Address by Rear Admiral Wm. S. Sims, U. S. N.
President U. S. Naval War College,
19 November, 1921
To the Graduating Class of 1921
Ed. Note: Cleaned up July 2019 by Michael Pyne from a transcription created by Rich Walsh
In bidding good-bye to the members of the class of 1921, at the termination, of their course of one year at the Naval War College, it has occurred to me that it may be of some interest to invite their consideration of a subject to which too little attention has heretofore been paid, namely, that type and degree of military conservatism which has so often been responsible for defeat in battle, and sometimes for national disaster.
Ever since men first began to use weapons to fight each other, military men have been reproached for excessive conservatism, a polite term often intended to imply a dangerous class reluctance to accept new ideas.
All men are naturally more or less conservative; certainly all civil professions are decidedly so; but they can afford to be without much danger to the country, whereas, in the case of the military profession, national disaster might easily result from a lack of the vision necessary to recognize the superiority of a new weapon or a new method of warfare.
That military men are conservative admits of no doubt. Whether they are more so than civilians is beside the question. The important point is that their conservatism may be so dangerous that it is highly important that they should so train their minds in logical thinking as to eliminate, or at least minimize, this danger.
We hope that the training at the Naval War College will have this effect; and I believe that it will, provided our understanding of the influence of conservatism in the past is such as to convince us that we must avoid its danger in future. With this end in view it will be useful to invite attention to certain instances of this defect that are recorded in the history of warfare, and also to certain recent instances that will show the influence it has exerted, and perhaps is still exerting, upon the minds of our contemporaries. These latter illustrations will include a number of instances that are within my own experience, and doubtless some of these are within your recollection; and from them we may be able to determine the cause of the state of mind in question, and possibly to indicate the remedy.
So strong has been the resistance to the general introduction of any new weapons or methods of warfare that one is almost forced to conclude that the military classes of all ages were all recruited from the Missouri of their respective countries. However this may be, it may be stated in general terms that most arguments in favor of fundamentally new weapons have failed except those that resulted in shedding the blood of the unbelievers; that defeat alone has been accepted as a final demonstration. The following are a few examples of the nature of the resistance in question, beginning with ancient times in order to show that this influence has been continuous, and that such conservatism as we retain at present is a legitimate inheritance from our naval forebears:
Considering, first, the most primitive weapons, there is no doubt but that the bow was a vastly more efficient instrument of warfare than the sword, the mace, or the pike; but almost without exception it was never accepted as a proper arm for the knight or warrior. The ancient wars were mainly fought with the sword and javelin, and both Greeks and Romans looked upon the bow as plebeian. It was not until the decline of the Roman Empire that the bow was used to any large degree by the Romans, the victory over the Franks at Casilinum (A. D. 554) being won by the horse-archers.
The warriors of medieval Europe viewed the bow in the same way. Thus Charlemagne endeavored to dignify and extend its use by edicts and the establishment of schools of archery, but to little avail, for the bow remained, until supplanted by firearms, the arm of the inferior classes and the yeomanry.
The cross-bow was an advance over the bow in power and efficiency but it never became the predominant arm, although it was extensively used during the Crusades. In A. D. 1139, the Lateran Council condemned its use as a murderous weapon. This resulted in a partial abandonment of it as a mode of warfare. The attitude of the nobleman respecting the cross-bow is indicated by the action of Philip of France at the battle of Crecy (August 26, 1346), who rode down his Genoese cross-bowmen with the words, "Forward and strike down this useless rabble, who are thus blocking up the way in our front." But Crecy was won by bowmen, the English archers, who, unlike the Genoese, had kept their bow-strings dry, devastating the chivalry of France.
"A first-class English archer," said Prince Louis Napoleon, "who in a single minute was able to draw and discharge his bow twelve times with a range of 240 yards, and who in these twelve shots only once missed his man, was very lightly esteemed."
It would seem that there was for many centuries a settled prejudice against projectiles, or perhaps rather against the men who launched the projectiles, because it was considered that these men required less courage than the wielders of short-arm weapons. This prejudice persisted for a considerable period even after the introduction of firearms.
