.^^' v' -^^ '.* -^ ^, ^V « '^ ^ * "-:,. A '^>'^/ '■' '/ \ ci-_ '^O <^ .^*^ ^^ .^x o o"^ »' 1 o ^'^^^ .^r- ^ .0- <. .0 %< ,N^ !> ^V. -^ ^'^.. '■''c. o^^' ^^ N"f :'%,^'*'' .\^ :^:.o^'- .^^ ^^ --.. , o'^ .<-^^ s^%^ ^. 'b ..V ^ -^^ V^' f '^_ ■'-^^'' - .0- ,\0 ^^. ■V' >>' 4 ■* ,'\ \0c 0^' % S ■V^ 0^ ^x.'^ I B ' ^\ o' o'v- "•^^ '. ,^^% ii " -1 - ^^ «■ C' \0 •< NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR ^ NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR of the most distinguished officers in the Navy. In the Navy as a whole, nearly every self-respecting officer today ap- proves, openly or at heart, the condemnations heaped upon the present Secretary, Mr. Josephus Daniels. As a result of certain of the policies that have been put into force in the Navy Department in the past seven years many splendid traditions of the Navy have been discarded, the spirit of the service has been greatly impaired, the fight- ing efficiency of the fleet has been reduced to almost nothing. An officer in the Navy who resigned recently. Commander A. D. Turnbull, writing in the North American Review, says : " Officers and men grown grey in the service look with breaking hearts upon its disintegration. They have watched their valiant efforts to save the situation brought to nothing. They have seen preferment offered to — and alas ! accepted by — a scattered few of their brothers and shipmates, who could not keep loyalty to service and countrj'- above something that passes as loyalty to an individual. They have seen merit and initiative pretty well crushed. . . . " Mr. Daniels found the Navy in good material condition, manned by a strong, self-respecting personnel, animated from end to end by a fine spirit and a high purpose. " Mr. Daniels, after seven years of office, will leave the Navy a battered hulk, which it will take years of careful repairing to make seaworthy." The condition of the Navy demands national attention. It is the purpose of this volume to present in concise form the deeper meaning and importance of the Sims-Daniels con- troversy. II On June 26, 1915, the Secretary of the Navy, in address- ing the officers of the Atlantic Fleet, at the Naval War College at Newport, R. I., said: " The duty of the officers of the navy is to ask themselves constantly this searching question : ' Have we a maximum of INTRODUCTION: STATE OF THE NAVY 5 efficiency? ' This question must relate to every element of material and personnel that makes the navy ready for the call that may be made ujion it. If the navy is not what it ought to be, the fault is properly laid at the door of the Sec- retary, because some one must be responsible. He cannot evade responsibility. . . . The public will and should hold him to ac- count." This passage can be taken as tlie text of this volume. It provides an excellent point of departure for a review of Mr. Daniels' administration. His long regime is drawing to a close. The navy has been through an ordeal, the bitterness of which few, outside of the naval service, can even imagine. The founders of our gov- ernment, in seeking to prevent the military forces from as- sailing the popular liberties, placed them under the direction of civilian secretaries. The army and the navy were thus made subject to the unrestricted power of a civilian. But, in a democratic country, the exercise of power carries with it a corresponding responsibility. The time has come when this should be made clear to those who administer the forces upon which we depend for our national defence. Ill The United States is entering upon a period of history in which the soundness of its institutions and the strength of its people will be subjected to crucial tests. The " war that was to end war " has thrown the world into confu- sion. A new world is emerging with new tendencies, new forces, new problems, which indicate all too clearly that, in the future as in the past, war will be the ultimate test of a nation. We are, it is true, happily situated, with an ocean on either side of us separating us from any conceivable ex- ternal danger. This very fact, however, gives new signifi- cance to the function of the navy as our first line of na- 6 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR tional defence. Our political integrity, our world-wide in- terests, our seaborne commerce depend, in the last analysis, I upon naval strength and efficiency. If our navy is adequate, I well trained, well manned, ably led, we need have no fears j for our security. In any future war, such a navy would ; serve as an impenetrable shield, behind which we could make calmly our military preparations ; as an offensive force that could harass, isolate and blockade the enemy, and make possible the transport overseas, if necessary, of armies com- posed of millions of men. We could not have done this in 1917. We could not do it to-day. That is the crucial point to be remembered in con- sidering our naval problem. All officers who knew the situ- ation in 1917, or who know the condition of the Navy to- day, including Mr. Daniels' chief naval advisers, have so testified. We were not ready for war in 1917. Had we then faced a great power singlehanded, we would now, as Admiral Plunkett testified, be paying the indemnity. As a nation we cannot afford to permit such a situation to occur again. We must demand of those responsible for our na- tional defence a genuine accounting. The naval investigation brought to light the salient features of Mr. Daniels' administration. In the pages that follow there will be reviewed evidence proving that he re- i garded the Navy primarily as a source of political capital for i himself and his party ; that he either never understood or \ completely ignored the only reason for a navy's existence — its readiness for war. It will be made clear that he has ruled as a despot, ruth- lessly crushing opposition, by czaristic and underhanded methods, while publicly parading himself as an ardent dem' crat; that from 1913 to 1917, he enforced a policy of pacifism upon the Navy ; that, in consequence, he prevented ' any real preparedness for war ; and that, all the while he was deceiving the country and lulling it into a sense of false INTRODUCTION: STATE OF THE NAVY 7 security by declaring in mellifluous phrases that the Navy was ready " from stem to stern " for any emergency. It will be demonstrated that he repeatedly made false statements, — perhaps inspired by lack of understanding rather than by intent to deceive, — to the country, to Con- gress and to the President, concerning the Navy and its con- dition ; that he made incorrect assertions, officially and in writing, to the United States Senate; that he gave testimony under oath before the Senate Committee which was com- pletely at variance with the testimony of other witnesses, and with the facts established by the evidence of official records. As a public official Mr. Daniels has flagrantly violated his trust. It would be disastrous to permit him to escape his responsibility. " The public will and should hold him to account," as Mr. Daniels himself said in 1915. CHAPTER II NAVAL ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS — 1798-1917 WE are often assured that history never repeats itself. Yet there are singular coincidences. The following quota- tion illustrates the point : " As we look back at the history of this period (the first year of war), it seems incredible that the Navy Department with the vast resources at its command . . . should have been able to show only such meagre results during seven months of war. Lest this statement be thought too severe, we quote the candid omission (of the responsible naval officials) : ' But for some few redeeming successes . . . the wliole belligerent operations would have been pronounced weak and imbecile failures." ". . . This was mainly due to the extreme slowness and delib- eration with which the Navy Department moved. ... It is safe to say that the American people today would not tolerate for a week a Secretary of the Navy who conducted the operations of the war in the timorous, procrastinating and inefficient fashion in which they were conducted in 1861. The only surprising feature of this quotation is the date, 1861. Otherwise it might be applied to the year 1917 and to the administration of Secretary Daniels. But the last sentence shows the temerity of its writer, Mr. J. R. Soley, himself a graduate of Annapolis and once Assistant Secretary of the Navy, from whose life of Admiral Porter the quotation is taken. How despairing, indeed, is the task of the historian! ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 9 Every investigator in the domain of science knows that in determining the processes at work in nature he is confer- ring a boon on humanity. He realizes that practical appli- cation will be made immediately of any discoveries which will tend to ameliorate the lot of man or render life in civ- ilized societies more secure. In science, as in business or in the individual life, wisdom comes from experience ; we learn by our mistakes. But the writer of history, if he concerns himself at all with the results of his researches, is obliged to admit that his work is fruitless. No matter how clearly he may show the inevitable sequence of cause and effect, or demonstrate the operation of definite processes in human affairs, he must perforce resign himself to seeing his con- clusions ignored, as well by the people as by the politicians to whom they entrust the direction of their common desti- nies. He must submit to witnessing, in every period of national crisis, the recurrence of the same problems and the repetition of the same errors. One has only to read Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian wars (432-404? B. c.) and his description of the failure of democracy to heed the lessons of experience, or consider the consequences of disaster, and then reflect for a moment on the performance of our government in the Great War, to be disheartened. II The ultimate test of any state or people is war. Through- out history, war has been the agency that has begun and terminated political and national existences ; that has al- tered racial, language, cultural and religious boundaries ; that has determined for good or ill the direction of hun^ari social development. We can witness to-day no evidence that wars have ceased to play a determining part in the shaping of the affairs of man. It was bv war that we came into existence as a nation; 10 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR it was chiefly by warfare, organized or sporadic, that the American nation expanded from the Atlantic seaboard to the shores of the Pacific. It was war that sealed and cemented our national union and led to the freeing of the slaves. It was war, again, that made us over from a provincial state into a world power. The destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, signalized a complete trans- formation in our relations with the other nations of the world. Nor will our most recent war be without equally significant influence on our national destiny, though we are still too fresh from the fray to estimate accurately the prob- able consequences. Success in war has, throughout the ages, been deter- mined by certain clearly defined factors and conditions. Every schoolboy realizes that our independent existence as a nation depends upon our ability and willingness to maintain it, when necessary, by war. As a nation we believe and expect that our govermnent will take adequate measures to ensure our success in war. We assume that the known principles of warfare, which alone determine success or failure, will be heeded, in peace and in war, by the respon- sible departments of our government, to whom we entrust the national defence. We take it for granted that the Army and the Navy will be so organized and administered as to provide us with adequate means for defence. But in the light of history, have we any reason for our assump- tion? If we need any answer to such a question, we can find it in the testimony of many distinguished officers of the Navy before the investigating committee of the Senate a few months ago. In going through the voluminous evidence pre- sented by each of more than a dozen officers, who held high and responsible positions during the war, one seeks, almost in vain, to find a single fundamental military principle that was not violated by Mr. Josephus Daniels' department. ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 11 To those familiar with our mihtary and naval policy in the past, however, the revelations of the naval investiga- tion sounded strangely familiar. Students of military his- tory, who have written for us the unvarnished tale of the circumstances under which we have entered upon other wars, have revealed similar conditions. In times of peace we have complacently assumed, as did Mr. Bryan, that we would never have another war; but that, if we did, a million men would spring to arms overnight ; though where they would get the arms to which to spring was a mystery we never investigated. Accustomed from childhood to read of the famous exploits at arms, of which our people have shown themselves capable when properly armed, trained and led, we have allowed our politicians to neglect our national defences ; to waste money, intended to provide the country with an efficient army and an adequate navy, in maintaining outlying and isolated army posts and obsolete and unserviceable navy yards, for purely political reasons — "to give jobs to patriots" as the Charlotte (N. C.) Observer put it, in dealing with Mr. Daniels' probable policies in 1913. Ill If the Navy, because of w^eakness or unpreparedness, is unready for war at the moment the enemy chooses to strike, it will be destroyed or bottled up. We will then be open to enemy attack, our commerce will be cut off, our coasts will be bombarded, our soil invaded. Yet we usually fail to realize that the Navy cannot provide us with the defence for which it is maintained unless it is of sufficient strength and efficiency to meet the possible enemy w-ith reasonable prospect of success in battle. The Navy cannot win such success in battle unless it has a suf- ficient number of all the various types of vessels needed to make a well rounded fighting fleet; unless there are adequate 12 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR and strategically situated repair, docking and supply facilities to keep the vessels at all times materially fit for battle. The Navy cannot fulfil its mission unless its per- sonnel, officers and men, are adequate in numbers, properly trained for war and actuated by that conscious pride in its efficiency and by that fighting spirit which constitute the morale of the service. The Navy cannot successfully wage war unless it is led by officers well versed in strategy and tactics, and is guided in its operations by carefully prepared policies and war plans. These conditions cannot be satisfied unless the Navy Department is so organized and co-ordinated, that it can develop and maintain the highest state of material, person- nel and moral preparedness for war. Few of these conditions have ever been realized. Not only in our latest war, but many times before, the same defects and shortcomings have been revealed by the stress of war; the same temporary expedients have been devised to meet the war emergencies; and the war has come to an end just when the Navy, or the Army, as the case may be, was be- coming approximately ready to fight with real effectiveness. As soon as the war came to an end, the experience gained was forgotten ; the lessons to be derived went undiscovered and unheeded. Admiral Stephen B. Luce, Admiral A. T. Mahan, Admiral B. A. Fiske, General Upton, Theodore Roosevelt, and many other students of military and naval history have more than demonstrated these conditions in past wars. The naval in- vestigation has enlightened us as to the extent of their repe- tition in the present war. Unless precautionary steps are taken the next war will witness the recurrence of exactly the same monotonous but highly dangerous phenomena. ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 13 IV The Navy Department was created by the Act of Congress of April 30, 1798. Previous to that time the War Depart- ment had controlled the few frigates in service, but the threat of a war with France compelled recognition of the necessity for a separate administration of the Navy. From 1798 to 1815 the Navy was managed entirely by the civilian Secretary, without any assistance or responsible advice from naval officers. This exclusion of the military element from the control of the Navy made it impossible for the Navy to prepare for war or to fight effectively. This was illustrated in 1812, when the Navy Depart- ment, in a state of panic, demonstrated its incapacity by laying up the entire navy lest it should be swept out of existence by the British cruisers. Captains Stewart and Bainbridge protested successfully against this policy, with the result that American frigates were able to strike severe blows at British trade, bombard the British shores and win several notable victories over single British war vessels. But there was no fleet action in the Wjar of 1812. As a matter of fact, we had no fleet — if we except the one built by Commodore Perry on Lake Eric. The Navy Depart- ment was not able to prevent the burning of the Capitol or the landing of British troops on our soil. As a result of the pitiful incompetency of an exclusively civilian direction of a highly technical naval service. Con- gress in 1815 provided for the creation of a Board of Navy Commissioners, composed of three post captains of the Navy (the highest rank then in existence) to assist the Sec- retary. The wording of the act was faulty, however, in that it made no distinction between the military and civil branches of the department. The result was that the three commissioners, instead of directing the military activities of the Navy, came to be charged chiefly with the administration 14 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR of the civil branch, with the supply, ordnance and construc- tion work. This led inevitably to friction and difficulty. In 1842 the Navy Department was therefore reorganized and the bureaus were established to take over the adminis- tration of the civil branch. At the same time the Board of Commissioners, instead of being retained to perform those military functions for which it was created, was abolished. This left the Secretary in the entirely false position of a civilian called upon to administer the affairs of the executive department of the government having to do with naval mat- ters, without a professional assistant. Writing in 1902, Ad- miral Luce said of this reorganization: " No provision was made for any direction of naval operations save by the action of the Secretary, a civilian. The organization was one that could work only while the country was at peace and military considerations could be neglected. People generally scouted the idea that peace could ever be disturbed. The Civil War rudely dispelled this idle dream and proved the falsity of the theory on which the organization of the Department was based." {Proceedings of the Naval Institute, 1902.) The Civil War brought confusion into the Department. No provisions or plans had been made for any belligerent activities. The bureaus were absorbed in the sudden and great demands made upon them by the work of a purely civil character. The Secretary was without military assist- ance in the administration of the personnel of the Navy and in the direction of military operations and " found him- self in a complete state of isolation." Makeshift arrangements had to be improvised to enable the department to meet the sudden and pressing demands upon it. The Secretary called on Captain Silas H. String- ham to take charge of the Office of Detail, in charge of per- sonnel. Then, on April 1, 1861, President Lincoln directed ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 15 Captain Samuel Barron, who already held a commission as captain in the Confederate navy, to take over and organize the Bureau of Detail. This order was not carried into effect, as the President revoked it when the circumstances were explained to him. But it illustrates the chaos that pre- vailed. The department found itself in 1861, as it did later, in 1898 and in 1917, witli a war on its hands and no one com- petent to direct war oj^erations. There were several efforts made to organize the bureau chiefs into a Board of Admir- alty, or to provide a board of officers who would exercise the military control over operations. But these efforts were re- sultless. Finally the position of Assistant Secretary was created and a former naval officer. Captain Gustavus V. Fox, was appointed to fill it. He practically took over the direction of the military side of the department and became, by force of circumstances, a kind of chief of naval staff. Various boards were organized to handle military matters falling outside the scope of the activities of the bureaus. This included the " Committee on Conference," which owed its existence to a civilian, Professor A. D. Bache, the Super- intendent of the Coast Survey. This committee, the mem- bership of which included a number of able officers, such as Captain S. F. DuPont, U. S. N., and Commander C. H. Davis, U. S. N., became in reality the strategy board, or plans section, of the improvised war staff. Other emer- gency boards were appointed to discharge temporarily the otlier military functions of the department, for which no previous provision had been made. Taken together, these boards ultimately met the issue and became a temporary naval general staff. For the first two j^ears of tlie war, however, the utmost confusion prevailed. Improvised plans of campaign proved faulty and led to disastrous failures. The operations off Charleston, from 1861 to 1863, demonstrated by their futility 16 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR the consequences of having a military department of the government so organized that no provision was made for war. Admiral DuPont, in charge of these operations, wrote to the department on June 3, 1863: " When I left Washington (in October, 1862) there was really nothing matured, though I was firmly impressed with the fixed determination of the department that Charleston must be at- tacked." The Navy Department thought Charleston could be taken by the monitors alone, without army co-operation, but every effort to do this failed. So with many other of the early attempts. Yet many very able men were in the department ! The failure was not theirs, but was that of the system, or lack of system, against which they had to struggle. The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, himself recog- nized the condition, in his annual reports, with a frankness that stands in refreshing contrast to Mr. Daniels' efforts at concealment. In his annual reports for 1861 and later years. Secretary Welles pointed out that when war came there had been no one in the department to plan or direct military operations. " Hence the views of the department were specu- lative and uncertain." IMr. Fox and the improvised boards ultimately provided a successful war organization for the department. But two years had been lost. Many blunders were made, and many disastrous delays occurred which could have been avoided had the department been organized and conducted as a military organization. VI After the Civil War the machinery that had been devel- oped during the war was wiped out. Says Admiral Luce : " The lesson of the Civil War was thrown away on us, and the department relapsed into a state looking to the early advent of the millennium when war should cease." ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 17 Even the office of Assistant Secretary was abolished. The dejiartnicnt reverted to the administration of civil affairs by the bureaus, and to the direction of all the military activi- ties of the Navy by the civilian Secretary, who was again left without responsible military assistants or advisers. Repeatedly in the next thirty years " the impotence of the Navy Department to deal with questions relating to war was made painfully manifest." In 1873, when the Spanish seized the Virgi7iius on the high seas, and executed a number of the crew, after a farcical court-martial, war seemed im- minent. Again there was confusion. The only thing the department could not do, apparently, was to go to -war. Admiral Porter was called upon for counsel and would prob- ably have been entrusted with the direction of military affairs had war come. But the panic passed, and nothing was done to remedy conditions in the department. Secretary W. C. Whitney, in his report for 1885, stated that it was doubtful if there was then a single ship in the Navy which could fight. He vainly urged a reorganization of the department. In 1889 Secretary Tracy again laid bare the glaring defects of the organization. Again nothing was done. In 1892, when sailors from the Baltimore were assaulted in Valparaiso, relations with Chile became very strained. " Once more," writes Admiral Luce (Naval Institute 1902) there was " brought out in a strong light the incapacity of the Navy Department to deal with the problems of war." Again, aid had to be summoned in from without the depart- ment. But the tension soon passed and with it the effort to include in the departmental organization a provision for dealing with the problems involved in preparation for war and in the conduct of war operations. 18 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR VII This situation was well illustrated once again in the Spanish War. War with Spain had seemed a probability for some years before hostilities began. The Maine was blown up on February 18, 1898. The war did not begin un- til April 21, 1898. Yet no steps had been taken by the Navy Department to provide for possible war activities. It is quite true that the vessels of the Navy were in good con- dition and that the personnel were efficient and well trained; but no official war plans had been prepared, and the Navy had no military direction to plan, prepare for, conduct and co-ordinate war operations. In 1886, however, through the efforts of Admiral Luce and other able officers, a naval war college had been estab- lished at Newport. For the first time officers of the Navy began to study war. Captain A. T. Mahan had been as- signed to duty there and had written his masterly analyses of sea power and naval warfare. The war college had pre- pared tentative, but unofficial, plans for war with Spain. It had trained officers who knew something of strategy. This was to save the situation in 1898. When war broke out on April 21st, the Navy Depart- ment, as has been stated, was without a war policy, war plans, or a war staff. The confusion and uncertainty of 1812, of 1861, of 1872, of 1893 again prevailed. Dewey with the small Asiatic fleet was at Hong Kong, a neutral port, awaiting orders. International law requires the naval vessels of belligerents to leave neutral ports within twenty- four hours. Yet no orders were sent to Dewey. Three days passed. Still Dewey was without news from his government. On April 24, the Navy Department received a dispatch from him, with the information that the Governor of Hong Kong had notified him that he must leave the port with his fleet within forty-eight hours. As it was Sunday, the Navy De- ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 19 partment was practically closed. Appreciating the impor- tance of the dispatch, the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, in the absence of the Secretary of the Navy, took it at once to the President. Admiral Luce thus describes the scene that followed: " With the President were the Secretary of State, tlie Attorney General and one or two others. The dispatch from Admiral Dewey, and the reply to be sent were discussed by those present. The President then dictated the dispatch to Dewey to proceed to Manila and attack the Spanish naval force assembled there. The dispatch was written out by the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation and handed to the President, who read it aloud. It was approved with the adding of the word * destroy ' so as to read, ' capture or destroy.' The dispatch was then taken to the Navy Department where it was rendered into cipher. The Sec- retary of the Navy was not with the President when the latter dictated the message, but he saw it later in the day, signed it and it was sent. " War had been in the air, so to speak, for six months. The order to blockade the Cuban ports was dated April 21. Yet it was left for the Governor of Hong Kong, three days later, to order an American squadron to sea, with a home port 6,000 miles away." (Proceedings of the Naval Institute, 1902, p. 848.) The results of such a method of devising Avar plans and determining on military operations were clearly revealed by the difficult situation in which Dewey found himself after the victory of May 1. Although the Spanish fleet was totally destroyed, Dewey had to lie off Manila, practically impotent, in an isolated and trying position. No arrangements had been made to reinforce him, or to reap the fruits of his naval victory by prompt action against the Spanish in the Philip- pines. If we had had in our military departments any pro- vision for war, there would have been well-considered war plans. Dewey would have known even before the declaration of war what was expected of him. Reinforcements would have been started from San Francisco in time to profit im- 20 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR mediately by his victory. Their timely arrival would in all probability have averted the Philippine Insurrection and much blood and treasure would have been saved. Immediately after the outbreak of war, the Navy Depart- ment once more endeavoured, under the stress and amidst the confusion of war activities, to^ extemporize a makeshift military branch. A Naval War Board, or " Strategy Board " as it was generally termed, was organized, Captain A. T. IVIahan being one of the members. This board was entrusted with the devising of war plans, and the other mili- tary functions of a general staff. Resort was had to the war plans drawn up at the Naval War College. In the ab- sence of any other plans, the operations of Admiral Sampson and General Shaffer were based largely on these. Our su- periority over the Spanish forces was so soon and so easily established that our war organization and effort suffered no real test. The story would have been very different had we met an enemy of real strength and efficiency. VIII After the Spanish Wiar, many efforts were made to apply the lessons of the war to our military organizations, and to remedy their defects. The army was reorganized during Mr. Elihu Root's tenure of office as Secretary of War, and it was given a general staff. But no similar action was taken in the case of the Navy Department. President Roosevelt, and several of the Secretaries of the Navy who served in his cabinet, urged vainly upon Congress the necessity for the re- organization of the department, and the creation of a naval staff. The Navy League, under the guidance of Col. R. M. Thompson, began its compaign on behalf of a sound naval policy and for twenty years it has fought valiantly and on the whole successfully to improve the efficiency of the Navy. ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 21 But it was some years before its work began to produce results. In 1900, the General Board of the Navy was estab- lished by a general order of the Secretary of the Navy, to study questions involving policy, and to prepare war plans ; but it was not given legislative recognition until 1916. The General Board proved extremely useful in providing the suc- cessive Secretaries with intelligent advice on military matters. But its functions were purely advisory, and it had no au- thority to supervise the military activities of the Navy. More often than not its advice was disregarded. In 1909, a commission was appointed by President Roose- velt, composed of two former Secretaries of the Navy, W. H. Moody and Paul Morton, with Congressman A. G. Dayton, and Rear Admirals Luce, Mahan, Evans, Folger and Cowles, to review the organization of the Navy Department. This commission made an illuminating report, calling attention to the non-existence of any military branch in the depart- ment, and recommending that the Secretary be given compe- tent naval advisers to co-ordinate, under his direction, all the purely military functions of the department, including the activities of the bureaus. His chief adviser was to be prac- tically a chief of naval staff with the title " Chief of the Divi- sion of Naval Operations." Congress failed, however, to take any action. Secretary Meyer, in 1909, initiated, on his own responsi- bility, the " Aide " system. This was a distinct step in advance, although it did not provide for a definite co-ordi- nation of the military activities of the navy, by a responsible naval staff. There Avas an Aide for Operations as the chief naval adviser of the Secretary, with Aides for Material, Personnel and Inspection, to assist the Secretary in co- ordinating the military activities of the Navy. No legisla- tive sanction was given to this measure, however, and it was left within the power of later Secretaries to continue it or not, as they pleased. 22 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR As a result, when Mr. Josephus Daniels became Secretary in 1913, he was able in a short time to vitiate most of Mr. Meyer's work, either by allowing the positions of Aides to remain unfilled or by failing to ask or follow their advice in military matters. IX We can hardly hope that our good fortune will always continue to save us from the consequences of the mal-admin- istration of our national defences. Sooner or later the day will come when we may have to meet singlehanded a strong and well-prepared enemy. As Congressman Gardner re- marked in October, 1914, in calling attention to our unpre- paredness at that time, " bullets cannot be stopped with bombast, nor powder vanquished by platitudes." If we neglect our first line of defence or allow it to be misused as an eleemosynai-y institution for the support of indigent politicians, we should not expect nor hope to escape disaster. A review of our naval history will show that our navy in every crisis and in every war has laboured under the same handicaps in preparing for war and in fighting. There has been no provision made in time of peace even for the possi- bility of war. The Navy until 1915 had no provision in its organization for the handling of military activities or for the conduct of war operations. In 1917, there was a mil- itary branch of the department, but it had been established too short a time and had been so much hampered by the action of the Secretary that conditions in 1917 were little better than in 1812, 1861, 1873, 1892 or 1898. In each of these cases, a naval staff, under one name or another, had to be improvised during the crisis, as it was found im- possible to conduct a war successfully without it. But the lesson of experience was disregarded and the passing of the ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 23 crisis marked the passing of the machinery indispensable to succesiiful naval operations. We entered each war, as a result of the lack of a naval staff, without any real preparation ; with no war plans, with insufficient personnel and without reserves ; with the ves- sels of the Navy not in a condition to fight ; with inadequate docking and repair facilities ; with a navy built, apparently, without regard to war needs and lacking many essential types of vessels. All these conditions were due primarily to the fact that the decision of the highly technical naval problems, and the control of the Navy's operations in peace time, has rested exclusively with a civilian, without previous knowledge or experience, who was also very often a politician more concerned about patronage, about distributing navy funds to favored sections, about promoting his own or his party's fortunes, than about the possibility of war, or the preparation of the navy for war. Many of the Secretaries have probably honestly believed, as did Mr. Daniels, that there would be no more wars, and have laughed at the warn- ings of those who knew something of history. X When war comes, the officers of the Navy must bear the burden and the responsibility and face the dangers of battle. But how can we expect them to fight successfully if they have not been permitted to determine the kind and number of ships necessary, if they have not been permitted to make plans for war or train the fleet for war? When war comes, we expect them to maintain a glorious tradition of victory. In time of peace we permit them to be tyrannized over by a North Carolina politician, a convinced pacifist, who con- sistently opposed their efforts to make the Navy fit for its mission. The experiences of 1917, the delays and unpre- 24 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR paredness then so painfully evident, should be a sufficient warning for the future. A glance at recent history reveals significant comparisons. In 1904, the Russian fleet at Port Arthur was successfully attacked by the Japanese fleet before any formal declaration of war had been made. In 1914, the British Navy had established a complete control of the North Sea before the war was declared. Its command of the surface of the seas was never seriously threatened thereafter. Yet the German Navy, too, including its submarines, was on a war basis and ready for action four hours after the declaration of war. The superiority of the British fleet, however, made it impos- sible for the Germans to hope to fight a successful battle. Sir Julian Corbett, in the first volume of his history of British naval operations in the war, makes the following comments on the situation in 1914: " There is no doubt that the machinery for setting our forces in action had reached an ordered completeness in detail that has no parallel in history. ... It says much for the skill and com- pleteness with which our preparation for war had been elab- orated during the past ten years that the general situation was so far secured without any recourse to a complete mobilization by the time the critical day arrived (August 1, 1914). So far as the navy was concerned everything was in order." In the future, our only real insurance against defeat in war and national humiliation, will be the efficiency of the armed strength of the nation. The protection of our shores and the prevention of invasion will depend upon the readi- ness of our Navy at all times to respond to the call to battle. Our Navy can afford us this protection if we will permit it to have an organization designed for war use, and will pay heed to the lessons of experience rather than to the empty and resounding phrases of ridiculous politicians. No navy in the world has a body of officers as intelligent, as ORGANIZATION AND PREPAREDNESS 25 well trained, as devoted, as our own. No navy has more splendid traditions. But these will be of little avail if, in the future as in the past, the military activities of the Navy are subordinated to petty, personal ambitions and idiosyncrasies, or to partisan or sectional interests. CHAPTER III THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS— 1913-19 EVERY war has its aftermath. Every campaign on land or sea is refought in the published accounts and dis- cussions of the operations. Investigations that often fol- low wars very frequently bring to light facts and conditions which, for obvious reasons, were suppressed and kept from public notice at the time of their occurrence. Such revela- tions are often of a nature to be highly disconcerting to the country concerned, and equally discreditable to certain of the leaders whose acts are called into question. But in the whole history of warfare it would be hard to find an example of more complete mismanagement of a military or naval force, or of grosser incompetency for a position of national trust in the administration of a force upon which national defence depended, than has been provided by the recent in- vestigation of Mr. Daniels' administration of the Navy Department. In the midst of hostilities any information concerning the mistakes of those in command would be of material advantage to the enemy. It is therefore the normal tendency to sup- press all such unpleasant revelations. It is in the national interest to do so when the nation is at war. There is an- other kind of suppression, however, which is dangerous and which is inspired solely by desires to maintain personal reputations, which might be imperiled were the facts made known to the public. Mr. Daniels, since the conclusion of the war, has endeavoured to accomplish this kind of suppres- 26 THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 27 sion of the real history of our naval activities in the war. Until Admiral Sims' official comments on the war became known, the Secretary of the Navy had succeeded in his purpose and the country had been completely deceived. II Almost from the beginning of liis administration, Mr. Daniels had been very severely criticized, both in the public press and on the floors of Congress. In 1915, and in 1916, the country had been informed, from sources whose reliability was beyond question, that all was not well with the Navy un- der the Daniels regime. It had been shown that Secretary Daniels, while posing as an ardent Democrat and pretending to administer the Navy on democratic lines, was, in reality, a small minded despot, bigoted and narrow in his views, and unrelenting in the misuse of official power to punish officers of the Navy who incurred his official disapproval by not humbly setting their minds to run along with his. The country had looked upon Mr. Daniels at that time with tolerant contempt. The American public, with its invari- able good humour, laughed at our Pinaforesque Secretary, " Sir Josephus, N. C. B.," as Colonel Harvey dubbed him in 1915, and failed to appreciate the consequences which would result from enforcing upon the Navy the Daniels policies. Such was the situation which prevailed until the time of our entry into the war. The country's insistence upon pre- paredness throughout the previous year, had led to Con- gressional action. The very able and effective campaign of the Navy League, the hearings before the House Commit- tee on Naval Affairs, and the testimony of such witnesses as Admiral Fiske, Admiral Winslow, and Admiral Sims had shown the country that the Navy was not prepared for war and that, as Admiral Knight explained in a letter written at 28 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR this time, the Navy Department had failed to make any provision for war in its plans and policies. Congress, in 1916, had adopted the first constructive building program which the navy had ever had, in its endeavour to restore our Navy to its relative position of strength as compared with the navies of the other chief maritime powers. At the same time, Congress had taken steps to remedy the lamentable short- ness of men by increasing the authorized personnel strength of the Navy. Admiral Fiske had succeeded in 1915, against the opposition of the Secretary, in getting Congress to create the office of Chief of Naval Operations, and thus to provide the Navy with an organization that might be ex- pected to function under war conditions. This step was made possible largely by the previous activities of the Navy League and its insistence on the necessity for an efficient or- ganization of the Navy Department. The Navy League as a body and its individual members, such as Col. R. M. Thomp- son, himself a graduate of Annapolis, and Col. Henry Breck- inridge, were able to exert a continually greater influence in and out of Congress. The way had therefore been pre- pared for the action Congress took at the instance of Admiral Fiske. During 1916, then. Congress and the country were led to believe, as a result of these measures, that the Navy was being made ready for war. HI Then came the war itself, and automatically the curtain was dropped, so far as the public was concerned, over the activities of the Navy Department. One of Mr. Daniels' first acts, on assuming office in 1913, had been to issue orders in the Navy Department that henceforth all public statements would be issued by his office. After war began, this order was more rigidly enforced than ever before. The country knew only what Mr. Daniels wanted it to know of what was THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 29 going on, — and surely Mr. Daniels was painting a picture roseate enough for even the most belligerent citizen. Day after day a flood of notices poured out from the Navy De- partment of all the things that the Navy had done, was doing and was going to do. From the day that we declared war, one would have imagined, from Mr. Daniels' official state- ments, that the whole of the Navy at once, ipso facto, was transformed to a war basis ; that automatically all vessels of the Navy were mobilized; that well-thought out and care- fully prepared war plans were immediately put into effect ; that the maximum of co-operation was given immediately to the Allies. In fact Mr. Daniels publicly stated all this and more, not only at the time but in his later official reports to the President. In his annual report for 1917, for example, Mr. Daniels said, under the heading " We Are Ready Now " : " During peaceful years the navy has been quietly but stead- ily perfecting itself to meet the time of war. How adequate was the preparation, how efficient its personnel, how competent its ma- chinery to carry on the multitudinous activities of war time could only be surmised and estimated. Now the hour for which it has been preparing has arrived. " The declaration of war found many naval dispositions al- ready made in anticipation of possible developments. No ships had been sent abroad, but when we began to arm merchant ships a distinguished officer with a small staff was on the other side of the Atlantic available for consultation as to general opera- tions, and ready to take charge of any force to be sent." IV In spite of all these optimistic assurances from the Secre- tary of the Navy as to what American war vessels were doing, the country waited in vain for some visible indication of American naval operations ; but a cloud of mystery had de- scended over the whole of our war acti^^ties. The public assumed that this was only right and proper and that under 30 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR the cloud the great American republic was moving immedi- ately, energetically and effectively to throw the weight of its might in manpower, in material resources and in military and naval strength against the Germans. Weeks passed and still no news came. People began to wonder what our mighty fleet, of which Mr. Daniels was speaking so vainly and so vaguely, was really doing. Then six weeks after war began, the country was informed that our destroyers were operating in the war zone. It was not known that only six destroyers were then overseas. Little was made public as to the disposi- tion which had been made of our other forces. News came from time to time of additional naval vessels operating in different parts of the war zone. In July, 1917, the country was informed that American troops had been successfully landed in Europe under the escort of the American Navy. The newspapers related blood-curdling and official tales of desperate battles with flocks of submarines, through which the transports and the destroyers plowed on their way to France. Our people thrilled with pride when Mr. Daniels told them how hopelessly ineffective were all the German sub- marines against the American naval forces. The months passed. The losses of merchant ships through submarine attacks diminished. The German U-boats seemed impotent in their efforts to interfere with the transport of American troops abroad. The German naval effort seemed to have been completely checkmated. The spring of 1918 came and with it the serious hours of crisis following the German offensive, when the Allied cause seemed to tremble in the balance. Then the country heard more and more of the magnificent effectiveness of the Navy abroad. Soon 300,000 men a month were being transported to France, a large percentage of these on vessels manned and operated by the Navy, and convoyed in the war zone by American naval vessels. The country heard of American battleships form- ing a part of the Grand Fleet, ready to engage the German THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 31 High Seas Fleet if it should ever again attempt to challenge the Allied command of the seas. There came also news of a tremendous new feat in naval warfare — of the closing of the whole of the North Sea by a gigantic mine barrier con- ceived and carried out largely by the American Navy. One read of the Navy's 14-inch guns, mounted on railway car- riages, bombarding the German lines of communication at a range of 30 miles. More and more was heard of the success of the convoy system and of the work of our submarines overseas, of our naval aviation and of its enormous increase. The story was one calculated to fill every citizen with pride in the achievements of the Navy. In the first year of the war, disconcerting stories had come out as to conditions in the War Department. There had been a Senate investigation which had brought out many facts extremely damaging to the War Department and its methods ; but the House Naval Committee, which reviewed the activities of the Navy at the end of 1917, gave the Navy a clean bill of health ; everything was perfect with Mr. Daniels' fleet, so went the report. As the country heard these stories of the navy's achieve- ments, they remembered with amazement the stories they had heard before the war of the incompetence of the Navy's head, of his failure to take any steps looking to preparedness and of his general incapacity for an office requiring adminis- trative ability, sincerity of purpose, and real understanding. The record of the navy in the war was looked upon as a complete vindication of Mr, Josephus Daniels. Everybody said to everybody else that Mr. Daniels had done very splen- didly indeed. Amid all of the scandals that accompanied our war effort, hardly a whisper was attached to the Navy Department. It seemed to have stood out as a model of efficiency and readiness. Prominent and well-informed 32 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR papers throughout the country published editorials comment- ing approvingly upon the magnificent way in which Mr. Daniels and his Navy Department had stood the acid-test of warfare. The Creel Bureau released many glowing stories of the complete success and awe-inspiring efficiency which attended the war activities of Mr. Daniels. The public did not remember at the moment that the Public Information Committee, of which Mr. Creel was the voice, had as its mem- bers Mr. Josephus Daniels and Mr. Newton Baker, or other- wise some mild suspicion might have arisen, even then, as to the credibility of the stories that were being officially disseminated. VI In 1918, Mr. Daniels' secretary, Mr. J. W. Jenkins, in writing an introduction to the Secretary's volume of war speeches, gave a description of the great Josephus that reads like a burlesque when viewed in the light of what really hap- pened. Witness, for example, the following expressions : " ' Full speed ahead ! ' has been the signal of the Navy from the moment we entered the war. When the call came, it was ready. The plans had all been prepared in advance, and it re- quired only an order to mobilize the fleet. No change whatever was required in the organization. . . . During this momentous period Secretary Daniels has been fortunate in having loyal and capable counsellors ... of his own selection. Mr. Daniels trusts them, he has every confidence in them, but, at the same time, he has his own ideas and sees that they are carried out. And he insists on knowing all that is being done. This involves a vast amount of detail . . . but it enables him to know every- thing that is going on. . . . " In the rush of war work . , . some seeming impossibilities were accomplished. . . . The whole establishment set out to break records in every line . . . and the Secretary was in the midst of it all, commending the leaders, stirring up the laggards, and keeping all moving like the coach at a foot-ball game. . . . THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 33 It was a strenuous striving . . . but Mr. Daniels enjoyed it and thrived under the strain. , . . " From the moment hostilities appeared inevitable, Mr. Dan- iels threw all his energies into preparation. . . . Naval vessels had been put in readiness^ munitions stored, supply ships were ready to sail. When a state of war with Germany was pro- claimed on April 6th, the Fleet was mobilized without an hour's delay. ... A vigorous aggressive policy was adopted. The American Navy decided not to wait for the submarines but to ' go after ' them. Orders were immediately issued to equip a flotilla (sic!) of destroyers for foreign service. . . . This force in European waters was constantly increased, every type of boat . . . being sent over. A division of American battleships was sent to operate with the British Grand Fleet (N. B. in December, 1917); submarines were dispatched (N. B. in January, 1918); subchasers were sent over in a steady stream (N. B. after June 1, 1918). . . ." ". . . This was characteristic of Mr. Daniels' policy in prose- cuting the war. He never wavered for an instant in the main objects. Adopting the President's policy of ' Force, force to the utmost ' (N. B. this policy was not announced until April, 1918), he protested against fixing any definite number of men we should send to France. ... In October, 1918, he refused ... to dis- cuss arrangements for peace, saying ' It is not my business to talk peace or think of peace, until the Central Powers are defeated and have laid down their arms. It is my business and the busi- ness of the Navy to devote every thought and energy to winning the war.' " Comment is superfluous. Yet, in 1918, the American people were so little informed of conditions in the Navy that they could read such hyper- bolic praise of Mr. Daniels without derisive laughter! VII It seemed only natural that anything American should be efficient and well-done. The people were, therefore, more than willing to accept the stories of the efficiency of the Navy 34 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Department, especially as they had so many convincing and indisputable proofs of the splendid efficiency of the Navy personnel. They knew that our destroyers had shown them- selves the equal, if not the superior, of those of any of the Allies. They knew that our battleships had very quickly taken their positions at the wing of the Grand Fleet's battle line and had shown an efficiency which British officers freely and frankly commented upon. They knew that our naval aviators abroad were showing an aptitude for their duty, a courage and an endurance, of which any nation might well be proud. They knew that in the Northern Mine Barrage a project of naval warfare was being carried out that stood without precedent in naval annals. Knowing these things of the Navy, and of the achievements of its personnel overseas, they were quite willing to accept Mr. Daniels' own estimate of his own services, and to believe his statements as to the degree of preparedness with which the Navy had entered the war; and as to the effectiveness of the organization by which it was administered throughout the war. VIII Then came the armistice — the complete victory of the Allies over an utterly crushed and humiliated Germany. Without firing a shot, the German High Seas Fleet sur- rendered. The German submarineiS likewise were surrendered. No more complete naval victory is on record. Such a happy outcome of the war naturally disposed everybody to regard with complacency the whole of our war activities. Mistakes, costly delays, were forgotten before the outstanding fact of victory. The country was proud to know that its Navy had upheld its country's laurels abroad and that, in its com- mander overseas. Admiral William S. Sims, it possessed a man to whom all of the Allied navies had looked, with respect and admiration, for counsel and criticism. THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 35 This feeling was confirmed by tlic victory speeches of Mr. Daniels. With bland complacency, he told the country of the great deeds which he and his Navy had performed. On December 1, 1918, in his official report to the President of the United States, he said: " Before the President went before Congress on the 2d day of April, 1917, and delivered his epoch-making message, which stirred the hearts of all patriots, and in the climax said, ' America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured ; God helping her, she can do no other,' the Navy from stem to stern had been made ready to the fullest extent possible for any eventuality." In this same report the Secretary went on to describe the work done by the Navy in the war, in words which are espe- cially significant in view of recent developments : Teamwork at Home and Abroad " Teamwork has been the Navy's slogan for five years, and its perfect operation has given proof of the wisdom of the in- sistence upon the whole organization working in harmony and with a common spirit. Thoroughly imbued with this principle in time of peace, the Navy, during the great war, has given a shining demonstration of its capacity for the teamwork so es- sential to victory. " Throughout its enormous expansion since the beginning of the war, the enlarged naval force has kept this vital factor always in mind. The Navy at home has shown its capacity for team- work in co-operating with the Army, the War Industries Board, and the many other governmental activities already established and the new ones wisely created for the successful prosecution of the war. Abroad, the American Navy has given a demon- stration, which can be characterized only as wonderful, of its readiness to join with our associates in teamwork for the com- mon end and the common good. In the Mediterranean, the At- lantic, the Pacific, and the Adriatic; with England, with France, 36 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR with Japan, with Italy, and all allied nations, the United States Navy has co-operated without friction, looking always to the end to be attained, and has won the warmest encomiums and appre- ciation from our associates. " The American officers and men on our battleships on first joining the Grand Fleet of Great Britain were welcomed so cor- dially and worked so unceasingly that, becoming a part of a great homogeneous fleet, they have given the best illustration of the same teamwork between nations which had been established between diflferent agencies in our Navy. American destroyers and American submarines and other American craft have operated side by side and interchangeably with similar vessels of the na- tions with whom we are associated in this war. Three thousand miles from home, sea patrol and air forces of the United States Navy have done much coast defence and anti-submarine work in England and France and Italy, on the Mediterranean and in the Azores, in the closest co-operation with the allied forces. " Much of the above could not have been accomplished at all, and none of it could have been accomplished so well, had not the American Navy, from top to bottom, fully appreciated the fact that in war teamwork is absolutely necessary, and individual prejudices and ambitions, if they exist, must be sacrificed and subordinated for a common end in a common cause. Every Vestige of Friction Removed " Going back in the past, we find that apparently there have been times when a Secretary of the Navy seemed to find friction and lack of co-operation among the officers around him. If that spirit ever existed in the United States Navy, I can state with confidence and pride that there is now no vestige of it, and I firmly believe, from my experience, not only during the last year but during the five years preceding, it will never return. The present admirable organization of the Navy, proven in the months of trial, is one which peculiarly requires teamwork, and, given this, is particularly capable of producing results. The team- work has been there and results have been produced. " Of course as time goes on changes in any organization become desirable and should be made. Examination of reports of vari- THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 37 ous Secretaries of the Navy, extending back to the dim past, shows nearly every year complaints of the organization they were compelled to