, without protection from possible discrimination against specialists in promotion, which can be afforded only by separate staff corps, the young officer is dubious about branding himself as a specialist. Such possible discrimination may never occur, but with promotion by selection either in its present or in a modified form practically a necessity, there is always a possibility that the policy of some selection board may be to promote the all-round executive officer at the expense of the specialist. This factor is psychological only, but it is possible that it is already at work, and that it is causing promising young engineer recruit material to shy from post-graduate engineering courses, and from engineering duty in general. It is also within the bounds of possibility that in time it may be necessary to reestablish an engineering corps, in order to supply a sufficient number of engineer officers for the navy.
To return to the Construction Corps, assume it amalgamated, and further assume that it proves possible to obtain a sufficient number of young line officer recruits at the time when replacement of the original specialists becomes necessary, will the proposed part-time specialist be able to deliver the goods up to the present construction corps standard?
The average age at graduation from Annapolis is about twenty two years. After two years at sea, at the age of twenty-four the candidate for specialization in naval architecture, warship design and industrial management undertakes his three-year postgraduate course. He graduates at the age of twenty-seven. Up to this point he is just the same as any young constructor now graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is surely just as anxious to dig in and try out his specialty as any young assistant constructor to-day. Leaving the doors of the post-graduate Alma Mater, however, the courses of the full-time and the part-time constructors diverge.
The line officer who undertakes naval construction as an avocation, upon completion of his three-year course, is already a year overdue to go to sea, and he soon finds himself busily engaged upon a three-year tour of watch standing, at which occupation he is at a distinct disadvantage, for his classmates are way ahead of him in the eyes of the captain, executive and heads of departments. Possibly humiliated and discouraged, but not a quitter, by three years hard work he gains most of what he has lost as a seaman. When his sea duty is over, the part-time constructor, now thirty years old, is ordered to a navy yard or to a superintending constructor's office where he can begin to learn something practical about his specialty. His outlook is indeed gloomy. His postgraduate work has all to be reviewed, because three years hard work at sea has left little time to keep up on a non-applied science. Also since his stay is probably limited to two years he must get busy and learn the practical end of the game.
Work as hard as he can, our part-time constructor encounters heavy weather both ashore and afloat, because it is exceedingly difficult for any one man whether he is dubbed line officer or staff officer to become proficient in two whole-time, man-sized jobs. By the time he is fifty our line-constructor has managed to get in perhaps ten years on his specialty, and is competent successfully to swing a navy yard job, but he is past the zenith of his career. After this he feels comfortable ashore, but in getting a hold on the beach he has lost his grip at sea. Soon he is out of the running for important commands afloat and puts in the rest of his years until sixty-four as an industrial executive at a navy yard. He finally goes on the retired list with the feeling that he has spoiled a good line officer to make a mediocre naval constructor; of course he is right.
The only excuse for this continual shuttling between sea and shore, which prevented the full development of either marked specialized ability or general military leadership, was to give the intended specialist a "seagoing point of view." The mistake was not in providing him with an opportunity for practical experience and observation, which is a leaven necessary in order to produce the most effective technicians. The error was in devoting too; much time, more than required, to general service, and not enough for sufficient periods of concentration on the specialty.
A fact often overlooked is that naval constructors do go to sea, and that the present Construction Corps, in addition to a corps or rather a technical point of view, has a thoroughly practical seagoing background. This is the result of early sea experience as midshipmen or ensigns in the line, augmented by later, r, intermittent details afloat as fleet and force naval constructors, tours of duty on repair ships, regular service on the Board of Inspection and Survey, and temporary details to duty on trials. Naval constructors are regularly detailed on the staffs of the commanders-in-chief of the Atlantic fleet, and of the Pacific fleet. Officers of the Construction Corps are also provided in repair ships' complements. During the World War constructors served on the staffs of the Commander of the U. S. Naval Forces Operating in European Waters, and of the Commander of the U. S. Naval Forces in France. From a consideration of these facts and of the conditions surrounding navy yard duty where constructors deal daily with ships' officers, it is difficult to conceive how the Construction Corps could escape the essential salty atmosphere.