Although gunpowder is said to have been discovered in Europe by Roger Bacon during the early years of the 13th century, it was not until 1338 that we have any account of the use of artillery. This was at the battle of Cambrai. Cannon are again mentioned as used in the battle of Quesnoy (1339). At this time, however, they were looked upon as curiosities more than anything else, and it was the general opinion of military experts that artillery would not supplant the sword and the pike.
In fact the pike or the lance was considered superior to the gun as late as the 18th century. We know that the Emperor of Germany changed his pikemen to musketeers in 1689, which led Louvois, the French minister, to propose a similar change in the armies of France. Louis XIV, however, while he confessed that he was impressed by the minister's arguments, said that he did not consider them strong enough to warrant such a great change. Pikes were not abolished in France until 1703. Incidentally, they were still supplied to our ships 180 years later.
Nor was our cloth less conservative as regards the introduction either of weapons or of methods of propelling war vessels. For example, it is apparent that oars were used more than sails in the sea battles of the ancients. The sail was mainly an auxiliary. The Egyptians, the Romans and the Greeks all trusted to the oar on account of its freedom from weather conditions. This attitude persisted quite to modern times; the battle of Lepanto (1499) was fought with galleys, and the Spanish Armada (1588) contained a great number of galleys. Artillery did more to do away with the oar than anything else, for the guns occupied the positions of the oarsmen.
Also Mahan states in From Sail to Steam, that: "The parting with sails as the motive reliance of a ship of war was characterized by an extreme conservatism. Steam was accepted first as an auxiliary, for towing, etc. A man of unusual intelligence maintained that steam would never prevail over sail; the steamer 'broke down' and owing to the fuel question could never be as self-contained as a sailing ship. Admiral Baudin, a Napoleonic veteran, was very sarcastic over the uncertainty of steamers."
And Wilmot, in his book The Development of Navies, states that: "In England we were disposed to rely on what had in former years admirably answered the purpose, and given us supremacy on the sea by which the security of the country was ensured. Had our fleet suffered defeat, we might have been more ready to adopt new inventions, indeed, to initiate them, rather than wait until their utility was proven by others."
Barnaby, in his Naval Developments of the Century, shows the extreme reluctance of those in authority even to consider the adoption of new weapons. He states that: "This demand of the fighting man for the most perfect weapons throughout the entire armoury, however often the change may be necessary, has a curious effect upon the good Admiralty and War Office official. He does not hesitate to take up an attitude of hostility to all innovation and to do his best to suppress it. Sad experience as to what advancing tides will do is perhaps working changes in the official mind, but the author well remembers the authority and seriousness with which the doctrine was held fifty years ago."
Wilmot again states that: "The discovery that steam could be profitably utilized for the propulsion of ships, and the tardy adoption of the screw, did not for many years materially affect the construction of war vessels. There was a strong prejudice to overcome in the minds of those who retained a vivid recollection of the glories accomplished in the past under sail, and who had a natural love for the art in which we excelled. Rear Admiral Sir William Symonds (director of naval construction), to whom I have alluded as effecting considerable improvement in the qualities of our sailing ships, had, as his biographer states, no love for steamers in any shape. ... In a letter to Lord Auckland, he states: I consider steamers of every description in the greatest peril when it is necessary to use broadside guns in close action; not alone from their liability to be disabled from shot striking their steam-chest, steam-pipe, machinery, etc., but great probability of explosion owing to sparks from funnel.' "
His opposition was so great that he was forced to resign in favor of a committee of naval architects, under Sir Baldwin Walker, "a naval officer distinguished for his seamanship;" but this officer's distinction in this respect was such that progress under his control is described as follows by a British historian:
"The naval members of the Board of Admiralty were men who had long looked upon the noble line-of-battle-ships of the navy as not to be surpassed, and they could not apparently make up their minds to desecrate them, as they seemed to consider it, by the introduction of steam power. The result of this somewhat romantic feeling was, that early in Sir Baldwin Walker's administration a number of sailing three-deckers were laid down, in opposition to the expressed opinion of the leading civil professional officers attached to the Admiralty. Not one of these vessels, as had been predicted, was ever launched as a sailing vessel. They were converted into screw ships by being lengthened in midships, at the bows, and also at the sterns. The greater proportion of the other sailing three-deckers were also cut down and converted into two-decked screw ships, their sterns only being altered."