operate and more or less radical recommenda- tions for change. " The present departmental organization has stood the great- est strain to which the Navy Department has ever been exposed and is essentially sound. It can and will be improved in detail as necessity arises. A Truly American Organization " For years there was a persistent and insistent demand on the part of a small element of the Navy and some well-meaning citi- zens interesting themselves in naval matters for a naval organiza- tion labeled " General Staff " of the " made in Germany " pat- tern. This pattern has not worn well, and it is observed that the " made in America " pattern of the United States Navy seems to be appreciated now not only in America but in some of the na- tions associated with us." IX Such then was Mr. Daniels' official account of the services of his department in the war. Of course, every naval officer, and many other well-informed people, realized how totally false was the impression which Mr. Daniels had given. They knew that, intentionally or otherwise, he was deceiving the people of the country as to what had been happening during the war, just as completely as he had deceived them previous to the war, with regard to the Navy's preparedness. They knew of the many and grievous mistakes, and of the fatal delays, that had characterized the early months of our par- ticipation in the war. They knew that the achievements which our Navy had won were largely accomplished in spite of Mr. Daniels and not because of him. Nevertheless there was no disposition to criticize so long as it was felt that the Navy's interests were not being damaged by the misrepre- sentations of its official head. 38 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR But almost immediately after the armistice the Navy began to disintegrate. Its personnel was demobilized so rapidly that within a year not half a dozen vessels of the fleets re- tained a vestige of their war efficiency. Soon the Navy learned that Mr. Daniels was continuing the same policies and methods which he had inflicted upon the Navy since 1913. The morale of the Navy rapidly declined. By the end of 1919 the officers realized that the Navy was helpless as a fighting force ; that neither one of its great fleets could go to sea and fire a complete salvo from its big guns without disastrous consequences. The number of trained enlisted men competent to perform their duties, who remained in the Navy, was so small as to render the condition of the Navy more than pitiable. Yet Mr. Daniels, in his report for 1919 to the President, gave a completely inaccurate account. This new manifestation of Mr. Daniels' apparently inherent tendency to misrepresentation seemed the last straw. The following quotation will illustrate the kind of misrepresenta- tion which made the Navy believe that the situation was hopeless : " In the present year, demobilization has claimed attention ; but the task has been not merely to demobilize but to do this without disorganizing. It was not a question of untying a knot that has been successfully tied, or of undoing what has been vic- toriously done. It was rather a question of reshaping, rebuild- ing, realigning, and without the sacrifice of national spirit, unity, or force. Many new lessons have been learned, and these have been embodied in the new Navy. Experience, intelligently in- terpreted, is always the best teacher, and this is especially true when the experience has been spread over so great a stretch of time and space as was the case in the World War. " Two fundamental principles have been constantly borne in mind: " (1) There must be and there has been no loss of adaptabil- ity to new and unexpected issues. The readiness to hit and to hit hard, which won the plaudits of our Allies at the very outset. THE NAVY AND MR. DANIELS — 1913-19 39 has been preserved in every detail of change and readjustment. The Navy is returning to a peace basis, but it is conserving the power that enabled it and will again enable it to meet with unweakened sinews any crisis that may arise. Security for the future, though an uncertain future, has not for a moment been lost sight of. " (2) There must be and there has been no loss of symmetry or wholeness in the naval organization. A reduced personnel has not been allowed to mean fragmentariness or disproportion in whole or in part. As a vast machine, as a national organism, as a complex of interacting agencies, the Navy is in form and spirit a unit, not a fraction. " Though demobilization has returned over 400,000 men from military to civilian pursuits, there are now in the Navy more than twice as many enlisted men as there were on January 1, 1917. Both the Navy and Marine Corps are at present below their authorized strength, but an active and successful recruit- ing campaign has been launched, and the time is not far distant when the attractions of Navy life will secure the full comple- ments desired. Those in training and afloat are sufficient to man all dreadnaughts and modern destroyers, and the 400,000 men given naval training in war provide a naval reserve of fit and ex- perienced men upon which the country can call in any emer- gency. This is an asset not before possessed in this decade and one which gives assurance until the youths coming into the service are skilled in all the callings that make up good seamen. " The United States Navy emerged from the war incomparably stronger and more powerful than ever before — second only to that of Great Britain and far in advance of any other foreign navy, in ships, in men, and every element of strength. The or- ganization of the fleet in two great divisions gives us ample de- fence in the Pacific as well as the Atlantic. With battleships in service equal to or superior to any now in commission, 6 huge battle cruisers and 12 battleships under construction, a number of them larger than any now in commission, to be armed with 16- inch guns, more powerful than any now afloat, the Navy is press- ing forward to greater things, justifying, in peace as in war, the country's firm confidence in its ' first line of defence.' The great 40 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR fleets, one in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic, are powerful, well officered and manned, and give guaranty of protection and of readiness to serve our country and the world." Every officer in the service knew that the " great fleets " in the Pacific and the Atlantic, of wliich Mr. Daniels spoke so complacently, were a source of weakness rather than of strength, for the reason that this division of our main force, contrary to all sound naval principles, reduced our total strength by at least fifty per cent. These two fleets in their condition of inefficiency and unpreparedness, due to lack of trained men, give us a false sense of security, at a time when our national policies and the attitude taken by our government towards foreign countries may involve the United States in new and even greater complications than those that resulted in our intervention in the Great War. The officers of the Navy knew that in suppressing the true story of the activities of the Navy Department during the war, and in concealing the mistakes, Mr. Daniels was doing great harm both to the service and to the country. It was realized that, if the conditions existent in 1917 should be repeated in a future war — in which we should be immedi- ately attacked by a powerful enemy, without Allies to protect us while we prepared — a great national disaster would in- evitably result. Yet the Navy Department — far from en- deavouring to profit by the lessons of the war, as the Secre- tary claimed he was doing — was, in reality, suppressing the facts, concealing the mistakes and pretending they never happened. Nothing contributed more to the feeling of hope- lessness among naval oflficers familiar with the conditions than this attitude of Mr. Daniels. CHAPTER IV THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS IN the year following the armistice, the Navy had found, to its consternation, that no real change had occurred in the spirit and methods of the Secretary. During the war, at least after the first distressing months, he had been rendered almost innocuous. Wliatever was necessary, naval officers had done, if possible with the approval and consent of the Secretary', otherwise without his knowledge or against his express orders. So the war was won. The coming of peace was followed by a reassertion of the Secretary's tendencies to meddle in details, to impose his personal ideas and likings on the Navy, and to suppress the facts concerning the condition and needs of the Navy. The inevitable result was the rapid disintegration of the morale of the Navy. In a service like the navy, morale is of paramount importance. The attitude and the actions of the head of the Navy react immediately on the spirit and mind of the whole service. In any military organization, morale, and its corollary, discipline, depend upon relations of mutual confidence and respect between all ranks. The maintenance of morale and discipline are impossible unless the service feels that it is being administered with absolute justice and impartiality, especially in the selection of men for high positions, in the infliction of punishments and in the distribution of rewards. The officers of the Navy had, previous to the war, lost all confidence in the Navy Department, as administered by 41 42 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Mr. Daniels. They knew the condition of the Navy, and they realized the enormity, and the possible consequences, of the misrepresentations of the Secretary, of his political par- tisanship and of his favoritism. The recurrence of these conditions in 1919 made them almost lose hope. Captain W. V. Pratt, the Assistant Chief of Naval Opera- tions during the war, wrote Senator Hale on May 17th, 1920, that " there can always be found a naval adviser who will advocate a plan, be it good or bad." Also, " the result of the present system is not necessarily to choose the best men, but such men as will lend themselves most readily to the views of the civilian head, be they sound or unsound." These are exactly the things that have happened in the Navy Depart- ment since 1913. The service has realized that honours and preferment went, not to the most capable or most deserving, but to the most pliant, and the most subservient, among the officers of the Navy. Nothing more destructive of morale can be imagined. II Such was the situation when the naval service was treated to a new and aggravated illustration of the Daniels methods. On December 1, 1919, in his annual report, Mr. Daniels published his list of " Medals of Honour, Distinguished Serv- ice Medals and Navy Crosses Awarded." The officers of the Navy studied the list with incredulity, amazement and consternation. It was found that recommendations of com- manding officers had rarely been followed ; that some officers recommended for lesser awards had received higher ones ; that officers recommended for the highest awards had received lesser ones or none at all. Officers whose ships had been torpedoed were given the Distinguished Service Medal, while officers who had successfully attacked submarines, or who had so skilfully mancBuvred their ships as to escape damage re- ceived only the Navy Cross or no award at all. THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 43 Such a policy in awarding honours for war service neces- sarily had the most serious effect on the already depressed morale of the Navy. As Admiral Sims later told the Senate Committee, " it was the last straw." These awards are so typical of the Daniels regime and illustrate so well the char- acter of his activities as ruler of the Navy that they merit especial attention. Ill To understand the situation one must bear in mind the reasons for giving medals or distinctions of any kind for heroic conduct or distinguished service in war. The chief reason had always been, until Mr. Daniels' astonishing list was published, to improve the fighting spirit and the morale of the service, by recognizing success in action against the enemy and by singling out for special recognition acts of valour and heroism in battle, or service of unusual distinction. Such recognition serves, not only as an award to the indi- viduals concerned, but also as a great stimulus to morale. It is only human that officers and men should take satis- faction in receiving recognition for their achievements, and in knowing that any heroic or distinguished service will be justly rewarded. If the awards are made impartially, they can take a natural and legitimate pride in such distinctions. Their fellows regard them with kindly envy and are stimulated in their own efforts by ambition to receive similar dis- tinction. It is not the decoration itself — a bit of metal hung on a varicoloured ribbon — that is important. It is only a symbol. The important factor is the official recogni- tion of heroic or distinguished service and the according to certain individuals of the right to special esteem and respect from the service. Unless the method of awarding medals insures prompt and just recognition of meritorious acts or service, the resxilt is disastrous to morale. When distinctions are conferred 44 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR upon individuals not fairly entitled to them, and are withheld from those whose services were known to have been more worthy of distinction, the purpose of the awards is not only defeated, but is perverted. The confidence of the service in the impartiality and fairness of its chief is shattered. Bitter feeling develops and morale is shaken. The medals and awards are cheapened, and come to be regarded as proofs, not of creditable service, but of favouritism. The receivers are suspected of obsequiousness to authority ; the bestowers, of nepotism and discrimination. IV When we entered the war, there was no provision for any award save the Congressional Medal of Honour, reserved to award acts of unusual bravery, beyond the limits required by duty. When our forces went to Europe, they found that medals and honours were promptly awarded by the Allies for acts of heroism or for distinguished service. The Allied powers had appropriate distinctions with which to recognize every kind and degree of military acliievement. Our men saw Allied officers and men alongside of them, performing service no more creditable than their own, receiving these decorations while they themselves received no recognition of any kind. In 1917, the Allied governments proposed the award of such decorations, to officers and men of the American service, as would go to members of the Allied units serving with them, often in the same forces, as in the case of our destroyer forces based on Queenstown. This could not be done without the consent of Congress. Admiral Sims, therefore, recommended on December 30, 1917, that " steps be taken to obtain legislation which will permit United States naval personnel to accept decorations of foreign govern- THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 45 ments. Experience in this force demonstrates clearly that such recognition is prized as highly by our personnel as it is by the personnel of foreign services. Its effect upon morale and effi- ciency is marked. The mere fact that the British government has expressed a desire to award decorations to certain of our ships became known and its effect was pronounced." Secretary Daniels, however, rejected this recommendation, and opposed any recognition by the Allies of the services of American personnel in the war zone. On September 22, 1917, he wrote the chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs " that it is the view of this department that only medals issued by our own Government should be worn by our officers and enlisted men." He opposed a joint resolution then before Congress to permit the acceptance of such medals. Again, on February 26, 1918, the Secretary wrote the chair- man of the House Naval Committee that " the department wishes to inform you that it is opposed to the object of this act, i. e., the acceptance and wearing of decorations and medals presented by our Allies, and desires to express its dis- approval thereof." In spite of the Secretary's opposition, such permission was granted by Congress in July, 1918. But it was not until February, 1919, that the Department recognized the action of Congress and officially permitted members of the naval service to accept such decorations. V No action had been taken by the Navy Department, dur- ing the war, to provide any medals or decorations for the recognition of heroism or distinguished service. It was not until February 4, 1919, three months after the armistice, that Congress passed the act providing for the award of medals in the naval service. On JNIarch 6, 1919, the Secretary appointed a Board to review all recommendations of commanding officers and to 46 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR submit a uniform set of recommendations for awards. This board was composed of Rear Admiral Knight, who had com- manded the Asiatic Fleet during the war, and of eight retired officers, none of whom had been abroad during the war or had any personal familiarity with conditions in the war zone or of the war services of the personnel of the Navy. Two of these were rear admirals of the line of the Navy, retired in 1915 and 1918; one was a rear admiral of the Civil Engineer Corps, retired in 1906 ; one was a captain of the Medical Corps, retired in 1911 ; one was a captain of the Chaplain Corps, retired in 1910; one was a captain of the Construction Corps, retired in 1910; one was a captain of the Supply Corps, retired in 1915, and the ninth was a colonel of Marines, retired in 1910. Thus the majority of the Board were retired officers of the non-combatant branch of the Navy, who had been on the retired list for an average of nine years. Such was the board selected by Mr. Daniels to pass on the recommenda- tions of the commanders of the fleets and forces of the Navy in the war, and to determine the awards to be given for dis- tinguished service and for heroic acts in the war under circumstances of which the board knew nothing! Such a board was obviously in no position to revise the recommenda- tions of the various commanders as to awards to the officers and men of their commands. It could perhaps reconcile the various lists submitted and establish a uniform standard for the award of the different medals. It had no information or experience qualifying it to alter the order of relative merit, indicated by the recommendations received from com- manding officers. VI Instructions were sent out to the naval service early in 1919 to submit all recommendations for awards to this board. The service was not informed of any policy to be fol- THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 47 lowed in making recommendations. The board received no instructions from the Secretary, and no indication of his pohcy other than that contained in the letter appointing the board. In this he said : " 1. The language of the act will be strictly construed so that recognition will be awarded only for exceptional merit. " 2. The board will consider the cases of only such members of the Marine Corps as were not detached for service with the army." According to the wording of the law, the medals of honour could be presented " to any person, who, while in the naval service of the United States, shall, in action involving actual conflict with the enemy, distinguish himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty and without detriment to the mission of his command or the command to which attached." The distinguished service medal could be awarded to any person, " who, while in the naval service of the United States since the sixth day of April, 1917, has distinguished, or who hereafter shall distinguish, himself by exceptionally meritori- ous service to the government in a duty of great responsi- bility." The navy cross could be awarded for " extraordinary heroism or distinguished service in the line of his profession, such heroism or service not being sufficient to justify the award of a medal of honour or a distinguished service medal." The general distinction between the various rewards was thus specifically determined by the Act of Congress. VII The board began its labours on March 17, 1919, and was in session until October 31, 1919, when it was suddenly dis- solved by the Secretary before it had completed its work. Many of the most important recommendations were not re- 48 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR ceived until September and October, and, in many cases, not until after the board had been dissolved. The board re- viewed a total of over 4,000 recommendations of command- ing officers, and submitted three reports to the Secretary, on September 23rd, October 19th and October 31st, 1919. It was established during the senate investigation that Mr. Daniels took the reports of the board and ruthlessly revised them, according to his own fancy, in making up the list published in his annual report for 1919. The list as drawn up by the Secretary provided for the award of 13 Medals of Honor, 156 Distinguished Service Medals and 1,451 Navy Crosses, or a total of 1,620 medals. When the records of the Board of Awards were reviewed by the Senate Committee, it was found that only 677, or or 41.5 per cent., of the Secretary's medal awards were in accord with the recommendations of commanding officers and the Board of Awards. Three hundred and one of the awards, or 18.5 per cent., were reductions from the awards recom- mended; 81, or 2 per cent., were higher than those recom- mended; and 611, or 38 per cent., were given to officers and men who had not been recommended at all for any award, either by their commanding officers or by the Board of Awards. Three-fifths of the medals awarded, therefore, rep- resented only the personal judgment of Mr. Daniels. It is a curious illustration of his attitude toward the navy that he should have so completely disregarded the recommendations of the commanding officers, and should have paid so little heed to the board which he had himself appointed to make recommendations after a careful study of the records. Some names on their lists he struck off altogether; to some he gave higher awards than were recommended ; to others lower awards. Then, to complete the picture, he proceeded to add to the list 611 names of his own choosing! No official action more in the spirit of the First Lord in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera " H. M. S. PInafore " iiSi, THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 49 can be imagined. " Sir Josephus, N. C. B.," intended to leave no doubt as to who was the ruler of the American Navee ! VIII Small wonder, then, that when the list was published, there was an outburst of indignation among the officers of the navy ! Many wrote to the Secretary declining to accept the medals awarded them ; others went to him personally to point out the grave injustice inflicted upon the service by his awards. Most conspicuous among these protests was that of Admiral William S. Sims, long one of the ardent champions of the navy's best interests and our naval com- mander in European waters during the war. Admiral Sims wrote the Secretary of the Navy on December 17th, de- clining to accept the Distinguished Service Medal awarded him. In his letter. Admiral Sims invited attention to certain features of the awards : First: "This list contains a number of instances of injus- tice to distinguished officers, the effect of which upon the morale of the service cannot fail to be detrimental. The injustice lies not in the number of awards made, but in the fact that the awards . . . are not in accord with the relative merit of the services per- formed by them as indicated in my recommendations. Officers who were recommended for the highest awards appear on the list as having been accorded lower awards and vice-versa ... it must always be impossible for a board, or any outside authority so to modify the estimate of relative merit of the services of officers . . . made by the immediate and active superior in command . . . without inflicting actual injustice. This necessarily defeats the whole object of instituting a system of awards of merit in time of war." Second: "An example of the injustice ... is shown by the action upon the citations for awards to the officers of my staff abroad . . . not only were the recommendations not complied 50 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR with in 13 of these 19 cases, but a number of officers in the com- mand whose services were relatively of less importance and much less in responsibility were accorded higher awards. . . . This seems to be due to an erroneous opinion as to the relative value of services at sea and in certain vitally important positions ashore, an opinion that duty in the latter positions must neces- sarily be the least distinguished. " This is so serious a misapprehension that the action of the Department in awarding distinctions should be such as to have the effect of clearly impressing upon the service . . . that the most important duty in time of war is that of planning and direct- ing the military operations of the whole force. . . . The vital importance of successful leadership and the recognitions which should follow have no logical relation to the positions, ashore or afloat, from which such leadership must be exercised. . . . This is strikingly illustrated by the award of the Distinguished Service Medal to a considerable number of officers in positions of very little responsibility, while four of the nine rear admirals under my command . . . were accorded only the lower award of the Navy Cross." Third: " I feel impelled to invite attention to a special class of awards which are the subject of such service condemnation and ridicule that the effect upon the present and future morale of the service must necessarily be deplorable to the last degree — namely, the Distinguished Service Medals awarded to many, if not all, of the officers who were defeated in action, or whose ships were sunk or seriously damaged by enemy submarines. . . . These are typical not only of unsuccessful actions, but of failure to injure the enemy. The victors in these cases were the Ger- man submarines. . . . No blame necessarily attaches to the com- manding officers of these vessels for their failures, but on no account should they receive a special award for this lack of suc- cess. . . . The commanding officer of a vessel that is sunk by a submarine should not receive the same award as the commanding officer of a vessel which sinks a submarine. Yet it is precisely this which has been done in a number of instances." Admiral Sims expressed the hope that the department would modify the list by recognizing properly the more de- THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 51 serving officers. The Secretary replied on December 20th, that " No action taken by tJie Department has been final and the list is not complete." IX The publication of the letters from these officers created a public sensation. The Secretary's list of awards was con- demned and ridiculed in all quarters. Congress began to evince an active interest. Meanwhile, Mr. Daniels, on December 26th, 1919, appar- ently much concerned by the storm aroused by his action, hastily ordered the reconvening of the Board of Awards and the reconsideration of the award lists. In his order he stated : " While approving in the main the recommendations of the Board of Awards, my examination into the subject has con- vinced me that there are a number of cases requiring further ex- amination, and there have been additional recommendations. . . . I felt in going over the list that the board had been too liberal particularly as regards officers whose duty during the war was mainly or altogether on shore. I felt that reports . . . particu- larly as to men who had served and suffered in the war zone jus- tified additional rewards. " No official approval of any list has been made. All lists published were tentative. Last week I ordered changes made in the list as printed awarding the Distinguished Service Medal among others to Admiral Knight, Admiral Caperton and Vice Admiral Jones. I had also decided that like awards should be given to certain other officers who had rendered long and arduous service in convoys and other service afloat in the war zone. . . ," In his annual report for 1919, the Secretary had s-aid, under the heading " Disti/nguished Service Recognized ": " In pursuance of an act of Congress, the Navy Department was authorized to award Distinguished Service Medals and Navy 52 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Crosses to officers and men who had rendered distinguished or conspicuous service." Then, after quoting the act, the Secretary said: " The full list of the medals and crosses awarded appears in Appendix I. A board, headed by Rear Admiral Knight, has given much time to the study of records, with an earnest desire to give recognition of courage and distinguished service. . . . To select those who embraced opportunity for conspicuous service and valor has been no easy task. The duty has been conscien- tiously performed." Appendix I was headed: " Medals of Honor, Distinguished Service Medals and Navy Crosses Awarded." It is rather curious that after such statements in his annual report, Secretary Daniels should have discovered, when popular attention was directed to his favouritism, that " no official approval of any list has been made " and that " all lists puhlislied were tentative." It was at least a most unusual act to publish broadcast in his official annual re- port to the President a tentative list, thereby subjecting all officers and men concerned to a most embarrassing ordeal. A very few days after the list of medal awards was pub- lished, as an appendix to the annual report of the Secretary of the Navy, the attention of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs had been called to the peculiarities of this list. On December 16th, the day before Admiral Sims wrote his letter declining the Distinguished Service Medal conferred upon him. Senator C. S. Page, the chairman of the Senate Com- mittee, had written the Secretary of the Navy requesting copies of the report of the Knight board. The Secretary replied in a letter of December 19th (received by Senator Page December 