Another, and more tenable, solution for amalgamation admits that an all-line personnel could not render special service up to present standard requirements, but proposes that the number of specialists be reduced, and the vacated billets be filled by civilians. As a makeshift arrangement, this scheme would suffice. But why substitute plain-clothed experts, at much greater expense, for the present uniformed experts? In the first place, are they available, and would they give better service in proportion to their greater remuneration? Industrial executives, good ones, undoubtedly can be secured, if their price be paid, but the necessary salaries would hardly be forthcoming. The salary limits which could be obtained would very probably be little if any in excess of salaries paid civilians and officers in the naval service to-day. These salaries would not attract competent industrial executives in the open market.
Warship designers, however, are not available at any price, or under any conditions; there is no source of supply. Naval architects, competent successfully to design any merchant craft, are available on the staffs of any of our large shipbuilding firms, but they cannot replace our warship designers. General warship design requires such an enormous outlay of money for the maintenance of the necessary personnel, for intelligence work, research, and experiments, as well as for the maintenance of archives and experimental stations, in addition to design production, that no private corporation could undertake it. The demand for warship construction is entirely too meager and intermittent to warrant the expense. Warship designers must be developed and maintained within the Navy itself.
The conditions surrounding general warcraft design and the design of component elements of warcraft are not the same, and analogy cannot be drawn between the development of the whole and its parts. The purely commercial fields for boilers, turbines, electrical machinery and gasoline and oil engines are so great, and commercial competition is so keen, that private manufacturers are leaders in improvement in mechanical and electrical engineering design and practice. While private industry has very materially aided the Navy in working out designs for boilers, turbines, reduction gears, electrical machinery generally including electric drive, and aircraft and submarine motors, the Navy has played a lone hand in general design ever since there has been a real Construction Corps. Naval constructors designed and constructed the first experimental model basin and wind tunnels in this country, and naval constructors conducted all of the original experimentation at these plants, literally blazing the way for this work in America. It is in the span of less than a lifetime that the work of the Construction Corps has been accomplished. Many of the officers who founded the science of warcraft design in this country after study in France, England, and Scotland, are still on active duty in the navy to-day.
Granting that civilian substitutes for navy yard commandants, managers and superintendents, if sufficiently high salaries are made available, can be obtained, would their service be as good as that now rendered by commissioned officers? To say the least, it would be a doubtful experiment. The management of civilian navy yard labor on ships controlled by naval personnel and on shore under semi-military conditions is an extremely delicate task, and it is difficult to conceive a successful manager who is not a master of both naval and labor psychology, and well versed in probable Washington reactions. Who is more apt to have these triple talents, a naval officer of long experience in navy yard management, or an imported civilian industrial executive?
Until quite recently American naval constructors were all civilian experts employed in navy yards just as civilian foremen are now, except that their employment was usually intermittent. When a navy yard received an order to build a ship a "naval constructor" was employed to supervise the construction. When the vessel was completed, if another ship was not to be built, the naval constructor was discharged along with the foremen and mechanics. The civilian naval constructors who built our wooden navies were practical shipbuilders with a certain knowledge of ship design, but were not warship designers, nor were they administrators of any high degree.
The first naval constructor was commissioned an officer in the navy as late as 1866, the appointee being a civilian, and it was not until 1879 when young Naval Academy graduates were selected to recruit the corps, and sent abroad for special study, that the corps of naval constructors as it exists to-day was commenced. It is worth while to remember that the creation by Congress of a "Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repair," and the formation of a corps of naval constructors as commissioned officers of the navy, were very largely brought about as a result of agitation by line officers of the navy who realized that the highly important functions of construction, equipment, and repair could not successfully be continued by line officers. The present Construction Corps was thus born of necessity, conceived by the Navy Line itself, of which it is a direct offspring.