Inventors have always had a hard time in convincing high naval officials of the merits of their inventions. It usually required the pressure of war necessity or strong political influence, or both, to insure even a hearing. Fulton and Ericsson are cases in point.
Fulton's Demologos, a steam-propelled floating battery, contained all the elements essential for a battleship today — positive and wellprotected motive power, heavy battery, and impregnable armor, the latter five feet of solid wood; but naval officers insisted upon masts and sails and heavy bulwarks to protect those handling them. "Thus, on the first possible occasion, did steam and sail power come into conflict, and steam had to take the inferior position."
In 1837-38 Ericsson was unable to gain recognition from the Admiralty, and in 1839 he returned to America and, under the patronage of Captain Stockton, one of the few officers who favored the use of steam, superintended in 1842 the building of the sloop-of-war Princeton, the first screw steam vessel of war built in any country.
In the fifties Congress ordered the building of "six first-class steam frigates." They were full-rigged ships but with steam power so ridiculously small as to call forth the following comment from the Late Rear Admiral Edward Simpson:
"There were those at that time who, wise beyond their generation, recognized the full meaning of the advent of steam, and saw that it must supplant sails altogether as a motive power for ships. These advocated that new construction should be provided with full steam power, with sails as an auxiliary; but the old pride in the sailing-ship, with her taut and graceful spars, could not be made to yield at once to the innovation; old traditions pointing to the necessity of full sail power could not be dispelled; it was considered a sufficient concession to admit steam on any terms, and thus the conservative and temporizing course was adopted of retaining full sail power, and utilizing steam as an auxiliary."
Barnaby states that: "There was the same prejudice against the adoption of iron for vessels as for the adoption of steam propulsion. Furthermore the opponents of armor were sufficiently entrenched to delay the adoption of these new ideas for years. Iron was first used in vessels in 1812, but it was not until 1834 that the British Admiralty m began to make experiments in this field, and not until 1845 that an armored ship was produced by Laird."
The introduction of armor was opposed very strenuously for many years. Barnaby further states that: "In 1876 Admiral Sir George Elliott circulated a pamphlet designed 'to stop the useless expenditure by the Admiralty of vast sums of money on the ships ordered by them' not because the ships were partially unarmoured, but because they were armoured at all. In that pamphlet he declared armour-clad ship-building to be the result of want of foresight.... But he contended that the evidence of the superiority of the gun, and the developments of the efficacy of the ram and the torpedo had deprived us of sufficient excuse of late years to continue to fight the losing game of armour against guns."
"The great naval tactician, Sir Howard Douglas, in 1858, published a book entitled Naval Warfare With Steam in which he said that the Renown was the best type of war vessel in the British navy. This vessel was unarmoured."
In comparatively recent times we have seen wide fluctuations of opinion as to the relative importance of armor and volume of gun-fire, including Farragut's unfortunate phrase, "The best protection against the enemy's fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns."
This phrase had a profound influence upon the design of ships in certain navies. The Russian cruisers of the Gromoboi class were equipped with a battery so heavy for their displacement and speed that not only were many guns left without armor but the personnel of her ammunition supply was so exposed that she fell an easy prey to a Japanese vessel of the Asama class, with half the number of guns all adequately protected.
The long and costly controversy over the adoption of breechloading guns is too well known to require reference to more than the very significant fact that purely mechanical difficulties were constantly allowed to overshadow in importance the fundamental principle involved. Breech-loaders were installed in the British navy, replaced by muzzle-loaders, and reinstalled until their final adoption in the latter part of the 19th century. Thus Barnaby states:
"In 1875, owing to accidents to breech-loaders, the muzzleloader was reinstated in the service. The great munitions firm of Armstrong fought the breech-loader for years and was instrumental in deferring its adoption. The firm, of course, was supported by many naval officers."