24th), stating that the report was being THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 53 submitted and explaining his reasons for departing from the recommendations in making up his list of awards. Members of both houses of Congress were greatly con- cerned by the action of Secretary Daniels and the indigna- tion aroused by his list. The Senate Committee on Naval Affairs on January 5th, 1920, decided to appoint a subcom- mittee " to investigate the awarding of medals in the naval service." The Senate subcommittee was composed of Sen- ators Hale, Chairman (Maine), McCormick (Illinois), New- berry (Michigan), replaced in January by Senator Poin- dexter (of Washington), Pittman (Nevada) and Trammell (Florida). Hearings were begun on January 16, 1920, Admiral Sims being the first witness. The other witnesses called to testify, in the order of their appearance, were : Admiral Mayo, Gen- eral Barnett (U. S. Marine Corps), Admiral Grant, Ad- mirals Knight, CofFman and Badger of the Board of Awards, and Secretary Daniels. At the conclusion of the Secretary's testimony Admiral Sims was recalled to make a statement in reply to assertions and attacks of Mr. Daniels. The hear- ings on the question of medal awards were concluded on Feb- ruary 10, 1920, and the report of the subcommittee was published on March 7, 1920. XI It was apparent from the first that opinion in the naval service and in the country condcm-ned the action of Mr. Daniels. Senator Hale, in opening the investigation, said: " The purpose and intent of the statute was to award medals to officers and men of the navy for heroism in action and for dis- tinguished service, and for such purposes alone. ... It was clearly intended that the list should be beyond the reach of pat- ronage or of political or private influence of any kind. . . . " Following the publication of this list (of the Secretary) many protests were made about the awards and a feeling has arisen in 54 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR the country that the purpose of the act has not been followed out and that political and private influence and patronage have crept in. " As a result the value of the medals to the recipients has been greatly diminished and the morale of the navy has to a great extent been injured." Senator Pittman, senior Democratic member of the com- mittee, recognized the nature of the investigation fully when he said: " Say what you want to about the matter here, it is in the nature of a trial of the acts of the Secretary of Navy." The great majority of naval officers agreed whole-heart- edly with the criticisms of Admiral Sims. Captain R. D. Hasbrouck, one of the officers who had been awarded a medal by Mr. Daniels for circumstances connected with the loss of a ship, wrote the Secretary as follows : " In view of my strong personal conviction of the fitness and justice of Admiral Sims' summing up of the underlying reason for the award of naval honours. ... I request that my name be stricken from the list of awards. . . . " I have a higher regard for Admiral Sims' views on matters affecting the morale of the naval service than those of any other officer. Concurring so unreservedly •in his views I cannot, con- sistently and with honesty to myself, accept an honour which I personally feel is undeserved." The Army and Navy Journal in its issue of January 3rd, 1920, said: " Navy officers in Washington . , . expressed keen regrets that the controversy had been fanned into the proportions of a sen- sation . . . there was no question that the Secretary had only himself to blame for antagonizing the entire commissioned per- sonnel of the navy, in the opinion of these officers, and that the effect upon navy morale would not be overcome for a long time." An officer of over fifteen years' service in the navy in a letter published in the same issue of the Army o/ud Navy THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 55 Journal expressed sentiments that were quoted as being typical of the opinion of the navy : " Never before, during my time in the service, has anything caused more discontent and dissatisfaction among tlie officer per- sonnel than the publication of the ' Navy Awards ' as released by Secretary Daniels, ... I think it is an honour not to be in the Secretary's list, as our highly thought of and much beloved Ad- miral Sims has so clearly sliown and demonstrated. We stand back of liim. — every officer who knows him or who has ever served with him. He is the greatest naval officer in the world to- day and knows full well what he is doing. Admiral Sims is saving the morale and the esprit de corps of our navy." The attitude of the press, apart from the purely partisan administration papers that blindly endorse any act of the administration, is well represented by an editorial in the New York Herald, from which the following quotation is taken : " It is difficult to understand what INIr. Daniels means by de- claring that no official approval of any honour list has been made when an appendix to his own annual report to the President car- ries an unqualified roster of the officers rewarded and this has the force of a guaranteed notification to the public. . . . The atti- tude of Rear Admiral Sims is eminently correct and accords with the best traditions of the navy. It deserves the unstinted sup- port of the country and will receive it despite the blandishments and attempted bcguilcments that are sure to follow. Had it not been for the actions of Rear Admiral Sims, Rear Admiral Hilary Jones, and Captain Raymond Hasbrouck the emasculated list might have been slipped over and, as. has happened so often be- fore, the rights and wrongs of it never have been revealed to the public. The time had fortunately come to put a stop to this practice, and let us hope it has been stopped," XII The naval officers who testified before the committee brought out clearly the injustice of Mr. Daniels' list of 66 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR awards. Furthermore, the reports of the Board of Awards, and the documents furnished the committee showing the recommendations of commanding officers and of the Board and the final action by the Secretary, more than confirmed all the criticisms of the naval witnesses. The chief characteristics of Mr. Daniels' awards, as estab- lished by the investigation, were: First: The relative order of merit in the lists of com- manding officers had been arbitrarily changed by JNIr. Daniels. In this way the officers who performed the most distinguished services received lesser awards than many officers favoured by Mr. Daniels, whose services had been much less meritorious. Second: The most aggravated instance of this change in the relative merit of awards occurred in the case of flag officers com- manding stations or forces, in positions of the greatest responsi- bility, and of officers on the staffs of the commanding admirals. Mr. Daniels ruthlessly reduced nearly all awards to staff officers. These staff officers, on whom fell the responsibility for the plan- ning and direction of all operations, received lower awards than many commanders of single ships, given the Distinguished Serv- ice Medal by Mr. Daniels because they conducted themselves as every naval officer should after their ships had been torpedoed. Third: Mr. Daniels followed the stated policy of awarding the Distinguished Service Medal to commanding officers of ships torpedoed by the enemy. Thus he definitely established the pol- icy of awarding failure and honouring defeat at the hands of the enemy. Fourth: Mr. Daniels failed to award the Distinguished Serv- ice Medal to commanding officers of ships who had met the enemy successfully, and either inflicted damage on the U-boats, or saved transports or convoys from attacks by their skill. Success against the enemy thus received a lesser award than failure. Fifth: In accordance with his definite policy of posing as the champion of enlisted men, Mr. Daniels, of his own initiative and without any recommendations from commanding officers, awarded 15 Distinguished Service Medals and many Navy Crosses to en^ listed men, whose services were much less meritorious than those THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 57 of many of the officers to whom he refused awards or gave a lesser award than lie did to these enlisted men. Sij'th: Mr. Daniels violated the act of Congress by award- ing the Distinguished Service Medal in at least 30 cases, or about 20 per cent, of his whole list of 156 Distinguished Service Medals, for acts of heroism. The Board of Awards clearly pointed out in the reports submitted to Mr. Daniels in 1919, that acts of hero- ism, however notable, could be awarded only with the Medal of Honour and the Navy Cross. Mr. Daniels altered the recom- mendations, regardless of the law, and picked out 30 cases, of his own choosing, of heroic conduct not in a duty of great responsi- bility, for the Distinguished Service Medal. Seventh: In awarding medals to the Marine Corps, Mr. Dan- iels disregarded his own instructions that medals should be awarded only to those marines not serving with the army. He re- jected practically all recommendations from the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Board of Awards, and awarded navy medals to the marines already given awards by the army, thus giving them duplicate awards. His duplication of awards in- cluded 4 Medals of Honour, 12 Distinguished Service Medals and 309 Navy Crosses, or 325 awards out of a grand total of 1620 on his list. Eighth: In making his changes in the list of awards, Mr. Daniels was plainly actuated more by favouritism than by a de- sire to accord impartial justice. He singled out for the highest distinctions a number of officers closely associated with his ad- ministration. One of the medals he gave to commanding officers whose ships had been sunk by the enemy, went to his brother-in- law, another to the officer who was his personal aide. On the other hand, he had eliminated from the lists many officers whom he personally disliked because they had not been subservient to him and had fought for the best interests of the navy even against his opposition. The reasons Mr. Daniels gave for making his changes absurdly fail to explain his list. He enunciated a number of quite sound principles. On examination of the evidence, it was shown that he himself had disregarded these prin- 58 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR ciples most flagranti}'. In fact, these reasons seemed to have been uniformly formulated, after the event, in order to placate public sentiment. In endeavouring to defend his ac- tion, Mr. Daniels also made desperate efforts to becloud the issue by dragging in irrelevant charges against Admiral Sims and by trying to align other high officers of the navy against him. XIII A statistical analysis of the awards recommended by com- manding officers and by the Board of Awards gives a rough indication of the general character of the changes and modifications made by Mr. Daniels from these recommenda- tions. Sixty-four and five-tenths per cent., or about two-thirds, of all awards to navy personnel represented only the per- sonal judgment of the Secretary, while no less than 35 per cent, were added by himself to the list. At the same time half of the recommendations of the commanding officers were totally rejected and an additional 20 per cent, were changed. Only 26 per cent, of the recommendations of the commanding officers were approved and accepted. In the case of the recommendations made by Admiral Sims for awards to the officers who served under his command in the war zone, only 37.5 per cent., or three-eighths of the total, were accepted ; 37.5 per cent., or another three-eighths, were reduced; and 20 per cent, were rejected altogether and no awards made. At the same time the Secretary, on 5 per cent, of the cases, gave higher awards than those recom- mended by Admiral Sims. The order of relative merit, which the commanding officer at the front could alone determine, was thus disregarded. THE DANIELS MEDAL AWARDS 59 "rt (^ O O O O (N (M o '^^\^ "^ t 5 H 1 cf t, TS 1 H .5 ^ o< 05 «c o en _ go _ pH GJ^ < 1 '"' H a J • CD i-i «0 O •«3« © • "* CO i-H CO c< «5 H c3 1—1 ""I ' 1 !5 •* rH O O «0 1 O © o i-H rH «> CD CD w CO «5 CD ■* M :^ ^ -< H o < rH 0< O «■ G i-( 1 K «5 • ■* Oi (N S »< 13 -H CD «0 -rj •* O o s 0< O Q «0 CD CO G^ o © <^ § Cfi -< o CO il i «3 1 u o 5 O O 05 X < E rt « g o UO UMBER TION8 Officer o ^ O - w . cc a. S s o o 1 ^ SC ^C O H PS 60 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR "rt 0*5 "O O oc 00 t- o> d rH 05 »fl •>* CD ^ § ^5' pH I-l , 1 IXI t/5 ^ IM t- ■* « «5 Q^ F-H 1— 1 CO t- K . : "^ S 'B ^ • • « P- • o S • • (N C^ • :?; ^ < J • t- CO ? • • ^ d O <3 . 1-1 O 00 o- o o ■«*' o -rj Ol 1^ I-H 1— 1 r?° 'q ^ e* 00 (« «r »c u5 G* »H Tj t- Q SK : : : co h J2 « «5 O a CO s 12; b- 05 cc CO rH G^ o< CO g 3 • • w ►J S5 O • • «J c Is u o 0^5 tf 3"^ r^ "5 ^i NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR that Admiral Sims had failed to appreciate the importance of protecting the American troops from submarine attack. Admiral Sims himself effectively disposed of this assertion, as the following quotation from his rebuttal statement dem- onstrates : " The statements and implications of the Secretary of the Navy, with regard to my attitude toward the protection of troops in the danger zone are characteristic of the kind of misinterpre- tation and misrepresentation into which the Secretary has, un- fortunately, so often fallen in his attempts to deal with technical military matters, which he does not understand. . . . He de- clared that I failed to appreciate that the protection of troop transports was my paramount duty until he (the Secretary) had cabled me peremptorily that this was my main mission. I invite the committee to try and imagine an officer, who was responsible for the safety of our troops, failing to appreciate the necessity for protecting them. " Running throughout the Secretary's statement is the repeti- tion of this assertion. For example, he refers to my ' one idea, and controlling idea, of carrying on the war by putting all our destroyers at Queenstown, giving priority to protection of mer- chant ships over that of troop transports.' Again, the Secretary of the Navy, in referring to the question of transportation of troops, said: " ' The great machinery of troop transportation, the cruiser and transport force, was initiated by the Navy Department, built up, organized and operated, not by Admiral Sims, but by other officers not under his command. His duty in this connec- tion consisted solely in arranging routes and providing escort vessels through the submarine zone, and in the performance of this latter and vitally important duty he had to be reminded time and again by the Department — bear this in mind now, gentle- men, with reference to the duty of protecting American troops in transport through the submarine zone. Admiral Sims had to be reminded time and again by the Department — that the par- amount duty of our destroyers, with which nothing must inter- fere, was the fullest protection of ships carrying American troops.' MR. DANIELS' MISREPRESENTATIONS 385 " In this same connection the Secretary also said : ' The Navy Department, from the moment it was entrusted with this task, regarded the protection and successful operation of these troop ships as its highest duty. Regarding human life as more valuable than supplies, I do not share the view of Ad- miral Sims that the escort of cargo ships was quite as important as the protection of vessels carrying troops.' " And . . . ' I found it necessary, soon after troop trans- portation began, to remind him sharply that the first duty of American destroyers in European waters was to protect ships carrying American troops. I could not conceive that an Ameri- can admiral, charged with such high responsibility, could regard supplies as of more value than human life, and cargo vessels more important, for any reason, than ships carrying American troops.' "Again . , . the Secretary said: 'If I had believed, Mr. Chairman, that Admiral Sims cherished any such idea; that he valued supplies more than the lives of American soldiers ; that he was willing to endanger troop transports in order to save cargo ships, he would have been instantly removed from command.' " These instances that I have quoted are only a few of the many similar statements found throughout the testimony of the Secretary. There are certain considerations in this connection that should be made perfectly clear. " At the time I went abroad, and our forces began to arrive in European waters, no troops were being sent from the United States to France, and the primary mission of the vessels in the early months, before the troop movements began, was necessarily the protection of merchant shipping and offensive operations against enemy submarines. As soon as I was informed that troop movements were to begin, I made every effort to induce the department to draw up adequate plans to insure the protection of the transport of these troops. As I have already told you, the first troop convoy was sent to France on plans drawn up hastily in Washington, without consultation or consideration of allied war experiences, and in consequence the first troop convoys narrowly escaped disaster. In my letters and cables at the time I pointed out to the Department, in the strongest possible terms. 386 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR the necessity and importance of adequately protecting American troops on the high seas. The Department finally requested me to submit full plans for the handling, routing and protecting of troop convoys through the war zone. These plans I drew up. They were accepted by the Department, put into operation, and throughout the remainder of the war governed the whole of our troop transportation in the war zone. At no time were any of our troop transports, escorted by American forces, successfully attacked by submarines. " This shows that in no case was the protection afforded them inadequate. The disposition of our naval forces in European waters was made by me, and all our plans and arrangements for handling troops were made before I received any of the admoni- tions which the Secretary said he had to send to me as peremp- tory orders. Not a single one of the plans that had been made, not a single detail in the disposition of forces, not a single detail of the convoy operations, was changed in the slightest degree as a result of, or after, these so-called peremptory orders were re- ceived from the Navy Department; and this for the simple reason that it was unnecessary that any such changes should be made. The arrangements that had been made were adequate, as was amply demonstrated by the results. Only four or five convoys were attacked, no torpedo ever touched a loaded trans- port, not a single soldier was lost under the protection I gave them. " I, of course, realized at the time that these messages were simply the result of nervousness in official quarters, the result of the inevitable misunderstandings and misconceptions of the naval situation at the ' front.' " In repeated letters to the Navy Department, which I have read you, and to officers in the Department, in June and July, 1917, and at later dates, I called attention to the fact that my primary duty was the protection of American troops, and that the forces under my command had received instructions based upon this mission. Not only was there never, at any time, any question in the forces in Europe as to this primary mission, but you will find it clearly defined in my instructions to my subordi- nate commanders. The messages of the Secretary, inspired by a MR. DANIELS' MISREPRESENTATIONS 387 natural anxiety, due to a lack of knowledge of the situation and the dispositions which had been made, were therefore wholly unnecessary. No further action, in any event, could have been taken, than the measures already in operation. " Throughout the war. and since the war, and during this testi- mony, I have never stated that I considered that merchandise was of more value than human lives, nor have I ever stated that I considered the protection of a merchant ship to be more im- portant than the protection of a troop ship. " As a matter of fact, the plans of the convoy and protection of troops in the war zone were all drawn up at my headquarters in London. The routing of all these troops was handled, either directly by my staff in London, or by Admiral Wilson at Brest, acting under my general directions. The Secretary himself has told you how successful were the efforts of the forces under my command, and thereby refutes his contention that troops were not adequately protected. . . . He said: The carrying to Europe and the bringing home of two million troops of the American Expeditionary Force has been justly termed the biggest transportation job in history. They had to be transported three thousand miles through submarine infested zones, facing the constant menace of an attack from an unseen foe, as well as the perils of war time navigation. Yet not one troop ship was sunk on the way to France, and not one soldier aboard a troop ship manned by the United States Navy lost his life through enemy action. That achievement had never been equalled. It was not only the most important but the most successful operation of the war. . . . The Germans never be- lieved it could be done. . . . The sinking of our transports would have been the most telling blow the Germans could have dealt the Allies, — the greatest victory of their submarine warfare.' " That they failed to sink a single allied United States troop ship and sank only three ships of other nationalities carrj'ing American troops was not due to any lack of intention or effort, but to the fact that we gave our troop ships such efficient pro- tection that it was almost impossible for the U-Boats to sink them. " This success was the result of the disposition of forces I 388 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR made for the protection of our troops, and this disposition was not changed. With regard to the Secretary's statement that I had to be repeatedly reprimanded in a similar way throughout the war for failing to realize the necessity of protecting troops, let me say that the two nervous messages quoted by the Secretary, one in July, 1917, the other in May. 1918, were the only mes- sages of this character that I ever received. Department's Failure to Recognize Necessity of Protecting Merchant Tonnage " There is another aspect to the situation which has been sim- ilarly misrepresented. Previous to the first of April, 1918, the number of troops sent from America to Europe had amounted in all to only about 300,000. It had taken nine months to get these 300,000 men to Europe. There were seldom more than two or three troop convoys each month, on an average, during these nine months. While it was recognized that it was the par- amount mission of the forces overseas to protect these troops while en route through the war zone, other considerations could not be neglected. These convoys during these nine months were always fully protected. At least three times as many destroy- ers, per convoy escorted, were assigned to the duty of escorting them than were ever assigned to any merchant convoys, although the merchant convoys usually had from five to ten times as many ships as the troop convoys. No troop transport was sunk during this period while en route to France. " It should be unnecessary, however, to state again that the submarine campaign against merchant tonnage constituted, at this time, the greatest threat to the allied cause. If sufficient merchant ships had been sunk by the submarines in 1917, the Allies would have been forced to make peace, and all of the American effort would have been in vain, so far as assisting the Allies was concerned. Therefore, while it was important — and all important — to protect the American troops, it was also vitally important to protect the merchant shipping which was carrying supplies and war materials for these troops, for the troops of the Allied armies, and for the civilian populations of the Allied coun- tries. My problem was not only to protect American troops, but MR. DANIELS' MISREPRESENTATIONS 389 also to safeguard, so far as I could, Allied lines of communica- tion. "The forces were consequently so located, in 1917, as to give the maximum possible protection to merchant convoys as well as to troops. Our destroyers escorted ten merchant convoys for every troop convoy during these early nine months, before our troop movements really began. Without the assistance they gave, it is very probable that the allied countries would have been forced into an unsatisfactory peace. This was, throughout 1917, the Allies' greatest anxiety. The repeated statements that I received from the Department indicated that they were consid- ering, not the protection of the whole of the allied shipping, but were concentrating their efforts in protecting American shipping alone. They seemed constantly to fail to realize that our Army in France, and the cause for which we were fighting, was de- pendent upon the whole of the allied shipping. At this time, in 1917. the American shipping in the war zone was only a very small part of the whole of the allied shipping. Any protection to American ships, however adequate, would not therefore have saved the Allies, if the measures adopted had not protected also the whole of the allied shipping. " The criticisms of the Secretary of the Navy of my attitude in this regard are in reality a condemnation of the attitude which the Department took at that time. I realized to the full, just as thoroughly as any official in Washington, the necessity of giving our troop ships priority over all other vessels in the war zone in the matter of escort, and they were given this priority. I also realized, what the Department seems to have failed to realize, and what the Secretary in his testimony completely ignored, and that was that we were not. fighting the war alone, that our causp was inseparably bound up with the cause of the Allies, that the defeat of the Allies might very well have involved our defeat, and that the only means of insuring an allied victory was to maintain and protect their overseas communications, their sup- ply lines, as well as our American troop transports. Conse- quently, the forces under my command, during the first nine months, were engaged most of the time in protecting these supply lines, not because they were neglecting the protection of troops. 390 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR but because at this time our troop convoys were so few and so far between that if our forces had been reserved for the protec- tion of them alone, it is very probable that the Allies would have been defeated or forced into an unsatisfactory peace before the American effort on the Western Front could become effective. Too much stress cannot be laid upon this point." CHAPTER XX THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE: AN ANALYSIS OF MR. DANIELS' OWN SUMMARY OF HIS EVIDENCE IN concluding his direct testimony on May 20, 1920, the Secretary made a general summary of his case and of the evidence presented by himself and the witnesses called at his request, to refute the charges of Admiral Sims. No better proof of the correctness of the points established by Admiral Sims can be imagined than is afforded by a critical study of the Secretary's own summation of his own defence. Before going into this, it is advisable to state once again the specific counts in the indictment actually brought by Admiral Sims against Mr. Daniels and his administration of the Navy Department. These Admiral Sims stated, in be- ginning his own testimony on March 9, 1920, in the follow- ing brief and concise form. " Let me point out, in the simplest and clearest possible man- ner, the paramount motive by which my letter was inspired. It is this: We entered a great war. The war was won. thanks to a combination of circumstances which it would be entirely unsafe and unwise to depend upon in future. From the United States naval standpoint, the prosecution of the war involved numerous violations of well-recognized and fundamental military princi- ples, with which every student of naval warfare is familiar. " Briefly stated, they were: " First. Unpreparedness, in spite of the fact that war had been a probability for at least two years and was, in fact, immi- nent for many months before its declaration. " Second. That we entered it with no well considered policy 391 392 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR or plans, and with our forces on the sea not in the highest state of readiness. " Third. That, owing to the above conditions and to the lack of proper organization of our Navy Department, and perhaps to other conditions with which I am not familiar, we failed, for at least six months, to throw our full weight against the enemy; that during this period we pursued a policy of vacillation, or, in simpler words, a hand-to-mouth policy, attempting to formu- late our plans from day to day based upon an incorrect appreci- ation of the situation. . . . " I am convinced that our failure to give adequate support, with the means at our disposal, during these first six months seriously and unnecessarily jeopardized the outcome of the whole war. I believe that this failure, combined with the equally grave one of neglecting to prepare adequately, . . . probably postponed victory four months. Since the average loss of life per day was about 3,000 and the total daily cost was more than $100,000,000, it can be appreciated what this delay meant to humanity and how serious was any fault that resulted in mate- rially prolonging hostilities. " 1 wish particularly to emphasize that it is to this early period that my letter principally refers. ". . . My sole object in submitting my letter to the Depart- ment was, not to demonstrate who was right and who was wrong, but rather to insure so thorough an appreciation of our errors, before time had obscured them, that the chances of repeating them would be minimized, if not eliminated, in the future. " In other words, gentlemen, let me state as forcibly as I can that in this entire question I have no object other than that of the future efficiency of the naval service and the safety of the country. I am at the end of my career. I have everything to lose and nothing to gain. There is no possible question of my having a grievance. There is absolutely no question of personal- ities." II When one keeps this clear statement of the issues in mind and returns to a consideration of the testimony of the THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 393 Secretary, but one conclusion can be drawn. An examina- tion of the concluding summary of Secretary Daniels' state- ment completely confirms the judgment that his defence was based altogether on diversions, evasions and misrepresen- tations. It must have seemed to Mr. Daniels that ultimate success is a sufficient excuse for any failure or mistakes, no matter how disastrous these might have been under less fortunate circumstances. No other explanation can be offered for the following statement in his summary : " The war was won, and that the Navy did its full share toward that great result has been fully established. That it was 100 per cent, perfect, that no mistakes were made, no one for a moment contends." The Secretary continued, with an assertion that fairly outdoes his previous claims : " It has been established that fewer mistakes were made in plans, policy and operations, than were made by any other navy or by our own Navy in any previous war. The testimony proves that no department of our own or any other government functioned more efficiently, made decisions more promptly or put them into execution more swiftly or successfully." Whether the testimony " proves " such an astonishing ex- hibition of infallible and instantaneous efficiency on the part of Mr. Daniels' department can be easily determined by an examination of that testimony. Ill Continuing with his statement, the Secretary proceeded to enumerate the achievements of the Navy in the war. It is to be remarked that nearly all of the achievements enumerated by Mr. Daniels relate to events in the last half of the war, i. e., in 1918. 