This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
Every big organization has a catchall procedure for handling its routine functions. The General Prudential Rule covers everyday matters in maritime law, tort cases govern in civil law, and Article 34, Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline, reigns in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OpNav), my section, OP-211, was the catchall drawer. The section included one commander, one secretary, and four file cabinets full of the history of the “odds and ends” of OpNav.
My boss was the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Administration (Op-02), Vice Admiral George L. Russell, U. S. Navy, a former Judge Advocate General who had been flag secretary for four years for Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King when he was Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Admiral Russell was the acknowledged expert on the paperwork jungle of Washington. Those who worked for him were hard put to meet his standards and deadlines. One day in 1959 he called me in for what I figured would be another “cats and dogs” project. It seemed the CNO had received a letter from a Mary Miles wanting to know why the Navy did not have a flag like the other services (and cabinet departments). It sounded like a junior high school student wanting help on a civics project, but it was clear that I was to prepare a suitable reply. We had done this sort of thing before.
There was no background information in our file on a Navy flag. I knew I would need a sketch of a proposed flag to accompany any forwarding letter. OpNav graphics—my first stop—referred me to the Army heraldic section. After explaining what I needed, the section head laid out the whole procedure.
In about a week the Army’s documentation was complete. The package included a forwarding letter to the Secretary of the Navy, a cover memo explaining the letter’s purpose, and a chop list of other divisions within OpNav that would have an interest in the proposal. I had yet to see Mary Miles’s letter to the CNO.
We had saved a lot of time through the marvelous cooperation of the Army, but now I got bogged down on the chop list. I was told to expedite the process by hand carrying the package to about six divisions. The standard response was to concur, not concur, or pro
pose changes. But some directors would add two or more divisions to my chop list and give me a lecture- “We got along without a Navy flag for 200 years an two world wars and we don’t need one now.” I waS losing ground daily until my boss called me in for a “howgozit” report. He handed me Mary’s letter to t CNO and said, “Put this under the forwarding memo and see if that will help.” g
Mary Miles turned out to be Rear Admiral MilWn , “Mary” Miles, U. S. Navy, Commandant Third Na District. His short letter to the CNO stated that on ^ numerous occasions when flags were massed at on1 ^ functions, he used the Navy infantry flag from the s dard flag bag to represent the Navy. He requested a suitable Navy flag be made available for these oc sions. On the bottom half of the letter Admiral Ar ^ Burke had scrawled in his famous green pencil, do it. B.” With this insert added to my kit, I completed the chop list in about two hours. . ,
When I returned the completed project to Admit3 Russell he said, “You’ll have to learn how to e*Pe*jav these things.” He was making the point within Op that we should be open to new ideas and keep r°u 1 correspondence from getting tangled in bureaucracy- knew I could have sold the Brooklyn Bridge with Admiral Burke’s green pencil on it. He did make ^ point. He also told me that “Mary Miles was the est naval officer of World War II.” He got his me name—after a silent film star of the 1920s—at t c Naval Academy. As head of the United States h"aV -g Group, China, during the war, he ran Chinese Suece las behind Japanese lines, operated a weather servi for U. S. aviators, and controlled great stretches Chinese coastline, thanks to some cooperative pira Brave, indeed! . Q{
The CNO approved the flag design with this m> ^ [ correction: “The Marine Corps already has a fia§ run a blue water Navy. Take the shore line off- ^ Mary Miles, the bravest naval officer in Worl II, was the initiator; Admiral Burke, the expediter^ Army’s heraldic division, the experts; and the Oj’ “cats and dogs” section, the mechanic. That is the Navy got its flag.
ptain Barrett died last August in Farmington, Missouri.
66
Proceedings
/July1