"The breech-loading guns might have been retained for all they were worth, and in course of time men would have become familiarized with them. Defects and weaknesses would have been soberly valued and gradually removed.... We had to pay heavily for that and we are called upon now to reverse the process and get rid of all ships having a muzzle-loading armament."
But while ordnance experts were vigorously discussing the question as to the end of the gun into which the projectile would best be inserted, and were still blind to the profound influence the breech-loader necessarily would exercise upon the design of war vessels, they were no less strenuously resisting any improvements in the projectiles themselves. Some of their arguments are curious, and some amusing, particularly those concerning the great cost of the shell of that day. Thus Wilmot states that:
"The old prejudice in favor of solid shot was not easily overcome. The latter were said to be more accurate, and to have greater range and penetration than hollow shell. Objections were also raised to putting too many shell guns in ships on account of the danger of accidental explosions.
"Another argument used against the introduction of projectiles was their cost. Sir Howard Douglas, in his work on Naval Gunnery says, 'the expense of shell equipment is enormous. The cost of every 8-inch shell in box is n s. 6 d., or $2.y&, and each one fired costs 17 s. 4% d., or $4.17. (1838).' "
Having in the above account convicted the officers who were before our time of a degree of conservatism that was at least very dangerous to the success of their navies, the question arises as to whether the record of our contemporaries is any better. It is to a certain extent, because during the last fifty years we have become so accustomed to great advances in all mechanical appliances and scientific processes that it is hard to surprise us by anything new in these lines.
During the lifetime of officers still living it may be said that navies have advanced from wood and sails to steel and steam. Some of our senior admirals began their careers on full rigged wooden vessels with feeble auxiliary steam power and smooth bore guns.
During a visit I made to the Portsmouth dockyard in 1905, the first dreadnought was anchored in the harbor alongside Nelson's Victory, and the admiral in command of the yard invited attention to the enormous progress that had been made since he began his career as a middy when vessels of the Victory type were still standard capital ships.
This rapid progress has of course tended to diminish conservatism as much in foreign navies as in ours; but the important question now is as to whether the training we are actually giving our officers in systematic and logical thinking will enable our navy, not simply to adopt improvements after their value has been proved in foreign navies, but so to utilize our undoubted inventive ability, and so promptly to recognize demonstrated facts, that we may keep safely in the van of progress, and thus eliminate the danger of being outclassed through the superior vision and alertness of possible enemies.
In this connection it may be useful to invite attention to two very significant facts:
First, that America has been distinctly in the lead in originating many important features of naval design, and in the invention of types and weapons of fundamental importance I need cite as examples only the monitor, the submarine and the airplane. There are many others.
Second, that, generally speaking, our navy has lagged behind in the adoption and general application even of our own American improvements and inventions. Many of our inventors have had to go abroad for recognition.
This indisposition on the part of our navy at once to utilize new ideas, weapons and methods of demonstrated value is a fact of supreme importance. In fact it is the gist of this whole subject. It is due to a habit of mind that could be indulged in the past with comparative safety, but which is manifestly a danger to a country that has become involved in international politics, and whose policies are likely to be disputed by other powers.
This habit of mind was not the result of a lack of intelligence or patriotic interest, but was due chiefly to the long period during which our country was relatively free from foreign entanglements, and, consequently, when we so lacked the pressure of the probability of war that is continuously felt by European nations, that we naturally thought we could afford to let other navies experiment with, and demonstrate the usefulness of, new designs and weapons before we adopted them. We can no longer safely do so. In order fully to realize the extent to which at times we have been unprogressive it will be necessary briefly to review our attitude in the immediate past, and thus show why we must, and perhaps how we can, avoid this danger in future.
Almost all controversies over questions of the adoption of new methods or weapons have had one perfectly natural feature in common: they have been contests between the younger men with their naturally more progressive minds and the more conservative seniors at the top of the list who had the power of decision. This has been as true in former times as it has been in our time; and moreover, it goes without saying that while in general such controversies have been based upon honest differences of opinion, sometimes strongly influenced by natural conservatism, still they were not free from the influences of our fallible human nature.