394 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Thus, he referred to the transport of 2,000,000 troops abroad " without loss," as " the outstanding accomplishment of the war." Until April, 1918, a year after we entered the war, only 300,000 troops had been sent to France. After that date an average of 300,000 men were sent monthly, as opposed to an average of 25,000 per month for the first year of our intervention. The Secretary spoke of the operation of cargo transports by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service. This was not even organized until January 9, 1918, nine months after war began. The Secretary referred to the fact that few of our own ships with armed guards were sunk in the war zone. This is not surprising, as in 1917, at the time of the heaviest sink- ings, only 5 per cent, of the total shipping traversing the war zone was American. IV The Secretary asserted that our wholehearted co-opera- tion with the Allies, from the beginning, was proven by the conferences held with the British and French local naval commanders in the western Atlantic in April, 1917. Yet at those conferences the Allies had been told that our Navy was to be held intact on the Atlantic coast; that a few de- stroyers would be sent to the war zone only " to show the flag"! The Secretary contended that the 28 destroyers that reached the war zone in the first three months of the war, were all that were needed. Yet on May 3, the allied missions had told him that a hundred anti-submarine vessels were needed at once. There were then 55 such vessels in Admiral Wilson's force patrolling the Atlantic coast ; but it was many months before they were sent abroad. The Secretary asked himself, " Did we send to Europe as many ships and men as we should or could have sent? " and THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 395 answered to his own satisfaction by telling how many men and ships we had abroad, not in April or July or Novem- ber, 1917, but on November 11, 1918. He also told how many hundreds we were building — not in 1917 — but at the time of the armistice. Similarly, the Secretary queried himself with, " Did we delay the putting into effect of the convoy system.'' " and replied that the Allies had not used convoy until May, 1917 ; that " eminent naval authorities (i. e. Benson) doubted whether it could be made a success ; " that " the President and myself favoured it from the beginning," and that " we put it into effect soon after the British did." Then follows a curious bit of reasoning. " Admiral Sims himself," declared Mr. Daniels, " says our vessels made it possible to put the convoy system into effect. Could that have been possible if we had ' resisted ' or sought in any way to prevent its adop- tion.'* " Admiral Sims' point had been that, just as the con- voy system had been finally established in September, 1917, with our indispensable help, so it could have been established in May, 1917, if our help had been forthcoming then instead of months later. The Secretary noted with satisfaction the adherence of the Navy in the war to the principle of unity of command, forgetting, apparently, for the moment, that this was a policy established by Admiral Sims ; and that he himself had severely condemned Admiral Sims only a few moments before of disloyalty for carrying into effect that very principle. The Secretary answered the next question — " Did the Navy Department, as Admiral Sims charges, fail to give him its confidence and support," — by saying " It did not." In substantiation of this flat denial, he said : " We gave every consideration to his recommendations, and most but not all of them were adopted." Yet Mr. Daniels carefully avoided 396 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR adding, that this " consideration " was so very careful and undecisive that it often continued for six months and that the recommendations were adopted only after delays averaging many months, during the most critical period, the " crisis of the naval war," as Jellicoe called it. VI The Secretary said tugs and other small craft had not been sent abroad, as none were available, but that " we built new ones as fast as facilities in America could construct them." He failed to state that the Navy Department made no effort to construct tugs until January, 1918, nine months after the recommendation had been made. The Secretary referred to the " establishment " of bases in France, declared that Sims had " objected," and that " we disregarded his protest and established bases at Brest, at Bordeaux, at St. Nazaire. . . . These bases, established without waiting for recommendations of Admiral Sims, be- came the centres of our activities." Admiral Sims never ob- jected to the establishment of such bases. The Secretary " established " them on paper, in May, 1917, without in- forming Sims or the French as to what purpose the bases were to serve nor to what extent they were to be developed. Officers were sent, without any instructions as to what they were to do, to command bases that did not exist, and the utmost confusion resulted. The bases were not " estab- lished " except in Mr. Daniels' mind and in the Navy Direc- tory, until months later, and then only by Admiral Sims' direction. VII Mr. Daniels then set himself an even more difficult ques- tion to answer. " Were there, as Admiral Sims would have you believe, no war plans worked out and no policy adopted before war was declared? " THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 397 Here the Secretary apparently realized what thin ice he was treading upon and refrained from a categoric answer. Instead, he quoted Admiral Badger's statement about the " Black " war plan and the steps which the General Board had recommended. Admiral Sims, however, had not said that there were no war plans, in a safe somewhere. He had only proven that we had no " well considered policy or plans," before war began, that were actually followed during the war. No officer claimed that the General Board's war plan was ever used, or that it ever came out of the safe where Admiral Rodman believed it to have been. The mysterious disappearance of the " plan " of February 17, 1917, which Mr. Daniels said was the especial plan we used in the war, may indicate, however, that it is doubtful whether the plans were even in the safe. In speaking of the ignored memoranda of the General Board and their suggestions as to plans, Admiral Badger had said, with a touch of unconscious pathos, that plans had been prepared but " the trouble is that the plans and the ex- ecution of them did not meet with the approval of the critics." The fact is that the only people in a position to act as critics to the General Board were the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Benson. Yet the Secretary, carefully evading a direct statement, now said that Admiral Badger had testified " that these rec- ommendations, with few exceptions, were approved and put into effect is shown hy events." Rhetorically the Secretary continued " all this was in progress before Sims left for Europe. . . . How could he have been totally ignorant of all these plans? The General Board, as did every other official of the Navy, favoured the closest co-operation with the Allies, in case of war, and send- ing to Europe such craft as would be of most assistance to them, and aiding them in every way we could. That was our fixed policy, adopted and thoroughly understood." 398 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR After the testimony of Admiral Mayo, Admiral Badger, Admiral Benson and Captain Pratt, this is a most amazing assertion. For these officers, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, the chairman of the General Board, the Chief of Naval Operations and his assistant, testified that no such policy was " fixed," or " adopted " or " thoroughly understood." In fact all agreed that no one in the Navy Department, on April 6, 1917, had even the vaguest idea of what the Navy would do next, beyond getting behind nets to avoid being at- tacked by German submarines. No one, but Daniels, had cared to take such liberties with the facts of history. VIII " Another one of our policies," said the Secretary, " was to increase the Navy in ships and personnel, especially anti- submarine craft, as rapidly as possible." Yet it was not until July 20, 1917, that the officers in the Navy Department succeeded in convincing Secretary Daniels that the Navy should concentrate its naval construction on the most effective type of anti-submarine craft, destroyers. It was not until October 6, 1917, that the war program of destroyers was authorized. In fact on July 20, 1917, over three months after war began. Admiral McKean considered it necessary to address a memorandum to the Secretary, the last of a score that had been sent him since February on the same subject, in which the following statements occur: " With an earnestness beyond expression, backed by a convic- tion that has endured from the first, I ask that we meet this great world crisis by contributing our maximum national effort in build- ing, manning and fighting destroyers to drive enemy submarines from the sea. . . . " The question of types may rest for the moment while we make the great decision to do our utmost. Let it not be said by posterity that we, seeing our duty, hesitated until too late, or that we failed to distinguish essential from incidental effort. Two THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 399 hundred destroyers would mean victory for us. They may be had within a year and a half. The power to accomplish mill follow the decision to accomplish. Let us decide! " Admiral Sims, in quoting this memorandum, said: " Here Admiral McKean states what is, in brief terms, the whole point of the criticism directed against the Department's conduct of the war. They did fail to distinguish essential from incidental eiFort. They failed to act upon the very policy which President Wilson so forcibly set forth in his message to me and in his speech of August 11, 1917." Yet on May 21, 1920, Secretary Daniels told the Senate committee that if in March, 1917, Sims didn't know the De- partment had war plans and policies, all " designed for the war we were to wage and to meet the conditions we were fac- ing," and if he didn't know that it was energetically carrying these out, " he was the only man in America who was in ig- norance of the active and efficient work and policy of the Navy Department." If the Secretary had bothered to read their testimony, he would have discovered that Benson, McKean, Pratt, Mayo, Palmer, Taussig, Laning, were as ignorant as Sims of these war plans and this active and efficient work of the *' Navy Department." As individuals, many officers in the Depart- ment were doing active and efficient work. But their chief obstacle, as all testified, was the " Navy Department " itself. IX One criticism the Secretary proudly admitted, " Admiral Sims charges that we did not allow him to select flag officers who were to serve in Europe. That is correct; we did not. We had no idea of allowing him to determine which admirals should go to Europe and which should not. . . . No mili- tary rule was violated by the Department in this, because Admiral Sims was not Commander-in-Chief, though he de- 400 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR sired such position and the Department decHned his request." The last sentence is an altogether petty and malicious in- sinuation. Admiral Sims never requested that he be ap- pointed " Commander-in-Chief," nor did he ever express, verbally or in writing, any desire for such a position. The principle involved is clear. Though Admiral Sims was not " commander-in-chief " of the Atlantic Fleet, he was most decidedly our naval commander in the war zone. No mere quibble can exempt the Secretary from conviction for the violation of so fundamental a principle of war as to re- fuse to permit the commander in the war zone to select, or even to ask him to suggest, his principal subordinates. Admiral Benson complained that he, too, had often not been consulted about even the most important appointments to naval commands made by the Secretary. Benson was moreover, the chief military adviser of the Secretary. Cap- tain Pratt stated the principle, to which every one who knows the rudiments of warfare subscribes, when he said that " It is the universal practice of the Navy for flag officers to make the recommendations for their subordinates. The final assignments are made by the Secretary in consultation with the Chief of Naval Operations. It is conducive to ef- ficiency to associate those officers together whose relations are bound to be harmonious." Mr. Daniels protested that " we had no idea of allowing him to choose his personal favourites for important com- mands." Quite apart from the fact that Sims is not the type who would play favourites, the Navy and the country know that they would have been far better served by his favourites than by the personal selections of Mr. Daniels. Said Daniels : " The work of the Navy was stupendous and mistakes were unavoidable ; but I feel sure the testimony has not only confirmed THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 401 the general impression of the splendid work done by the Navy but has given an even clearer and more impressive exhibition of the efficiency with which the Navy did its work of preparation for war and operations during the war." If by the " Navy " he means the naval officers and men, one can most heartily agree, as did Admiral Sims. If he in- cludes himself and his chief naval supporters, his statement becomes merely ridiculous, in the face of the testimony un- der cross-examination of Admirals Benson and McKean and of Captain Pratt. The Secretary, however, mentioned a few things that had been done. These were, in his own order: 1. Congress had authorized from 1913-1917 a total of a mil- lion tons of new naval vessels (three-fourths of which are not yet built in the year 1920). 2. The Bureau of Ordnance in 1913 was short 228,000 pro- jectiles. In 1917 it had a reserve of 112,000. The reserve of torpedoes had been increased 9l/^ times, of smokeless powder llA times, of mines, 4^2 times. 3. The enlisted personnel authorized was: in 1913, 51,500; in 1917, 97,000. (This increase was not authorized until August 29, 1916, less than six months before war began; too late to be of any service at the beginning of the war.) Mr. Daniels refused in 1914 and 1915 to request the additional 20,000 men that would have insured the manning of the active Navy in 1917. 4. There was no naval reserve in 1913. In 1917, it was in existence (also authorized August 29, 1916, and hence in April, 1917, still untrained and unorganized). 5. " The organization of 1917 was far superior to that of 1913." (The only change made had been the creation of the Office of Naval Operations in March, 1915, and the enlargement of its functions in August, 1916, at the initiative of Admiral Fiske and against the opposition of Secretary Daniels.) These five measures were all that Mr. Daniels could cite in the way of preparedness before 1917. How could any 402 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR more convincing proof be requested of his failure to pay heed to his primary duty, — that of preparing the Navy for war at a time of world upheaval? Mr. Daniels' state of mind in 1920 can be judged from the fact that he said of the above evidences of war prepara- tions : " Such enormous undertakings were put through during the war that we are now apt to be little impressed by the accomplish- ments of the period preceding the war^ and figures such as are given above are needed to remind us that the pre-war achieve- ments, in the direction of preparation for war, were also enor- mous, compared with anything that had preceded them." The Great War did not begin until 1914. It was hardly even a threat until 1913. Although we were facing war be- tween 1914 and 1917, so little had been done to prepare for " any eventuality " that the actual preparedness measures, cited by Mr. Daniels himself, can be counted on the fingers of one hand ; and his initiative even in these was not estab- lished by the evidence. In the cases of the increases in per- sonnel, and the improvement in organization, he had origi- nally bitterly opposed the steps finally taken. XI Toward the end of his summary of the case for the defence, the Secretary became unconsciously ludicrous in his asser- tions. Thus spake Sir Josephus : "I am loath to believe that Admiral Sims believed in 1917 that the department was making fundamental errors in the con- duct of the war. Certainly he never came out openly and straightforwardly with any such opinion at the time. It is diffi- cult even now to read by implication any such meaning into his numerous cablegrams and letters Had he felt that way it was his duty to bring his opinion clearly and sharply before his su- periors." THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 403 Can it be possible that the Secretary of the Navy had not read Admiral Sims' communications either in 1917, or in 1920, when he presented many of them in his testimony? From the end of April, 1917, for many months, Admiral Sims was pointing out to the Navy Department, at least weekly, and often daily, in the most strongly worded cables and letters, compatible with official proprieties, these very same fundamental errors of the Navy Department. Indeed so strong were these in their tone that Captain Pratt, in his testimony, said they would have had more effect if they had not been so forceful. On April 28, 1917, when the Navy Department was con- cerned chiefly with protecting the American coast, with Ad- miral Wilson's patrol force of 55 vessels, and of keeping the American fleet intact in port. Admiral Sims cabled : " Owing to the gravity of the submarine situation, although I am unaware of the situation as regards our forces available and their material condition, I cannot avoid urging the impor- tance of the time element and the fact that the pressing need of the moment is numbers of vessels in the danger area. We can- not send too soon or too many. ... At present none (i. e., Ger- man submarines) are likely to be sent over (to the American coast). ... I believe our Navy has an opportunity for glorious distinction and I seriously recommend that there be sent at once the maximum possible number of destroyers." On June 21, 1917, nearly two months later, Admiral Sims cabled : " I trust I have made the critical nature of the military situa- tion entirely clear. I consider it my duty to report that if we cannot offer more immediate actual assistance even to the extent of sending the majority of the vessels patrolling our ozcn coast lines which cannot materially affect the general situation, we will fail to render the service to the allied cause which future history will show to have been necessary. . . . ". . . Armed merchantmen are being sunk daily off this port. 404. NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR The success of the convoys so far brought in shows that the system will defeat the submarine campaign if applied generally and in time. . . . The present campaign is not succeeding. The necessity is again presented of sending all destroyers, tugs, yachts and other craft which can reach the critical area by them- selves or towed part way by reserve battleships. // the situa- tion is not made clear, I hope the Department will indicate the future information desired. Time is a vital element in any measures taken." A score of other messages of similar import, all in sub- stance a complete condemnation of the " safety first " policy then actuating the Navy Department, were quoted by Ad- miral Sims in his testimony. His letter reports of June 29, and of July 16, 1917, may be singled out as instances of letters that constitute in themselves the most striking indict- ment imaginable of the delays, inaction and timid prudence of the Navy Department in those first and most critical months of the war. It is very hard to understand either the meaning or in- tent of Mr. Daniels' statement, that in 1917 Admiral Sims " never came out openly and straightforwardly " and pointed out to the department the errors it was committing. XII In the oratorical peroration with which the Secretary con- cluded his statement, he reiterated again his many misrep- resentations. He recited his " pride " in the achievements of the Navy. He had only done his " solemn duty " to the officers and men of the service, in defending them from the " charges " which had " shocked " and hurt them. He spoke of having attended a memorial service, for some of the men who had died in the naval service, and said : " If I had been silent when what these dead had done was as- sailed, I could not ever have stood with bared head over their THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE 405 graves, without a sense that I had failed them and permitted unjust reflections to tarnish their fame." If it were not that Daniels, in the heat of his ignorant and vindictive resentment at criticism, may have really be- lieved that Admiral Sims had " assailed " the war record of the men of the Navy with " unjust reflections," this state- ment would seem a disgraceful sacrilege ; a deliberate slander on the men who died across the seas and on their honoured and well beloved commander ; a cowardly attempt to defend himself behind the cloak, of the deathless glory, of those who had died in their country's cause. Mr. Daniels devoted two pages to fulsome praise of the Navy, and of the splendid service of its personnel in the war. Admiral Sims had done this more graphically — more power- fully — because he had done so with that sincerity, which forms, by contrast, so refreshing and so distinctive a char- acteristic of his personality. Mr. Daniels having praised the officers and men of the Navy for two pages, revealed his purpose when he said: " It lias been a pleasure and a privilege to point out to this committee some of the notable deeds of our naval officers, who made a record so excellent that no criticisms or accusations have been able to leave a stain or even a speck upon that record. . . . " To the American people . . . the Navy was their reliance when world justice was imperilled. They knew that it was ready, fit, efficient, and the history I have been privileged to pre- sent to your committee fully justified their faith. Indeed it crowns it." For three years previous to April 6, 1917, the Secretary of the Navy had deceived the country, perhaps unintention- ally or through ignorance, in his annual reports, by his pub- licity bureau, and through his speeches, as to the condition of the Navy. The people, as a result, " knew " nothing of the truth about the Navy in 1917, certainly not if they 406 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR believed the statements made to them at the time by the Secre- tary of the Navy. Mr. Daniels was quite correct, in concluding his state- ment before the Senate Committee in 1920 with the admis- sion that his testimony before the committee fully " crowns " his long series of previous statements about the Navy ; but the implication of his statement doubtless escaped him. CHAPTER XXI A DANIELS COME TO JUDGMENT (The Cross-Examination of the Secretary) I THE Secretary of the Navy had apparently noticed with dismay the admissions made by previous witnesses when they had been subjected to the searching and astute cross-examin- ation of Senator Hale. His own testimony, under cross-examination, reveals his obvious and stated intention to avoid at all costs any dam- aging admissions. He refused throughout to make direct answers, or to ad- mit anything. He repeated monotonously the phrases that had colored his direct statement. The charges " against the Navy," he said, were " preposterous and outrageous," a " crime " against the service. The only criticisms of the Navy had come from men with a " grievance " ; officers in- spired by " wounded vanity," by devious political motives, by a desire to *' Prussianize the Navy." The Navy had fought magnificently in the war. All possible preparations had been made. Full and complete war plans were in ex- istence. The Navy had never been so efficient as in April, 1917. The Department's policy from the beginning was whole-hearted co-operation with the Allies. When Mr. Daniels was confronted with the evidence dis- proving in every case the impression that he was trying to convey, he evaded the issue and entered into interminable monologues on subjects entirely foreign to the questions asked him. When confronted with the proofs of the criti- 407 408 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR cisms contained in Admiral Sims' letter and testimony, he as- sailed Admiral Sims for attacking the Navy, declared the Navy had made a splendid record in the war and that though mistakes were made these were of no real consequence, as we had won the war. In vain, Chairman Hale endeavoured to get the Secretary to answer the question asked him. ]Mr. Daniels obviously intended to tire out the committee by his evasions and verbose diversions and misrepresentations, and so to avoid having to make any direct answers. For four days the Secretary was under cross-examination. It is with difficulty that one can find even a dozen direct answers to questions concerned with the issues of the in- vestigation. II The Chairman began the cross-examination by stating that the committee deprecated the unfounded personal at- tacks upon certain of the witnesses. The committee, he said, were not at all concerned with the witnesses' opinions of each other, but only with the essential facts concerning our preparedness for war in 1917 and the Department's conduct of the war during the first six months after April 6, 1917. The Chairman also invited the Secretary's attention to the fact that Admiral Sims' criticisms were not directed against the Navy itself. The committee repeatedly felt obliged to protest against Mr. Daniels' tactics ; but he defiantly announced that he would answer as he chose, that he was the Secretary of the Navy, and that if necessary he would remain before the com- mittee all summer rather than give the direct answers they desired. The Chairman repeatedly asked what war plans the Navy had in 1917. The Secretary in reply only quoted volu- minously from the parts of testimony of Admiral Badger and CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 409 Captain Pratt, in which these officers had described the memoranda that had been drawn up by the General Board and by two or three officers in Operations in 1917, giving their own estimates of various problems and their recom- mendations. These were not in any sense of the word " war plans." The " Black " war plan which the Secretary declared was a full and complete and up-to-date plan for war with Ger- many had not the slightest possible relation to the situation existent since 1914. The Black Plan provided only for a naval campaign in the Atlantic, by our major naval forces. It was based on the assumption that we would be fighting single-handed against a European enemy which could use its fleet freely in the Atlantic, and that the issue of war would centre chiefly in the Caribbean Sea. Ill Chairman Hale spent the best part of two days trying to get some proof from Mr. Daniels, of his repeated assertions that " we had plans for war with every nation in the Atlan- tic." The Secretary consistently refused to answer. Every time the question was raised, he began to read a few more pages of testimony that he thought could be construed as giving the impression that there had been in 1917 suitable war plans, officially approved by the Department, adequate to meet the situation that confronted us on April 6, 1917. On the afternoon of INIay 21, when Chairman Hale, for example, asked the Secretary about the plans, Mr. Daniels, as usual, replied: " Yes, we had plans for war with every nation in the At- lantic." " The Chairman: And especially one for war with Germany? "Secretary Daniels: Yes. I would like to say, Mr. Chair- man that since the morning session I have had a conference with Admiral Badger . . . and he will be very happy ... to bring 410 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR all the plans in executive session of the committee, so that you may see the plans (N. B. These were the so-called ' Black ' plans, described above). ... I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that this morning ... I referred to a statement of Admiral Sims with reference to the fact that he had charged Admiral Benson with not having the will to win." The Secretary then read a quotation from Admiral Sims in support of