Unqualified statements encountered both in print and in wardroom discussions to the effect that when ships come to navy yards, it requires greater effort to get hull work through than machinery work, are capable of ambiguous inference. Did such a condition exist, one explanation might be that the machinery division requests are not properly scrutinized, and the work not properly supervised. As none of us believe this we must search for another reason. Can it be due to the incompetence of the hull division officers? Even if the hull division officers were incompetent, would this be a reason for regrettable delay in accomplishment of construction work? Hardly. All ship work which can be undertaken at a navy yard without reference to the Navy Department is authorized by one individual, the general manager of the industrial department, whether this individual be commandant or industrial manager, and this general manager has identical authority in regard to all repairs regardless of bureau cognizance. Why should this individual be more prompt to authorize one bureau's work than another's?
Is this delay, then, due to paper work, upon which it is almost standard practice to blame many of the Navy's ills? In some yards, possibly, yes. But who of us familiar with navy yard operation would believe that any yard division ever failed to spend its entire allotment of funds on account of delayed paper work? I believe that I am correctly informed that in three only of the nine principal navy yards are there separate central offices maintained by the hull and machinery divisions. The other six yards have combined central offices, and work for all bureaus is handled by one standard production system for the yard. The paper work is identical, and is accomplished by the same individual planners and clerks for both industrial divisions. Further, at three of these six yards dual superintendence is abolished, so that each unit of the yard organization is in charge of one responsible superintendent. One superintendent's function is identical for each bureau's work. In these yards the sheer difficulty of delaying any one bureau's work would soon tire any obstructionist.
Is the delay then encountered in the execution of the work in the shops and on the ships? As every yard's working force is adjusted to the combined monthly allotments of funds from all bureaus, and as one bureau's funds cannot be diverted to another's work, it necessarily follows that approximately constant forces are employed daily upon work chargeable to each bureau's allotment. It is needless to add that all allotments are fully obligated each month.
It is true that there are many more requests for construction and repair alterations submitted than there are for engineering and ordnance alterations. All of these alterations have to be submitted to the bureaus with estimates, for approval, and the actual work cannot be started by the yard until the proper authority is obtained. This procedure is required by navy regulations and affects all alterations alike. Delay in approval on hull alterations is the same in degree as on machinery alterations, the number of items delayed only is greater. How, then, does this construction and repair work become so vexatiously delayed? I leave the answer to a trained psychologist.
To amalgamate the Construction Corps with the line would have little effect upon the material welfare of the present individual naval constructors. Any amalgamation law would at least be fair to the individuals affected, and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that such an act, if passed, would be advantageous to certain individuals, allowing them to retire with higher rank than they normally would attain. Such proved to be the case in the amalgamation of the Engineer Corps, many of the old engineer officers retiring with the rank of rear admiral. Amalgamation would, however, mean the retrogression of the science of which the Construction Corps is the body and the soul. Without an adequate group of specialists to devote their lives, full time, to the science of warcraft design, this vital element of naval defense would in time entirely be lost.
As long as we are human there are bound to be differences of opinion between staff officers and our classmates in the line, just as at present there are differences of opinion among groups and individuals within the line, and just as there are different opinions among naval constructors. However, these differences of opinion nearly always remain friendly, and should never be allowed to interfere with either efficient team work for the Navy, or high regard for the accomplishment of brother officers. The staff officers of the Navy surely join the country in doing honor to the navy's heroes in the line. What staff officer during the World War would not have gladly exchanged his overalls for a suit of wind-proofs? Our only compensation was the thought that the humble navy yard or bureau job was necessary, and that somebody had to do it in order to produce and keep operating a fleet in which more fortunate officers could win the war. In return for the homage which we pay the line, our respect for it, and our service to it, we merely ask, instead of criticism, the Navy’s usual reward for good work faithfully performed, an occasional hoist of "Well Done."