Criticisms from juniors fall with great severity upon the responsible seniors, especially in a military service; and questions of personal ambition, and the assumed necessity of defending established reputations, both of men and of organizations, do not create a condition of mind that is favorable to the reception of new ideas. The consequence too often has been successful resistance on the part of responsible naval officials, sometimes con- tinued until overcome by the civil authorities or by the force of public opinion.
It is doubtless well known to all of you that in the past our navy vigorously resisted the introduction of steam propulsion, then reluctantly consented to auxiliary steam with full sail power, then to full steam with auxiliary sail power, and finally, but very tardily, gave up sails altogether. There was the same opposition to the introduction of armor, breech-loading guns, and other improvements of minor importance; and nothing but the extreme pressure of war necessity overcame the opposition to Ericsson's monitor. It is not necessary to review all of these phases of our navy's resistance, as they were similar in all respects to those already noted in the experience of the British and other navies; but it should be recorded that these controversies were fought out in some instances not only with extreme bitterness but with an apparent inability or indisposition to accept the plainest possible evidence.
This was not simply conservatism, it was conservatism complicated not only by national conceit, but by personal interests and human passions, and too often, by a certain degree of dishonesty exhibited in the defense of reputations.
In order to accentuate the military necessity of logical ability and intellectual honesty in reaching decisions that may be vital to the efficiency of military forces, I will review briefly the kind and degree of opposition that had to be overcome in order to accomplish the general adoption only of the most important of all modern improvements, namely, the new methods of gunnery training, the all-big-gun capital ship, and the submarine.
These improvements are probably within the experience of all officers present, but I think it is doubtful whether many of you are aware that there was much opposition to their adoption, and still more doubtful that you are informed of its nature or intensity. The extent of this opposition is hereinafter described for the sole purpose of inviting attention to the errors in this respect that we seek to avoid in future. That such errors must hereafter be avoided is apparent from the fact that in all three of the cases just cited — gunnery training, the dreadnought type of design, and the submarine — our resistance left us so far behind other navies that if war had been declared before we had adopted such fundamental improvements we would, in all probability, have suffered defeat in consequence.
As regards efficiency in gunnery it would seem that the naval mind has always been particularly self-satisfied. Even an officer of such vision as Nelson, when asked to grant an interview to an inventor of an improved method of aiming the guns of a ship of the line, consented to receive him but said he did not expect to live to see the day when it would be necessary accurately to aim these guns, as he always expected to engage the enemy within pistol range.
The risk that the British navy ran becomes apparent when we consider that the effective range of the guns of the period was about 3,000 yards, particularly against the enemy's rigging; that simple mechanism for pointing the guns was easily realizable; and the slow approach, for example, at Trafalgar, would have permitted the enemy to fire ten or twelve broadsides before the British ships closed to the range at which they could hit without aiming.
In 1895, while serving as intelligence officer of a vessel on the China Station, I made reports upon some sixty odd foreign menof-war. These included a description of a new cruiser of the Edgar class, and of the British so-called "H" sight, and an account of the, at that time, quite extraordinary number of hitsper-gun-per-minute made by the Edgar's 6-inch guns fitted with these sights. These results were so far in advance of ours that the reports were probably not believed. At all events not only was no attention paid to them at the Navy Department, but they were considered of so little value that they were all destroyed.
During the four years from the beginning of 1897 until the latter part of 1900, I made from France and Russia extensive reports on the gunnery training of the French and Russian navies. France was at that time hring at relatively long ranges; the Russian training, though largely mistaken in principle, was probably the most complete and extensive of that of any navy, and her expenditure of ammunition was by far the greatest. Reports on ordnance, construction, and so forth, during this period showed a great superiority of design over the astonishing inefficiency of our contemporary ships. In all, these reports comprised over eleven thousand pages. They produced no appreciable effect at the time, and were not only destroyed but the letter-press copies in Paris were burned by order of the Navy Department.
In 1901 and 1902 many reports were submitted from China on the design of foreign ships, their systems of protection, ordnance mechanism, methods of gunnery training, and so forth. These included a comparison showing that notwithstanding the relative weight of armor carried by the Kentucky class, then just commissioned and the pride of our navy, their turret and broadside guns were greatly exposed, and even their magazines were so open as to render it very dangerous to fire the guns. This report attracted some attention at the Navy Department. It promptly disappeared and was never thereafter located; and the defects to which it invited attention were defended up to, and even after, the fearful turret accidents that caused the death of so many officers and men in the turret explosions in the Missouri, Kearsarge, Georgia and other vessels.