his own contention of the morning that Sims " made the grave and infamous charge that Admiral Benson lacked the will to win." In the morning the Chairman had pointed out that no such charge was contained in Admiral Sims' letter. Daniels then twisted about and said it was in his testimony, and that " It is as grave a crime in one place as in the other." The only substantiation the Secretary could find was a quotation which he now introduced, to divert attention from the embarrassing question about lack of plans. In this Admiral Sims had said : " The spiritual foundation of every war is the will to victory and if any man, no matter how honest, has an invincible preju- dice against the people we are fighting alongside of, it is very probable that it has an unconscious influence upon him; and that is the reason, that in submitting this letter for the consideration of the Navy Department, I put that — (i. e., Admiral Benson's admonition that ' we would as soon fight the British as the Ger- mans ') — in there, as one of the most important things in the letter, that if we ever go into a war again we want to make sure that the spiritual foundation of our organization, the will to victory, is sound." The Chairman remarked after the Secretary had read this quotation : " I do not think any one can question that. That is good doctrine, is it not? " Secretary Daniels: But when you charge the Chief of Oper- ations with not having the will to win, you charge him with a grave crime. CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 411 " The Chairman : I do not think it does charge him. " Secretary Daniels : I think that would be the interpretation of it. I do not see any other interpretation of it." The ChaiiTTian then quoted Admiral Sims' further state- ment which Mr. Daniels had omitted; namely that: " I have always had the best possible relations with Admiral Benson. I regard him as an upstanding and honest man who has exceedingly strong convictions, and who is very firm in adherence to these convictions. I believe everything he has done, during the •war, has been done conscientiously and to get along with the IV The Chairman, having thus disposed of Mr. Daniels' as- sertion about Admiral Sims' " grave and infamous charges " — came back to the question of plans. Whereupon Mr. Daniels began to read the General Board's recommendations of February 4th, 1917. These had never received any of- ficial approval from the Navy Department. The Chairman therefore interrupted the Secretary, pointed out that the recommendations of Admiral Badger were al- ready in the testimony and said : " You see, you have already made your testimony in your direct statement, Mr. Secretary, and now I want to ask you some questions. It is no good to me if you do not answer my ques- tions. "Secretary Daniels: This is an answer to your question, be- cause you raised, the question of plans. " The Chairman: I am in hopes of getting from you, before we get through, a statement of j ust what plans we had at the out- break of war, and on February 2 ; and if you are not at liberty to give them out because they are confidential, I want the plans, to be mentioned as confidential, stated. This that you are reading has already been put into the record. "Secretary Daniels: This is answering your question, and is 412 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR exceedingly important. . . . Here is what we did, and this is the detailed plan." The Chairman said, " I am not asking you what was in the plan, but I am asking you about the plan, so that I can get it in my mind. ... So far I have been unable to." "Secretary Daniels: I am giving you that plan now," and he continued with the reading of it. When he had finished the Chairman asked : " That was approved by you when ? "Secretary Daniels: I have not the date here, hut it was approved, as soon as it came to me." (i. e., on February 4, 1917). " The Chairman: Does that appear on the plan? "Secretary Daniels: It was approved by me, Mr. Chairman. I do not see in this testinwny the actual official action. " The Chairman: Then what became of it, after it was ap- proved by you? " Secretary Daniels: It went to Operations to carry it out. " The Chairman: It went to Operations? "Secretary Daniels: To carry it out." Yet Admiral Badger in his testimony noted that in the case of this plan there was " no record of action by the De- partment." Neither he nor any other naval officer had ever heard of the memorandum having been " approved " by Mr. Daniels. Nor did any of the officers in Operations know anything about this General Board memorandum having been sent " to Operations to carry it out ! " V For two more whole days. Chairman Hale vainly attempted to learn something of the plans. The Secretary stated un- der oath that the Navy Department had had detailed plans " always from the time the General Board was organized, up to this moment . . . which would cover a war with the Cen- tral Empire, with Germany, Yes, sir. . . . CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 413 "... The General Board failed in nothing in the making of basic plans and policies recommended to the Department, and the department failed in nothing in approving the car- rying out of these basic plans which set forth the essential policies that governed the Navy." The Secretary again quoted Captain Pratt's personal, undated, unapproved memoranda as the " operative " plans of the Department. But no plans were forthcoming, and finally even the courteous patience of Chainnan Hale was exhausted, and he insisted on an answer. "The Chairman: I asked you, Mr. Secretary, whether in your opinion we had any plans for a war with Germany which would include the co-operation of the Allies with us, the war being the kind of a naval war which existed after 1916? "Secretary Daniels: I decline ever to answer Yes or No in any investigation, Mr. Chairman. . . . " The Chairman : This is a perfectly definite question. "Secretary Daniels: Yes, and I will give you a perfectly definite answer, but you cannot tell me to answer Yes or no. " The Chairman: You can answer whether there were such plans, in your opinion. "Secretary Daniels: I have a right to answer as I please. Ask me questions and I will answer them all definitely and with fullness. . . . " The CJiairman : You must answer them, Mr. Secretary, in a way to give me the information I ask for. " Secretary Daniels: I am the Secretary of the Navy and I shall answer you in accordance with the duty of my office, and fully. ... " The Chairman: I ask you questions, and I would not care if you would answer them so as to convey information, but that you do not do. I would much prefer to have you answer them in that way. "Secretary Daniels: And I would much prefer not to be told how to answer questions." Naturally ! for Chairman Hale had assumed that the 414 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Secretary was trying to aid the committee to learn the truth. The Secretary preferred his own methods ! VI Another half day passed, and still the Secretary evaded questions, reading large masses of testimony into the record, without being willing himself to do anything more than make the general and unsupported assertion that " The General Board had perfect and full plans for ' a ' war with the Ger- mans." He was careful to state that it was the General Board and not the Navy Department, and that, it was a " plan " for " a " war with Germany. He knew there was no plan for " the war " which we actually fought with Ger- many. Chairman Hale finally asked the Secretary : " Now, from your answers am I to understand we were thor- oughly prepared with plans for anti-submarine warfare or not, Mr. Secretary? "Secretary Daniels: We were entirely prepared with plans for any kind of warfare the naval strategists could foresee. " Chairman: For anti-submarine warfare? "Secretary Daniels: Not specifically. Any kind, or every kind. " The Chairman: Mr. Secretary, do you not think that as a committee we have a right to get information on these matters? You have told us they had ample plans. Now I want to know what those ample plans were. "Secretary Daniels: Admiral Badger will present them whenever you send for them. " The Chairman: You are the witness on the stand to answer this . . . "Secretary Daniels: I know what you are asking me, but I know what I am answering you. You asked me if we had any plans. The dreadnaughts . . . " The Chairman: Is it not your purpose to assist the commit- tee in this investigation? CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 415 "Secretary Daniels: It is my purpose to get the committee the fullest possible information. " The Chairman: Do you think we get the information, when you do not answer the questions ? "Secretary Daniels: Absolutely. I tell you we had plans for any kind of warfare, in the Black plans. " The Chairman: It has been said that there seems to be a good deal of a smoke screen to keep from getting information. It seems to me that you are not in a position where you want any- thing of that sort. . . . You have stated, heretofore, that none of these charges against the Navy were substantiated at all; that the Navy Department was clear in every respect of any of those criticisms. Now that being the case, there can be nothing to hide in any way. I am sure you would not want to hide anything. You are the very last one to want that. " Secretary Daniels : I have shown you this morning we have everything open. " The Chairman: And it seems to me when we are asking for definite answers to questions that you should want to give them. "Secretary Daniels: And I have answered them fully and given you all the plans. " The Chairman: But you do not answer them so we can get any information from your answers. "Secretary Daniels: If you cannot get any information from what I have answered you, I do not know where you will get it. It is very full and complete. " The Chairman: Your answers have little to do with the questions and you put in a lot of additional testimony." VII For another day the testimony continued, with Mr. Dan- iels pursuing the same tactics. Again Senator Hale felt compelled to remonstrate. The Secretary, in answer to a question as to why forces were not sent abroad immediately, in 1917, made a long statement, dealing with destroyer construction during the war, and with the total number that operated in Europe. 416 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR As he rambled on in his effort to confuse the minds of the committee, Senator Keyes finally asked: " Mr. Chairman, I would just like, in order that we may try to keep in mind what is taking place before us here, to know what question the Secretary is answering now. "Secretary Daniels: I am answering as to our destroyers. " The Chairman: At the present rate, Mr. S,ecretary, we will be here all summer. "Secretary Daniels: Well, I have my summer clothes. " The Chairman: You answer very few of the questions that are asked of you, but you put in a lot of matter into the record that is highly irrelevant to the questions asked. "Secretary Daniels: I have not put in anything that is not relevant. " The Chairman: It may not be irrelevant to the investiga- tion, but it is irrelevant to the questions. " Secretary Daniels: It is absolutely relevant to the ques- tions and necessary to give a clear answer. " The Chairman: My idea was that when we examined you here we would get all the assistance that it was in your power to give in clearing up all these matters ... as briefly as possible. ... It seems to me that if you will bring your answers down to reasonable lengths and follow the lines we are trying to find out about, it would be very helpful and profitable. . . . Nobody wants to hide anything or to suppress any information, but I think that you ought to co-operate with us. . . . But every ques- tion we ask, you come out with a long statement, taking up all sorts of other matters and we never get anywhere." VIII Any one who has the patience to read the Secretary's answers to the questions put to him during the four days' cross-examination will appreciate the significance of this statement by the chairman of the investigating committee. A further example of the Secretary's attitude is afforded by one of his answers on the last day of his examination. CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 417 Senator Hale had quoted from the testimony of previous witnesses proofs that the Navy was unprepared for war in 1917, that it was very short of men, that its ships were not materially fit for war service. The Secretary attempted to explain away these admissions. "I would say that Admiral Benson's statement was this: — If you will bear in mind, Admiral Benson was answering questions you put to him. If you will read his testimony in full, in large, you will see that its whole bearing does not justify j^our picking out one or two questions, in answer to which he said that it was not 100 per cent, ready. " The Chairman: Do you mean that my questions were im- proper questions } "Secretary Daniels: Not at all; not at all. But suppose you asked me the question. ' Mr. Secretary, was every ship in the Navy, on the 6th of April fully manned, fully efficient, . . .' and I were to say to you, 'No! ' — I am a little too foxy to be caught by such questions — then you would say, ' The Secretary of the Navy said the Navy was not read3\' Admiral Benson has told you truly that no Navy is ever 100 per cent, efficient, every ship is not 100 per cent, efficient; but I said in my statement, and it is as true as Holy Writ. ' the Navy from stem to stern had been made ready to the fullest possible extent,' and that is the truth." The Secretary was too " foxy " to be caught answering questions directly ! IX In the course of the Secretary's testimony, as has been related in Chapter XII, he was confronted by Senator Hale, both with his letter to the Senate of April 21, 1916, in which he declared that the General Board letter of August 1, 1914, did not relate to preparedness, and with the Gen- eral Board letter itself. This was found to relate solely to preparedness. Letters were also introduced explaining the disappear- 418 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR ance, from the Navy Department files, of Admiral Fislce's letter of November 9, 1914. In his letter to the Senate of April 21, 1916, the Secretary denied ever having seen the letter, and stated that it could not be found in the Depart- ment's files, as it had been removed by an officer. Letters from Commander J. H. Sypher to Admiral Fiske showed that the Fiske letter had been removed from the files by the Secretary's aide for material, a man of German name, antecedents and sympathies and the officer in whom the Secretary reposed the most confidence. He had reported later that the letter had been lost. After the letter had been brought to light by the Senate request of April, 1916, the lost copy was mysteriously returned to the files and was later discovered bearing a receiving stamp dated September 13, 1916. Mr. Daniels admitted that in 1913, he had forbidden the naval members of the Joint Board to attend meetings. The Secretary's explanation of this action was, " In the early part of the administration there was a very acute situation between a friendly power and the U. S. . . . About that time the Joint Army and Navy Board had made certain rec- ommendations which, by some subterranean passage, became cir- culated upon the hill. , . . Its becoming public might have re- sulted in a very serious trouble with a friendly power. The recommendations of the Joint Army and Navy Board, which were most confidential became whispered about and discussed generally. . . . These would have been tantamount in the eyes of a friendly nation to our getting ready to go to war with it, and the Army and Navy Board held no meetings for a time." This is an extraordinary statement for the head of the Navy to make. The Army and Navy Joint Board was the only agency to co-ordinate the plans and activities of the two services. A crisis with another nation had developed. CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 4*19 Because the Joint Board took steps that would have contrib- uted to our preparedness and military success in the event of war, and for fear that the other nation would be displeased, the Joint Board was not permitted to meet or to draw up plans which would have enabled the two services to act to- gether efficiently, in case war had been forced upon us. In a time of crisis Mr. Daniels' pacifism would have prevented our military forces from being able to co-operate with each other and to cope with the situation. Mr. Daniels, in fact, added that he " instructed the naval members of the Board not to attend any further meetings until they were directed to do so, and it was all on account of very grave international questions. . . . When that inter- national acute situation passed, the Joint Army and Navy Board resumed their meeting." One is reminded of the old adage about locking the barn door, after the horse is stolen ! XI On the final day of Secretary Daniels' cross-examination, the Chairman introduced into the record a copy of statistics, furnished officially by the Office of Naval Operations, relat- ing to the state of preparedness in 1917. Senator Hale, in spite of almost hysterical opposition from the Secretary, who said he would have the matter carried to the floor of the Senate, also introduced a digest of these official statistics, that had been prepared in his own office. In presenting these for the record the Chairman said: " This shows that on February 2, 1917, 26 per cent, of the fleet was reported fit in material, and 74 per cent, of the fleet had an average of 60 days of repairs, essential for war service, to be made. Only 2 per cent, of the vessels were fully manned and 98 per cent, of them averaged 50 per cent, manned. "On April 6, 1917, that is 63 days later, 33 per cent, were reported as fit in material and 67 per cent, of the fleet had an 420 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR average of 56 days' repairs necessary (for war service) to be done. Only 10 per cent, of the vessels were fully manned, and 90 per cent, of them averaged but 57 per cent. '* In short these figures, presented by the Navy Department, showed that we went into the war with two-thirds of our fleet not in proper condition for instant war service abroad, and re- quiring two months of repair on an average, and with but 10 per cent, of the fleet up to their full war complement and 90 per cent, of it with less than 3/5 of its full war complement." XII It would be but useless repetition to delve further into the cross-examination of Mr. Daniels. In spite of all his eva- sions, vehement denials, and sweeping generalizations, which were in complete contradiction to the facts established from the previous testimony, — he confirmed, by inference, every single criticism of any importance contained in Admiral Sims' letter and in his testimony. The Secretary's testimony was the most convincing evi- dence one could have for the necessity of a reorganization of the Navy Department, and for the adoption of a sound naval policy to guide the future development and operations of the Navy, our first line of national defence. Unless this is done, unless the lessons of the war are heeded, we will gravely endanger the national security. Ad- mirals Benson, McKean, Pratt, Badger, Sims, Plunkett, Mayo, all agreed that we were fortunate in 1917 in being able to prepare for war while the Allies protected us and per- mitted us to delay and blunder with impunity to ourselves, but at great cost to the Allies. If we had been compelled to meet Germany singlehanded in 1917, our Navy could not have protected us against the German Navy as it was at that time. We must have a Navy able to defend us effectively against any possible enemy from the moment war is declared. We cannot have such a Navy if the Daniels policies and methods CROSS-EXAMINATION OF SECRETARY 421 are continued. Unless the criticisms and suggestions of Admiral Sims are made effective, the unpreparedness of our Navy on some future day will result in a great national disaster. That is the point of the naval investigation ; the prevention of such a contingency was the motive inspiring Admiral Sims and other critics of the Daniels administra- tion. Mr. Daniels, in attempting to obscure this issue by sensational irrelevancies, by unfounded personal attacks and insinuations, was indulging in pure camouflage, in smoke- screen tactics, detrimental to his own reputation, to the good of the Navy and to the welfare of the country. CHAPTER XXII THE FAILURE OF THE DANIELS ADMINISTRA- TION; ADMIRAL SIMS' SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE THE Senate Committee recalled Admiral Sims on May 27, 1920. So much testimony had been introduced, and so many misrepresentations had been made that he was asked to make a final statement. Sweeping aside the smoke-screen of diversions, evasions and misrepresentations with which the Secretary of the Navy had endeavoured to distract attention and to conceal the truth about the Navy, Admiral Sims in this final statement proved, — solely from the evidence presented by these wit- nesses, called at Mr. Daniels' behest, — that all of the princi- pal criticisms contained in his letter of January 7, 1920, and in his testimony before the committee in March, had been fully substantiated. Admiral Sims presented a clear and convincing analysis of the conduct of the Navy Department before the war and in the early months of the war. He reviewed briefly the ex- traordinary character of the testimony of the Secretary of the Navy. Finally, he presented constructive suggestions for the improvement of the Navy Department's organiza- tion. II Admiral Sims' summary of the testimony of the naval wit- nesses called at the request of the Secretary, agrees in gen- eral with the analyses given in the preceding chapters. 422 SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 423 The following was his analysis : " A review of the testimony presented by these departmental witnesses shows that it divides itself naturally into five main categories^ which may be summarized briefly as follows: "CONFIRMATION OF THE CRITICISMS WHICH LED TO THIS INVESTIGATION: " First : The testimony of the Department's witnesses has in almost every case completely borne out the conclusions of my letter of January 7th, 1920, and the summary of my testimony before this committee in March last. " TRIBUTES TO THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NAVY IN THE WAR: " Second: Nearly all of the Department's witnesses have pre- sented documents and made statements of opinion with regard to the achievements of the Navy in the war. Your attention has been repeatedly called to the faithful and efficient service per- formed by many officers, both previous to April 6th, 1917, in an endeavour to prepare the Navy for war; and, after that date, to conduct the war efficiently and successfully. The inevitable inference from this testimony is that I have not only failed to recognize these services, but have cast aspersions on them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At no place in my tes- timony and at no time have I in the slightest degree reflected upon these services. On the contrary, in my testimony, in public statements, and in articles recently published, I have expressed the full measure of my admiration and appreciation of the mag- nificent achievements of the American Navy in the war, in spite of the handicap under which it worked. "CONDUCT OF THE WAR BY THE DEPARTMENT: " Third: Much testimony and documentary evidence has been introduced by Department witnesses concerning the conduct of the war by the Department. The officers who occupied the most responsible positions have testified to the long-continued and often unavailing eff"orts which they made to get the Navy ready for war in the years preceding our entrance into the war. They 424 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR have told you in detail of the difficulties encountered in the early months of the war. Their testimony has revealed a condition even more distressing than I could have imagined, and consti- tutes a much severer criticism of the deplorable conditions in the Navy Department previous to, and during the early months of, the war than any evidence which I have myself presented. They have shown that the Department failed to prepare for war, and in many cases resisted the adoption of plans and measures which would have made possible an immediate and effective entrance into the war. These witnesses have also disclosed the full measure of the hesitation and delays and the disregard of mil- itary principles by the Department in the early months of the "NECESSITY FOR A REORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT: " Fourth: This condition in the Navy Department was tacitly recognized by practically all of the Department's own witnesses. There was an almost unanimous agreement in their expressions as to the necessity for a reorganization of the Department so as to make it a military organization able successfully to prepare for and conduct war operations. The officers most closely connected with the Department's organization during the war were those who have testified most strongly with regard to the need for this reorganization. Further comment seems superfluous. " CAUSES FOR THE CONDITIONS BROUGHT TO LIGHT: " Fifth: The Department witnesses, testifying with regard to the responsibility for the conditions which have been brought to light, are in general agreement that these are due primarily to three causes : 1st. The faulty organization of the Navy Department. 2nd. The policy governing the Department's action previous to our entrance into the war and during the early months thereof. 3rd. The failure of the responsible head of the Department to take the action required, both before and after the outbreak of war, to meet the urgency of the situation, to prepare the Navy for SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 425 war, and to strike at once on the fighting front with all available forces." Ill Admiral Sims restated the motives that had inspired his letter on " Certain Naval Lessons of the Great War." He exposed the absurdity of the charge that he had in any way attacked the Navy or belittled its war record, by calling at- tention to the handicaps against which the officers and men of the service had to struggle. In striking terms he insisted on the imperative necessity of paying heed to past mistakes that we may avoid them in the future. The following passages from his statement will illustrate his contentions : " It is a very natural and a very human impulse, in the pride of one's accomplishments, to desire to forget one's errors ; and, if this were merely a matter of personal interests or if it were merely a question of national pride, there would be no necessity of inviting attention to truths which are necessarily so exceed- ingly unpalatable, if one may judge from the tone of the testi- mony which has recently been giv^en before this Committee. But as a nation we have the national safety to consider. Our only guide in facing the unknown events of the future are the lessons that we can draw from the past. Our surest means of preparing to meet the dangers we may be called upon to face is to study carefully the immutable princijoles which underlie war- fare ; the application of those principles under war conditions ; and to observe, conscientiously and calmly, the result of past vio- lation of these principles. Only thus can we make our service more effective in the future and prevent the necessity of enduring again the dangerous and what might, under less favourable cir- cumstances, have been the fatal consequences of such violations of these principles in warfare, as I believe this investigation has established. 