During the same period extensive reports were made upon Captain Sir Percy Scott's method of training gunpointers by means of the dotter. Not only were the records made at Scott's target practices disputed, but the most fundamentally important improvement recorded in the history of naval artillery, that is, the con- tinuous aim that enables us to hit at long ranges, and which has consequently profoundly modified the design of war vessels, was not only ridiculed as absurd, but it was officially "proved" to be so by an elaborate paper prepared by the Bureau of Ordnance to show that it was mathematically impossible for a pointer to keep a six-inch gun on a target throughout a roll of even a few degrees.
All the reports just mentioned that were submitted from China were destroyed. The effort to secure the adoption by the Navy Department of the improvements in question was at the time a flat failure, notwithstanding the fact that the commander-in-chief of the China Station, Admiral Remey, brought them to the attention of the Navy Department in special communications, in which he stated that the situation was extremely critical as regarded the design of our vessels, the mechanism of our ordnance, and the training of our gunnery personnel.
The new system of gunnery training and fire-control was at that time opposed by the great majority of our senior officers, many of whom expressed their disapproval in letters to the Department advocating the retention of our former practice of requiring each gun-pointer to estimate the range and control the fire of his own gun. This opposition produced an order requiring that all men, including mess attendants, should frequently be exercised at estimating distances.
Subsequently, our inefficiency in gunnery was brought directly to the attention of President Roosevelt, who issued peremptory orders that the new methods of training should at once be put in practice and that all guns should be' fitted with efficient sights. Under this order, our marksmanship developed with great rapidity, though the system of training was still opposed by practically all of the senior officers concerned, including, for example, all but one of the captains of the North Atlantic fleet.
When in 1903 and 1904, this development had demonstrated the accuracy of heavy turret guns at distances beyond the effective range of the secondary battery, and when, in consequence, a number of our junior officers opposed the building of any more mixed caliber ships and recommended the all big-gun ship, or dreadnought type, the recommendation was successfully opposed by most of our senior officers, including Admiral Mahan, until its adoption was forced by President Roosevelt. But for this conservative attitude we would have launched the first dreadnought. A painting in my possession of the design recommended is dated 1904.
Many of you may remember that this opposition was based chiefly upon the Department's official opinion that the greater the calibre of the gun the less its ability to hit; also upon the singular opinion implied by the phrase "the smothering effect of the fire of the small secondary battery guns" — a phrase without meaning when applied to the fire of such small guns against battleship armor, but, nevertheless, tenaciously believed in for many years by some of our leading authorities — a striking example of the peculiar power of a picturesque phrase when substituted for the careful reasoning that is of such vital importance in military matters.
In the case of all the vitally important improvements indicated, we have followed instead of leading. Sometimes we have not even followed though outclassed by new types in all important navies. All competent students of naval warfare have long since recognized the necessity for battle cruisers, particularly if our possible enemies possess them; but until recently our navy has failed to recommend them to the Congress, though for a great many years their value has been conclusively demonstrated on the game board.
The case of the submarine need be hardly more than mentioned. Though American designers of this type of vessel are responsible for most of the principles upon which its success depends, they received so little encouragement from our navy that not only was the first practical development in foreign navies, but even as late as our entry into the Great War, the capabilities of this type of vessel were seriously misunderstood.
The same is true to an even greater degree as regards the development of the airplane as a weapon. Even while foreign countries were appropriating large sums of money and were making every effort to develop it, our naval authorities were actually resisting its introduction.
These are only a few of the instances of the deadly effect of unreasoning conservatism. Many others could be cited in connection with practically every more or less radical departure in design, weapons, methods or appliances. Generally speaking, all such improvements have met with more or less effective resistance from those in authority; and the examples cited show that this resistance has been in certain important cases so very determined as to cause juniors to think twice before placing themselves definitely in opposition to their seniors; and it should be specially noted that the more important or fundamental the improvement advocated, the more strenuous and prolonged is likely to be the opposition, and consequently, the greater the danger of delay in giving it impartial and unprejudiced consideration.
It is by reason of this attitude that our navy found itself so absurdly deficient in marksmanship during the Spanish war; so deficient in destroyers, submarines and airplanes when we entered the Great War; and it is for this reason that we are still without battle cruisers.
The rapid development of the submarine and the airplane during the war, and the continuous development of both, and especially the latter, since the war, have shown that these powerful weapons are still in their infancy; that great possibilities of development are clearly in sight; and that it will require the most careful, devoted, and logical consideration upon our part even to keep abreast of the developments in foreign navies, much less to anticipate these developments.
Are we approaching the consideration of the influence of these revolutionary weapons in a judicial frame of mind? I am afraid not, in view of recent examples of minds absolutely closed to the plainest facts. In spite of adequate experiments clearly showing that airplanes could make a certain percentage of hits upon ship targets, a secretary of the navy expressed his disbelief in the ability of bombing planes to injure a vessel by affirming his willingness to stand upon the bridge of the Ostfriesland during the proposed bombing experiments. It is of course not remarkable that a civilian should have made such a statement; but it is very significant that this statement was based upon similar statements by naval officers and upon the assurance of naval advisers who were suffering the blighting influence of conservatism to an extent not exceeded by that of any of the examples just cited from history and from recent experiences.
So great indeed was the unwillingness to admit anything at all to the disadvantage of the battleship that many of our senior officers solved the difficulty for themselves by simply denying all the claims made by the airmen. For example, a captain on duty at the Navy Department expressed the opinion that a battleship can shoot down planes as fast as they attempt to get into bombing position; that even unopposed bombers could not hit a vessel underway; and in any case that bombs would not do much damage; that a bomb exploding on the protective deck would not penetrate below if it contained less than three thousand pounds of T.N.T.
Manifestly, our mental attitude in these matters must be radically changed unless we are to repeat the errors of the past, and cause our navy to follow instead of leading.
Verily, we must be on our guard against the dangers of a lack of vision and of a lack of confidence in the conclusions derived from a candid and logical examination of the significance of established military facts.
Our objective must not be "safety first" in the sense of adherence to already tested practices and implements, but safety first in being the first to recognize, the first to experiment with, and the first to adopt improvements of distinct military value.
Doubtless many of us have suffered from pain of a new idea, and some have recorded their suffering in writing. I remember ridiculing many years ago an imaginative article, describing a naval battle of the future, because the author had ships destroying each other by gunfire at 12,000 yards; and I am consoled only by the fact that many of my seniors inveighed at the time against the absurd idea that naval actions would ever be fought at "the enormous range of 7,000 yards."
Our navy has in our own time passed through periods of great danger. At the battle of Santiago we made but three per cent of hits at ranges shorter than are ever likely to occur again; and so inefficient was our gunnery up to 1900 that an equal force of ships of any efficient navy could have inflicted upon us a most humiliating defeat.
In my opinion we are now entering a period that may become still more dangerous if we fail correctly to interpret the significance of the rapid development of fundamentally new weapons of enormous destructive power and of relative immunity to effective resistance by any means except a decisive superiority of similar weapons.
We may escape this danger in future, as has so often been the case in the past, through the superior vision of a Roosevelt, or through the pressure of public opinion, overcoming the excessive conservatism of military minds.
From the above examination of this important subject, I think it is apparent that the remedy we seek is comprised in a combination of logical ability and military character — the ability to reach sound conclusions from established facts, and the character to accept, adopt, and fight for these conclusions against any material or spiritual forces.
A navy to be successful must be guided not only by men of ability but by men of an intellectual honesty that is proof against personal ambition or any other influences whatsoever.
Which of us will be quoted in future as examples of dangerous conservatism? Of which of us will it be said that we were of:
The many who follow the beaten track,
With guideposts on the way;
They live and have lived for ages back
With a chart for every day.
Someone has told them it is safe to go
On the road he has travelled o'er,
And all that they ever strive to know
Are the things that were known before.