426 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR "SUCCESS IN WAR DOES NOT PROVE THAT NO ERRORS WERE MADE BY VICTORS " Closely associated with the point that I have just referred to, our disinclination to admit our own mistakes^ — is another con- tention which is always raised after a war has been won. The proverb that nothing succeeds like success is apt to mislead those who are too blindly optimistic and self-confident. Nothing would be more dangerous, however, than to assume that because we were eventually successful everything we did was necessarily right. On many occasions success has been obtained and wars have been won, not because no mistakes were committed, but in spite of the mistakes. The mere fact that the war was won does not prove that we did not commit very dangerous errors. The obvious statement that we, in association with the Allies, were victorious over Germany in the Great War does not in the slight- est degree prove that in a future war, under conditions less favourable to us, a repetition of the mistakes which, in 1917, had happily no fatal consequences, would not result in a national disaster. " WHY MISTAKES AND INEFFICIENCY OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT SHOULD BE CAREFULLY CONSIDERED " While not in the least desiritig to imply any criticism of our naval efforts which made possible the winning of the war, I considered it my duty to invite attention to the mistakes which postponed victory and resulted in unnecessary losses of blood and treasure. Your attention has been repeatedly called to the fact that in warfare time becomes one of the most essential ele- ments of strategy. A few months' delay, in times of peace, or in a war where we were immune from enemy attack during those months, may seem to have no grave consequences. A military service, however, which is so constituted that it cannot go to war and effectively operate, without a delay of many months, which has an organization which must be remade under the stress of war conditions in order to handle military operations, is funda- mentally wrong. The same delays under other circumstances SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 427 would be disastrous, as the history of warfare so repeatedly demonstrates. " If it is possible, therefore, by a study of the causes of those delays, and by an analysis of the defects in the organization responsible for them, to avoid their repetition in the future, it is, obviously, not only wise, but imperative that a careful study of these causes should be made. The witnesses who have appeared before you, wliile insisting that the Navy fought well in the war, which nobody has ever denied, have also insisted that the Navy Department's organization is inadequate and that we were not able to go to war with our full force within the time that military success requires. It is for this reason, that, in spite of the fact that we were successful in the war, in spite of the fact that the navy added new laurels to its already proud tradition, it seems to me, not only wise, but imperative, that we should take into ac- count the errors which were committed, and endeavour to provide such a remedy for the causes as to prevent their repetition as far as it is humanly possible to do so." IV Admiral Sims, in reviewing the activities of the Navy Department from 1913-1919, revealed the full extent of the admissions of the naval witnesses, by making clear the signi- ficance of these admissions. The Secretary of the Navy had consistently opposed all efforts to improve the departmental organization. No def- inite fundamental policy had been established, by which all activities could be guided. No adequate war plans were pre- pared or approved, or put into force, to insure prepared- ness for war in time of peace and successful operations in time of war. As a result of the attitude of the Secretary, said Admiral Sims, the improvements in organization ef- fected by Secretary Meyer in 1909, instead of being extended, were abandoned. " Under the present administration, the Secretary himself has continued to be the sole co-ordinating agency of the various 428 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR bureaus and divisions of the Navy Department. The chiefs of bureaus still continued to be responsible only to the Secretary. No means was provided for co-ordinating their activities in the preparation and maintenance of the fleet, except for such spor- adic and uncertain co-ordination as the Secretary himself could provide. It is, of course, readily apparent that no civilian could possibly possess a sufficient technical knowledge of naval and mil- itary matters to direct or co-ordinate intelligently the operations of the various branches of the naval services, and it must be clearly recognized that any Secretary must be guided very largely in his decisions and in his co-ordinating activities by the advice and assistance of naval officers. The only question at is- sue, consequently, is whether this advice shall be responsible ad- vice or whether the Secretary shall be forced to depend upon the often irresponsible opinions, however sincerely held, of differing naval officers." This situation resulted inevitably in inefficient and un- sound decisions on the part of the Secretary, Admiral Sims quoted Captain Pratt's remark concerning the refusal of the Secretary in 1914 to ask for the 19,600 men needed at that time. " The Secretary," said Captain Pratt, " ac- cepted the advice of Admiral Blue, and almost every naval man thought that Blue was dead wrong. ... I hold Blue very responsible for the advice he gave, . . . but the system is wrong, where you can co-operate first with one naval officer, then with another and then with a chief of bureau, and get just as many different ideas as you talk to men. That ought to be co-ordinated under the head who is charged with the policy and the plans, so that you do not get this diffu- sion of ideas, but do get one concentrated effort." V Admiral Sims discussed similarly the failure of the Sec- retary to prepare the Navy for war : " As a result of a peculiar interpretation of the policy of neutral- SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 429 ity, which the Secretary considered it his duty to enforce in the Navy Department^ no adequate steps were taken between 1914 and 1917 to prepare the Navy for a possible war with Ger- many. . . . The Secretary displayed a very great interest in the expenditure of funds from tlie point of view of economy alone — often without regard to military considerations — . . . and in looking out for the welfare of enlisted men, but he consistently re- jected or failed to act upon recommendations which were made to him to prepare the Navy for war, to draw up adequate and offi- cially approved plans, or to provide for the increase of personnel necessary for the war complements of the vessels of the Navy. . . . There is no record whatever of any action whatever having been taken to prepare the Navy especially for such an entrance into the war, until after the breach of diplomatic relations. . . . So far as the policy of the Secretary was concerned, the European war and the possibility of our being drawn into it was officially ignored. The result inevitably was, as Admiral McKean, Ad- miral Badger, Admiral Benson and Captain Pratt have testified, that the Navy as a whole was not in a state of material readiness for war in 1917, that it lacked many essential types of ships, and that its personnel was hopelessly inadequate, so inadequate, in- deed, that Admiral Niblack has stated to you that the chief prob- lem of the Navy in the first six months of the war was to train men rather than to fight." Admiral Sims then discussed the lack of plans in 1917. He praised warmly the often vain efforts of the General Board, and of Captain Pratt to get action, after war had begun, saying that: " The more I review the situation as it was in 1917, the more I am amazed at the extent of the achievements which the Navy accomplished. The fact that the Navy was able to do as well as it did, was luidoubtedly due to the efficient and unsparing efforts of these officers in the Department. They had recognized the conditions long before war broke out and had endeavoured to take such steps as they could, to get ready for war. . . . ". . . The heads of tlie Department, instead of providing the effective organization, the enthusiastic leadership and the will to 430 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR victory which would have made a unit of the Navy Department organization, failed to bring about that co-operation and to pro- vide that leadership. The individual officers had to do, by their own personal efforts and by personal co-operation and confer- ence with other officers, what should have been foreseen and pro- vided for in the organization of the Department and in its war plans." Admiral McKean, when asked whether he could give the committee the general basic plan on which the Department was working in 1917, had completely confirmed this summary of Admiral Sims when he said: " Impossible. There is no such thing in existence." VI The results of the lack of preparedness, of the Inefficient organization, the absence of policy or plans, of the paci- fism of Daniels were clearly shown in the early months of the war. Admiral Sims described graphically these results. " There could hardly be a greater contradiction than that be- tween ^the situation as it actually existed in April, 1917, and that which the Secretary has described to you and which he has ex- pressed in his reports to the President. Admiral Benson, Ad- miral McKean, Admiral Badger, Captain Pratt, all agreed that his expression that the Navy was ready from stem to stern on the day we declared war was not accurate from the professional viewpoint, and explained that it was probably a journalistic phrase and that they did not know what the Secretary meant to imply by it." Yet Mr. Daniels on May 26th had under oath testified that the " stem to stern " expression " is one of the best statements that I ever made, and one of the truest. It is one of my statements that I think is really a good epigram and really sums up in a few words the whole story of the Navy. If I had written a whole book, I could not have said SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 431 more truly. . . . The Navy was ready from stem to stern. The fleet was ready, for it was mobilized the day war was declared. . . . The Navy Department was ready; for every bureau and office performed the greatly added duties of war with even greater efficiency than they had functioned in time of peace." In commenting on this statement of Mr. Daniels, Admiral Sims said: " The condition of the Navy in 1017 was one of unprepared> ness for war. For three years the Department's policy had pre^ vented any adequate preparation to meet a situation such as that presented on April 6, 1917, when it became necessary for the Navy to play its part in the war . . . the only parts of the Navy that were at that time in an efficient state as to material and per- sonnel were the dreadnaught divisions and some twenty destroy- ers which were with these divisions. All the other vessels of the Navy were in varying states of material depreciation and were all short of crews. In spite of the fact that it should have been apparent for at least a year that when the Navy entered the war its chief effort must necessarily be directed against com- bating submarines, no plans had been prepared for this. The types of vessels that were needed were not ready. No effort had been made to provide additional vessels of this type or to provide the necessary crews. . . . There had not even been any consid- eration of the possibility of sending naval craft overseas." VII One result of the condition of the Navy in 1917, was the lack of any aggressive plans, and a long delay before the Department could be persuaded to let the Navy fight sub- marines in the war zone. " In April, 1917," said Admiral Sims, " the whole of the plan of the Navy . . . was to mobilize the fleet, to defend the Atlantic coast ports, and to provide for an offshore patrol by sending out available light forces of the Navy on arduous patrol duty along the Atlantic coast, 3,000 miles from the nearest submarines." 432 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR This statement was fully confirmed by the testimony of Admirals Benson and Badger and Captain Pratt, as quoted by Admiral Sims. Admiral Sims believed this to be due to ignorance and inertia. " As the Navy Department had no plans for the use of the American naval forces in the submarine campaign, and as appar- ently no real study had been made of the situation by responsi- ble authorities, it is not surprising that the Department did not at first hear with enthusiasm the appeal of the Allies for assist- ance in the war zone. . . . No policy having been decided upon, other than that of meeting each situation as it arose, it became necessary to spend long hours on deliberation and discussion of each and every individual request for forces. Naturally, too, it is only to be expected that it would be somewhat difficult for an administration which had been for three years devoting itself in- sistently to opposing any effort, looking toward successful war operations on the side of the Allies, to change its spots overnight and to throw itself suddenly with full vigour into the battle line, alongside the Allies. Every suggestion as to the employment of forces abroad during the first few months . . . was subjected to long deliberations and discussions. ... It was not sufficient to say that forces were needed; the Allies must first explain in de- tail all their own plans and policies, justify their own conduct of the war and explain every conceivable circumstance connected with any request for reinforcements. ". . . In the meantime, the Navy Department, as the Depart- ment's witnesses have all testified, were concerned, not primarily with defeating the enemy, the German submarines, . . . but their chief concern was that of defence. . . . The heads of the Department struggled against the greatest difficulties not only in getting the Navy ready to fight after war had begun, but also in making up their mind as to where the fighting was." VIII Admiral Sims also effectively demolished Secretary Dan- iels' absurd claims that the Navy Department was actuated only by the " boldest and most audacious plans " and com- SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 433 pared the policy actually followed by the Navy in 1917, with that insisted upon by the President. " It is interesting," remarked the Admiral, " to contrast the ' bold offensive ' policy which apparently inspired the President from the time we entered the war with the policy of inaction, hes- itation and delay on the part of the Navy Department. . . . The President, as the speech to the officers of the fleet ... in August, 1917, and his message to me on July 4, 1917, plainly indicate, was in favor of acting boldly and disregarding the possibility of loss, if the victory might thereby be hastened. . . . Yet at the very time that the President was expressing these sentiments, the Navy Department was subordinating the sending of assist- ance to the Allies to local defensive measures, was considering, not the winning of the war, but the saving of the few American ships which might have been sunk, if two or three submarines had visited the Atlantic coast in 1917. . . •" In discussing the President's views on the naval situation in 1917, Admiral Sims disclosed the full story of the events preceding the President's message of July 4th. For three months the Navy Department had refused or failed to send its available forces abroad. It had announced no policy, formulated no plans. It had refused to adopt or assist in the convoy system. It had failed to support Ad- miral Sims, to inform him of his activities or even to reply to his recommendations. Finallj^, at the end of June, the situation appeared so desperate that Admiral Sims felt obliged to bring all possible pressure to bear. He appealed to Ambassador Page, who cabled the State Department ask- ing what the naval war policy was to be. He later sent a personal message to the President urging action. At the same time Sims suggested to the British Admiralty and the French Ministry of Marine that they make represen- tations at Washington. So Sims and Jellicoe prepared a message that Balfour sent to Lord Northcliffc, then High Commissioner at Washington, for transmission to the State 434 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR Department. The French government also asked greater naval co-operation from the United States, especially in the convoy system. These representations came to the attention of the Presi- dent. He was apparently much concerned and much an- noyed. He must have taken up the matter with the Navy Department. At least two very significant developments are to be noted. The President cabled Admiral Sims criticiz- ing the British Admiralty for inaction, lack of plans and failure to meet the situation aggressively. The Navy De- partment suddenly changed its ways, and, in a week. Admiral Sims was informed of more favourable action on his rec- ommendations than in the previous three months. Admiral Sims commented forcibly on these developments. " There is a remarkable coincidence," he said, " between the time at which the President himself intervened directly in naval matters and the time at which the Department began to heed the requests from the Allies for reinforcements, and to adopt and put into effect measures on which they had long been delaying action." Of the President's July 4th message. Admiral Sims said: " I consider this message to be, in effect, not so much a crit- icism of the British Admiralty as an indictment of the inaction and delays that had characterized the Navy Department's activi- ties during the early months of the war." In describing the effect of the President's message Admiral Sims told of the series of decisions made by the Navy Depart- ment almost at the same time. A brief chronological record will illustrate his point : June 20, 1917: Department cables, " In regard to convoy, I consider American vessels having armed guards are safer when sailing independ- ently," and declines further assistance to the Allies. SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 435 June 21, 1917: Admiral Sims appeals to Ambassador Page. June 23, 1917: State Department writes Navy Department asking statement of policy. June 24, 1917: Department's first cable relating to policy places home defence before intervention in war zone. June 25, 1917: Sims again appeals to Page, also to British and French govern- ments. June 26, 1917: French government cables Washington urging U. S. to assist in convoy system. June 28, 1917: British Foreign Office cables Jellicoe's message to NorthclifFe. June 29, 1917: Strong cable from Page to State Department. July 3, 1917: Secretary Daniels signs Captain Pratt's letter announcing pol- icy of Navy Department — full co-operation, and willingness to send forces abroad subject to home needs, and requirements of a possible post-war situation, July 4, 1917: The President sends a message to Sims. July 5, 1917: Navy Department adopts convoy system and assigns seven cruisers to escort duty. July 5-8, 1917: Department decides to send thirty additional vessels for duty in the war zone, and to send forces to Gibraltar. July 7, 1917: Department finally grants Sims a staff and announces that three officers will be sent ! 436 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR July 9, 1917: Department asks advice as to how troop convoys ought to be handled, having learned from first convoy how they should not be handled. Department cables policy letter of July 3 to Sims, this being the first statement of policy he had received. July 12, 1917: Department takes over German ships to man them in trans- port service. July 13, 1917: Department decides to send forces to Azores region. July 20, 1917: Department decides to concentrate shipbuilding efforts in a destroyer program. Admiral Sims was convinced that " It was from this time — that is from July 4, approximately — that the Navy Department began to act with a certain amount of promptness upon the requests from the Allies. ... It is of course possible that this sudden change of front in the Navy De- partment was due to other causes with which I am not familiar, but it is a striking coincidence that this almost unexpected series of favourable decisions by the Department should have come in the week immediately following the sending of this dispatch by the President to me. . . ." IX Admiral Sims also referred to the impropriety on the part of the Secretary in introducing matter reflecting on an allied Navy. " I regret extremely that the Secretary of the Navy has seen fit, in introducing this message of the President, to reflect upon the services of the British Admiralty to the Allied cause. It was a personal and confidential message, addressed to me, which I had guarded with the greatest secrecy. I would have consid- ered myself guilty of a grave breach of confidence if I had SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 437 brought the matter before this Committee. I am also surprised that the Secretary of the Navy should introduce this message as evidence against me, when the facts which I have just related show that the criticisms of the President bear with even greater force against the Navy Department, as it was then conducted, than against the Admiralty. We can only assume that the Presi- dent from the moment that we entered the war was trying to carry into effect a vigorous and successful prosecution of the war. It seems very probable that the President himself was not fa- miliar at the time with the extent to which the Navy Department was violating the very principles which he laid down; principles which were accepted by the Navy Department almost immedi- ately after his message was sent; principles which were in com- plete accord with the recommendations which had been made by the Department's representative abroad during the previous three months; principles which had been insistently but vainly urged upon the Department in these months by the General Board and by Captain Pratt and other officers in the office of Operations, The very fact, that the Department almost imme- diately, took favourable action on many matters which had been recommended long before, shows how the head of the Depart- ment at the time regarded the President's message. It is hardly possible that there could have been no connection between the President's insistence on boldness and offensive action, and the sudden abandonment by the Department of its timid, prudent and defensive policy for one of co-operation with the Allies in the war zone in the measures which alone could and did meet the issue of the submarine campaign. X The historic character and the unusual phraseology of the President's message to Admiral Sims warrant its repro- duction. The reply of Admiral Sims to the President is no less interesting, as it contains the most excellent description of the allied situation at the time, and a full statement of what our naval action should be. The President's message was : 438 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR " White House, " 7 p. m., July 4, 1917. " Strictly confidential, for Admiral Sims, from the President. " From the beginning of the war I have been greatly surprised at the failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's naval superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. " In my view this is not a time for prudence but for boldness, even at the cost of great losses. In most of your dispatches you have quite properly advised us of the sort of aid and co-opera- tion desired from us by the Admiralty. The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to us efficacious. " I would be very much obliged to you if you would report to me, confidentially of course, exactly what the Admiralty has been doing and what they have accomplished ; and added to the report your own comments and suggestions, based on independent thought, as to the whole situation, without regard to the judg- ments arrived at on that side of the water. " The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the practice of convoy and is not now, I judge, protecting convoys on an adequate scale within the danger zone, seeming to prefer to keep its small craft with the Grand Fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more apparent on the French coast than on the English coast and in the Channel. " I do not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies of food and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other way within the next few months than under adequate con- voy. There will presently not be ships enough and our own ship building plans may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen months. " I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you would give if you were handling the situaticn yourself and if you were a running a navy of your own." Admiral Sims, in reply, sent the following message on July 9, 1917 : SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 439 "July 9, 1917. " From : Admiral Sims, American Embassy, London. "Via: State Department. " To: The President. " I have sent by the last mail to the Secretary of the Navy an official paper, dated July, and giving the present British naval jiolicy, the disposition of the vessels of the fleet and the manner and method of their employment. " This vi'ill show to what extent the various units of the fleet, particularly destroyers, are being used to oppose the submarines, to protect shipping and escort convoys. " It is hoped and believed that the convoy system will be successful. It is being applied as extensively as the number of available escort cruisers and destroyers will permit. The paper shows also that there remains with the main fleet barely suf- ficient destroyers and auxiliary forces to meet on equal terms a possible sortie of the German fleet. The opposition to subma- rines and the application of the convoy system are rendered pos- sible solely by the British main fleet and its continuous readiness for action in case the German fleet comes out or attempts any op- erations outside the shelter of its fortifications and its minefields. " I am also forwarding by next mail copy of a letter, dated June 27th, from the Minister of Shipping to the Prime Minister, showing the present shipping situation and forecasting the re- sults of a continuation of the present rate of destruction. Briefly, this shows that this rate is more than three times as great as the rate of building. A certain minimum amount of tonnage is required to supply the Allied countries and their armies. This letter shows that at the present rate of destruction this minimum will be reached about next January. This is not an opinion. It is a matter of arithmetic. It simply means that if this continues the Allies will be forced to an unsatisfactory peace. " The North Sea is mined by British and German mines for more than a hundred miles north and west of Heligoland up to the three-mile limits of Denmark and Holland. Over thirty tliousand mines have been laid and additional mines are being laid. 440 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR " It is through these neutral waters that almost all subma- rines have been passing. " A sea attack alone upon German ports or any heavily forti- fied ports could not succeed against the concealed guns of mod- ern defences. " I have just been informed that preparations are now being made by a combined sea and land attack to force back the Ger- man right flank and deny the use of Zeebrugge as a destroyer base, though not yet definitely decided by the War Council; that this would have been done long ago but for disagreements be- tween the Allies. " The German fleet has not left the neighbourhood of Heligo- land for about a year. " I am aware of but two plans suggested by our government for preventing the egress of German submarines. These were contained in the Department's dispatches of April 17th and May llih, and were answered in my dispatches of April 18th and May 14th, respectively. " These same suggestions and many similar ones have been and continue to be made by people of all classes since the beginning of the war. I have been shown the studies of the proposed plans, and consider them impractical. " It is my opinion that the war will be decided by the success or failure of the submarine campaign. Unless the allied lines of communication can be adequately protected, all operations on shore must eventually fail. For this reason and as further de- scribed in my various dispatches, the sea war must remain here in the waters surrounding the United Kingdom. The latest in- formation is available here and can be met only by prompt action here. It is wholly impossible to attempt to direct or to properly co-ordinate operations through the medium of com- munications, by letter or cable. " Therefore, as requested by you, if I had complete control of our sea forces with the success of the allied cause solely in view, I would immediately take the following steps : " 1st. Make immediate preparations to throw into the war area our maximum force; prepare the fleet immediately for dis- tant service. As the fleet, in case it does move, would require a SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 441 large force of protective light craft, and as such craft would delay the fleet's movements, we should advance to European waters all possible craft of such description, either in service or which can be immediately commandeered and put into service; that is, destroyers, armed tugs, yachts, light cruisers, revenue cutters, minelayers, minesweepers, trawlers, gunboats and similar craft. " 2nd. Such a force, while waiting for the fleet to move, should be employed to the maximum degree in putting down the enemy submarine campaign and in escorting convoys of mer- chant ships and troops, and would be in position at all times to fall back on our main fleet if it approached these waters. " 3rd. Prepare the maximum number of supply and fuel ships and be prepared to support our heavy forces in case they are needed. " 4th. Concentrate all naval construction on destroyers and light craft. Postpone construction of heavy craft and depend upon the fact, which I believe to be true, that regardless of any future developments we can always count upon the support of the British Navy. I have been assured of this by important gov- ernment officials. " 5th. As far as consistent with the above building program of light craft, particularly destroyers, concentrate all other ship building on merchant tonnage. Divert all possible shipping to supplying the Allies. " 6th. As the convoy system for merchant shipping at present aff'ords better promise than any other means for insuring the safety of lines of communication to all military and naval forces on all fronts, we should lend every support possible to insure suc- cess to this, and we should co-operate with the British authorities in the United States, and here, who are attempting to carry out the convoy system. " I believe the above advice to be in accordance with the funda- mental principles of military warfare. The first step is to estab- lish here in London a branch of our War Council, upon whose advice you can thoroughly depend. Until this is done, it will be impossible to insure that the part which the United States takes in this war, v/hcther it is won or lost, will be that which the fu- 442 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR ture will prove to have been the maximum possible. It is quite impracticable for me, nearly single-handed, to accumulate all the necessary information, and it is not only impracticable but unsafe to depend upon decisions made in Washington, which must neces- sarily be based upon incomplete information since such informa- tion cannot be efficiently communicated by letter or cable. " This can be assured if I be given adequate staff or competent officers of the required training and experience. " I urgently recommend that they be selected from the younger and most progressive types, preferably War College graduate men, of the type of Twining, Pratt, Knox, McNamee, Stirling, Cone, Coffee, Cotton, King, Pye. " I wish to make it perfectly clear that my reports and dis- patches have been in all cases an independent opinion, based uj)on specific and official facts and data which I have collected in the various Admiralty and other government departments. They constitute my own conviction and hence comply with your request for an independent opinion." XI In his statement Admiral Sims emphasized the significance of this message. It was far from being filled with the " vague generalities," of which Mr. Daniels had spoken in describing it. It was, in effect, a restatement of all of Ad- miral Sims' previous recommendations, the outline of a policy and of plans that should have been adopted three months previously, but which, in point of fact, were in many cases not adopted until at least three months later. " I think it hardly necessary to comment further upon this message. Every one of the six steps which I recommended to the President in this dispatch could have been, and should have been, part of the primary plan which should have been, and could have been, put into effect on the day we declared war. With the information then available every one of these steps could have been and should have been foreseen; and if there had been an adequate planning section in the Department, and if the head of SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 443 the Department had approved the action of such a planning sec- tion, some such plan would have been formulated and would have been put into effect at once. " The Department's witnesses, especially Admiral Badger and Captain Pratt, have testified that they recommended practically the same measures in ]\Iarch, April and May, but without success. I had been recommending these very same measures since April 14th, 1917, equally without success. " Within a very short time after the President had sent this message to me and I had replied, the Department had acted in the manner recommended in my reply to him, and had adopted the various recommendations as being essential to a successful prosecution of the war against the submarines. " It is frankly absurd to claim that I have been contending that I was the only officer in the Navy whose judgment should have been accepted ; but it so happened that I was the officer sent abroad to represent the Department and to obtain from the Allied Admiralties, and from the British Admiralty, principally, tlie information upon which the Department could base its ac- tion. It was, therefore, inevitable that the information which I sent should come from British or Allied sources. " It was, therefore, equally inevitable that the recommenda- tions which I made, and which were in complete agreement with the war experience of the Allies, should be more sound than those made by any officer, no matter how intelligent or how highly trained, who did not possess this same information, and who did not have this same opportunity of discussmg the situation with the responsible heads of the Allied Navies. No plan based on insufficient information and incorrect premises can ever be suc- cessful, no matter how logically based upon false premises, how striking, how bold, or how spectacularly attractive it may seem. " I am not contending that the officers of the Department were inefficient, or that they failed in any respect to do their duty according to their lights. I am trying simply to make clear tliat they necessarily could not have had the information that was wholly essential to make decisions involving the details of opera- tions in the war zone and, for the same reasons, they could not intelligently review such decisions. My criticisms are not di- 444 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR reeled against these officers, who I am confident in every instance were putting forth their best efforts, but against the condition in the Department which made it impossible for them to work as efficiently as would otherwise have been possibly the case." XII The part of Admiral Sims' final statement devoted to the analysis of the testimony of the Secretary has already been quoted in the chapters dealing with that testimony. It may be of interest at this time, however, in view of Mr. Daniels' violent personal attacks, to include for the sake of contrast Admiral Sims' summary of the responsibility of Secretary Daniels for the condition of the Navy in 1917. The Admiral, after reviewing the various causes for our unpreparedness, and for our comparative ineffectiveness in the early months of the war, said : " If there had been in the Navy Department a true apprecia- tion of the mission for which the Navy exists, every effort would have been made during 1916, and perhaps during 1915, to man and prepare for war the existing light craft, and to hasten the construction of as many additional craft as possible of the type which, in the opinion of the professional observers, would be needed, if war became necessary. " The witnesses have agreed that for reasons which seemed mysterious to most of them, the navy was directed by a pacifistic inteivpretation of the policy of neutrality, and that the policy of the Department was largely responsible for the unpreparedness which existed in 1917. " All of the witnesses in referring' to the conditions prevailing between 1915 and 1917, and in the early months of the war, have also agreed that, under the existing organization of the Navy Department, the only responsible authority is the head of that Department. Inasmuch as no naval officer was given responsi- bility under his direction for the co-ordination of the military ac- tivities of the navy, no single naval officer can be held responsible for what happened. The responsibility must rest where the au- SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 445 thority rests, that is, with the head of the Department. All of the officers have testified that such is the case. " These same officers, in commenting upon the Department's methods, have pointed out many instances in which the Secretary followed, in many cases, a variety of advice given him by bureau chiefs, or by other officials who were not concerned with any sub- jects other than those of their own division or bureau, and whose recommendations, in many cases, were not based upon the general needs of the navy, but upon the conceptions of those individual officers as to what those needs might be, or as to the wishes and needs of their own divisions. " The witnesses have testified, as did Admiral Benson, Admiral McKean and Captain Pratt, that, in their conferences with the Secretary of the Navy, the term ' war ' was practically never used. In substance, they substantiated the testimony of other witnesses, such as Captain Laning and Admiral Plunkett, who called attention to the Secretary's unwillingness even to consider the idea of war having anything to do with the administration of the navy. These officers pointed out repeated cases in which action was held up for long periods by the failure of the Secre- tary of the Navy to take action himself or permit the Chief of Naval Operations to take action which seemed, in the opinion of that officer, to be necessary. " Tliere has never been any disposition to question the good in- tentions of the Secretary of the Navy. It could hardly be doubted that he has the welfare of the service keenly at heart. But it also seems perfectly clear and perfectly well established, by the testimony of the Department's witnesses, which has already been quoted, that, in the very essential matter of preparing the navy for war by drawing up war plans, by insuring material readiness and by providing and training adequate personnel, the Secretary either failed, or refused, to consider or act upon the conception that the chief function of the navy is to be pre- pared to carry out the national policies in time of war. Sufficient testimony has been introduced on this point to place it beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt. Our navy was not ready in April, 1917, to enter immediately the campaign against the Ger- man submarine, and to exert its full force in protecting the over- 446 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR seas communications of the allied forces, or in transporting and supplying our own forces to be sent overseas. No adequate steps had been taken to meet the particular situation which we faced when war began and it took many months after the actual declar- ation of war before the navy was permitted to act effectively in this campaign." XIII The part of Admiral Sims' first statement which had been most severely condemned, not only by the Secretary but by half a dozen of the departmental naval witnesses, was the Admiral's estimate of the probable results of the conditions he had criticized. Few of the officers had really questioned the validity of the criticisms, or the existence in 1917, of the conditions described by Sims. Many of them took issue with his estimate that these resulted in prolonging the war four months, by the unnecessary sinking of 2,500,000 tons of ship- ping, and that 500,000 lives and $15,000,000,000 had been needlessly sacrificed by this postponement of victory. Few officers, however, really disagreed with Admiral Sims. They accepted his premises, but refused to draw the logical conclusion. This Admiral Sims proved by quotations from nearly all of the departmental witnesses. In summarizing the testimony, he said: " Practically all of these witnesses, while stating firmly per- sonal opinions in contradiction to the results of my estimate, in their testimony confirmed in fact the premises upon which my estimate was based. " Manifestly their inability to draw a logical conclusion from these premises has no bearing upon the chief contention which I made, that is, that the Navy Department's delays and lack of preparedness did result in postponing the active intervention of our full naval force for many months ; that this naval force, when it did exert its power, contributed out of all proportion to its numbers to the victory, and consequently resulted in shorten- ing tlie war. The Secretary of the Navy, Admiral McKcan, and SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 447 other witnesses, have themselves told you that the war was short- ened from six to nine months by our activities when once we did begin fighting wholeheartedly. If our naval force, after it got into action, by assisting very materially in combating the sub- marine menace, by making possible the safe transport of an army (principally after March, 1918) shortened the war, it must be equally apparent that if this naval force had been in the field from April, 1917, on, the submarine menace would have been checked and gotten in hand much sooner; the transport of troops overseas could have been expedited, and the war could have been shortened still further. " In my previous estimate before you, I merely assumed that, if our intervention had been effective from four to six months earlier than it actually was, we would have shortened the total duration of the war, not only the six or nine months mentioned by these witnesses, but ten months or a year. The Secretary and Admiral McKean have told you that in 1917, and even in 1918, it was believed that the war would not be ended until the summer or fall of 1919. They ascribed the victory of 1918 to two causes, which are very intimately connected ; first, to the breakdown of the morale of German population; and, second, to the effectiveness of the American intervention. They have all admitted that the American intervention had a tremendous effect in depressing the morale of the Germans, and convincing them of the futility of further prolongation of the war. From their own arguments, therefore, it appears that, if our intervention had been effective earlier, the German morale would have similarly broken down earlier; that, therefore, the victory of the Allies would inevitably have been accomplished earlier than it actually was. " It should be clearly understood in all this discussion that I have not at any time condemned the navy for prolonging the war. I have not insisted that the sacrifices of blood and treasure, to which I referred, could be rightly charged to the navy itself, or indeed that the responsibility rested upon any individual in or out of the navy. I merely stated an obvious military' conclusion — that mistakes and delays in warfare are detrimental; that even if they do not bring defeat they cause unnecessary losses and un- 448 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR necessary prolongation of the warfare. Every student of mili- tary history, however amateur he may be, is, of course, thor- oughly familiar with this fact. He knows as well as I that the price one j^ays for unpreparedness for war, and incompetence in the conduct of war, for delays and military mistakes in the face of the enemy, is either military disaster or unnecessary losses. " Fortunately, conditions were such in the Great War that we escaped military disaster. We escaped any very great losses of men. But it does not follow at all that our sacrifices in bringing about the victory were not unnecessarily great, because of the de- lays and errors which marked the early months of tlie war in 1917. There is, of course, ample room for very great differences of opinion as to the extent of these delays and the resulting sac- rifices. So far as the investigation is concerned it seems to me that the size of the estimate is a matter of no consequence. If, as a result of mistakes and delaj^s, the war was delayed a single day or a single thousand of lives were lost unnecessarily, I should consider my criticisms more than justified, if they had as their result such a careful analysis of the causes as to make impos- sible the repetition in the future of similar mistakes and the con- sequent danger of disaster. ". . . The Department's witnesses ... all admitted that the American forces, once they entered the war, did very effective work, and that it would have bee-n very much better, and greater results would have been accomplished, if we could have gotten our forces over sooner. These officers have also testified that, in their belief the navy, when it did get into the war, shortened the duration of the war from six to nine months. In view of this fact, it seems that my own estimate, that if we could have been in the field in the first month in adequate numbers, instead of six months later, we would have still further shortened the war, has been abundantly confirmed. Therefore, in order that my es- timate may be less distasteful to some of my critics, let me state it this way. The navy in the war performed splendid and mag- nificent services to the cause of the Allies. By their efficiency and because of the ability, initiative and enthusiasm with which their personnel performed their duties, they contributed to the SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 449 victory out of all proportion to their actual numbers. As a re- sult of their efforts, the war ended in November, 1918, instead of running until the following summer. The navy, therefore, was to a great degree responsible for shortening the war from six to nine months. " If the navy had been permitted to get into action from the first month of the war, if the Navy Department had been ade- quately prepared for war, if it had had plans for the kind of war that the navy had to fight in 1917, if it had co-operated wholeheartedly with the Allies from the very beginning, our navy's achievements would have been even greater. Having gotten into the war earlier it would in that earlier period have done just as much and just as splendid service as it actually did do later. The navy, therefore, instead of having the credit for shortening the war six to nine months would have had the credit of shortening it from ten months to a year. This estimate is in effect the same as my original one, but I imagine that, stated in this way it may be more agreeable to those who are apparently concerned more with the form than with the substance of the criticism." CHAPTER XXIII NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR THE hearings in the naval investigation came to an end on May 28, 1920. Chairman Hale in the last session read letters from Rear Admirals Fiske and Fullam replying to the personal attacks made upon them by Mr. Daniels, and completely refuting his charges. Admiral Fiske emphasized a point that is worth noting. The preparedness measures put into effect before war began, the ajjproval of the admin- istrative plan, in 1915 ; the creation of the Office of Naval Operations in 1915, the establishment of the Naval Consult- ing Board in 1915 ; were all measures Fiske had advocated for two years before the Secretary finally approved or ac- cepted them. As a result of Admiral Fiske's fight for pre- paredness these measures were put into effect. They pro- vided at least an initial step toward preparedness and made it possible in 1917 to get the Navy ready for war and into the war, with a delay of only six months. Without these measures, which Secretary Daniels had long opposed, the Navy Department, as Admirals Benson and McKean and Captain Pratt admitted, would have been in worse chaos, than that which Captain Pratt described as existing in April, 1917. II The evidence presented to the committee has been fully reviewed. The conclusions to be drawn with regard to the correctness of Admiral Sims' criticisms are too obvious to re- 450 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR 451 quire statement. Every essential point was fully proven not by assertion, by personal opinions however authoritative, but by the evidence of the official records and the admissions of the naval officers who served in the most responsible posi- tions in the Navy Department before and during the war. Ill The causes of our unpreparedness for war, of the De- partment's delays in getting the Navy into the war, of the errors that were made, were made equally clear by nearly every officer who testified. These can be stated briefly in the order of their im- portance. 1. The Navy Department imposed on the Navy a pacifistic interpretation of neutrality which made any real prepared- ness measures for our war with Germany impossible before March, 1917. The Secretary of the Navy himself was re- sponsible for this situation. 2. The Navy Department lacked a sound consistent policy, based upon our national policies and upon a consideration of our interests. As a result there was no general unity of purpose or action in the activities of the Department. 3. The Navy Department lacked entirely officially ap- proved plans to insure adequate preparedness before war began or to make possible quick and successful operations after a declaration of war. The lack of plans was due partly to the pacifism of the Secretary, partly to the lack of a general naval polic}', partly to the inefficient organiza- tion of the Department. 4. The Navy Department organization was inefficient and " unfit to conduct \var." It consisted in reality of at least thirteen independent organizations. Each of these had its own policies, its own plans, its own interests, and there was no common polic}', no unity of purpose, such as could only 452 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR have been brought about by the establishment of a unified departmental policy and of departmental plans based on this policy. As a result the activities were poorly co-ordinated. Naval considerations and needs were subordinated to a great variety of other motives. During the war the De- partment became after a year a fairly well unified organi- zation, but only because the individual parts voluntarily recognized the authority of the office of operations. 5. The inefficient organization of the Department was due largely to Mr. Daniels himself. Probably through fear that his autocratic and irresponsible control of funds and of pat- ronage might be hampered or made a matter of official record, the Secretary consistently opposed any effort to improve the organization, so as to make it fit to handle naval matters and to function efficiently in making the Navy ready for war and in directing its operations successfully in war. Even when the office of Naval Operations was created, he limited its activities with a jealous eye. He failed even to order to the Office of Operations, the number of officers provided for by Congress. 6. The Secretary refused to listen to talk of war or of preparedness. All of his naval advisers admitted this. He was concerned solely with the purely peace activities ; with economy in expenditure, with semi-socialistic enterprises such as the establishment of industrial plants to manufacture armour, guns, clothing, etc. ; with measures advertised as in- spired by a desire to improve the lot of the enlisted men, which were either totally impracticable and had to be aban- doned, or were detrimental and demorahzing in their effect on the Navy, in creating discontent and insubordination, and in destroying discipline and morale. 7. In his selection of officers to serve in important posi- tions in the Department and in the fleet, the Secretary usually acted on his own initiative without even consulting his chief naval advisers. His selections sometimes amazed NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR 453 and dismayed the service. Officers whose previous careers indicated no outstanding quality except a degree of subordi- nation to authority, amounting to subser\aency, were often selected to the most responsible positions, to be Chief of Naval Operations, Chiefs of Bureaus, Commanders-in-Chief of the Fleets. Officers who fought for sound organization, for naval preparedness, for the placing of the primary em- phasis on the naval rather than the civil aspects of the Navy, were forced out of responsible positions. Officers who wanted to serve in the Department had to sacrifice the good of the Navy to their own ambitions. The result was fatal to the spirit and morale of the whole service. Stagnation, cynical despair, often took the place of the old splendid spirit of the Navy. IV The statement of the condition that prevailed in the Navy from 1913 to 1917, and the analysis of the causes of these conditions suffice to make clear the naval lessons of the war. The mere statement of the conditions is in itself a suggestion of the lesons to be derived from our naval experiences in the Great War. The testimony presented to the Senate com- mittee deserves to become a classic document in the study of war. A careful analysis of the evidence and a real applica- tion of the results of such an analysis will prevent any re- currence in future of the situation that confronted the Navy and the country in 1917. Any final statement of war experience and its significance is not 3'et possible. The summary that is given below is there- fore only intended as a tentative suggestion of conclusions to be drawn from the evidence now available. 454 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR CONCLUSIONS The chief naval lessons that we can draw from our experi- ence in the great war would appear to be the following: 1. Naval policy must depend upon national policies. The Navy is only the agency for carrying out national policies when diplomacy fails and the test of war comes. 2. The size and strength of the Navy, the types of ships and other craft to compose the fighting fleets, the strategical plans for the use of the Navy in war, must be determined by a careful analysis of the kind and extent of naval power nec- essary to assure national defence and the maintenance of national policies. 3. The naval policy must be modified from time to time to meet world developments, especially progress in materiel inventions and changes in world politics. It is absurd and useless to build war ships except for definite purposes. These purposes can only be determined by a consideration of the use to which the navy would be put. This, in turn, depends upon international relations. 4. From 1913 to 1917, these principles were consistently ignored and violated. Naval policy was not formulated to suit the world conditions and our own national policies. As a result, when our intervention in the war became necessary, the Navy was unable for a long period to support by suc- cessful operations our national policies. 5. The Navy Department must be reorganized. It must be given an organization adapted to war purposes and pri- marily intended to conduct war successfully. The Navy exists in time of peace only that we may depend upon its fighting effectiveness in time of war. The Department should be so organized as to provide a definite delegation of au- thority and to place the making of purely naval decisions in the hands of properly qualified men, while leaving the de- NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR 455 termination of general policy in the hands of the representa- tive of the national Administration, the Secretary of the Navy. 6. The Navy Department, in order to be fit to prepare for and conduct war, must have a single highly developed thinking and planning body, to provide a systematic, or- ganized and intelligent direction like that possessed by all large business concerns, but heretofore lacking in the Navy Department. The planning body must provide methods for carrying out the naval policy determined upon by the admin- istration, to insure the effective enforcement of our national policies, 7. The Navy Department must be so organized that its executive head shall receive responsible advice on purely naval questions, based upon a systematic and thorough study of naval conditions and in accord with the naval policy deter- mined upon. Responsibility and authority must be defined and determined and must go hand in hand. 8. The Navy Department must have its various bureaus and subdivisions so co-ordinated, preferably by the Chief of Naval Operations instead of by the Civilian Secretary as at present, as to make sure that every activity of the Navy, and every penny spent on the Navy shall be devoted exclusively to carr3'ing into effect the detailed departmental plans based on the naval policy decided upon. 9. The Chief of Naval Operations should be the officer whom the leading minds of the Navy judge to be the best qualified in strategy, tactics, logistics and administration to prepare the Navy for war. To him should be delegated the task of so preparing it ; on him should be placed the re- sponsibility ; to him should be given the necessary authority. His work must of course be carried on under the general di- rection of the Secretary, who should always have the power to enter as much or as little into the details of his sub- ordinates' work as he wish. In order, however, to fix re- 456 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR sponsbiility and to prevent careless or irresponsible inter- ference, it ought to be distinctly and definitely provided that all orders issued by the Secretary, that involve the move- ments of fighting forces or deal with matters of strategy, tactics, logistics or administration, should be given to the Chief of Naval Operations in writing. There should be a definite and unmistakable record of every official action of the Secretary. Only in this way can a genuine accounting be had from him for the exercise of the very great and despotic powers over the naval service which pertain to his office. 10. Congress should not attempt itself to determine naval plans or to make naval technical decisions as to the best way of carrying out that policy. Congress, in conjunction with the Administration, should determine our national policy, and thus our basic naval policy. It should leave the carry- ing out of this naval policy in the hands of the men educated by the government for the naval service. It should decide the amount of money the nation can afford to spend on the Navy, and require strict accountability for all expenditures. It should not decide by Act of Congress how the money should be spent in detail. In other words, there should be a naval budget. The Department should have power to use the bud- get in the way that will best fit the Navy for its mission. 11. The fleet should be limited to such vessels and other craft as we would actually use in case of war. They should have on board in time of peace sufficient men to make pos- sible immediate offensive action in case of war. The fleet should be constantly maintained, and trained, as a unit to obtain command of the sea by winning naval victories and so exercise the command effectively when obtained. In the interest of economy in time of peace and of efficiency in time of war, every useless ship should be scrapped. From a mil- itary point of view, these old and useless ships must be con- sidered so much junk: in time of peace they require excessive NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR 457 and disproportionate expenditures of money and dock yard services and they require crews that could be better employed on effective ships ; in time of war they will be an encumbrance to the fleet and a death-trap to their crews. Furthermore, their retention on the Navy list gives an utterly exaggerated impression, at least to the uninitiated, of our naval strength, for such impressions are normally based on the total quan- tities, on the number and gross tonnage of the ships of the Navy, without regard to the absence of fighting value in the case of these obsolete ships — ships that, as Lord Fisher ex- pressed it, " can neither fight nor run away " from modern ships. No vessels should be kept in the navy unless required for its war efficiency. Emphasis should be placed on fighting qualities rather than on mere size. Numbers are ineffective against efficiency, training and wise leadership. 12. The personnel should be sufficient to man the fighting fleet of the power required for our national defence and for the maintenance of those national policies imposed upon us by the policies of other nations. Our personnel should be trained not for peace time drills, alone, but for war opera- tions. The officers especially should be taught, not alone how to command the naval forces, but particularly how to com- mand them in war. Their real study of strategy and tactics should begin, not toward the end of their career, as at pres- ent, but at the start. They should keep abreast of their ad- vancement in rank and responsibility by periodic instruction throughout their careers. 13. The Navy should be so organized and conducted that naval progress will be continuous. It should have ample pro- vision for the study and development of new methods and new weapons. Advancement should be based upon ability, achievement and leadership, and should not be an automatic progression by mere seniority. 14. No officer should hold a high command who has not 458 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR successfully completed the Naval War College course. The ability shown by officers in the work at the Naval War Col- lege should be largely considered in determining their pro- motions and assignments. Appointments to high commands at the initiative of the civilian Secretary alone is fatal to efficiency. The Secretary should be obliged to select officers recommended or approved by his senior naval advisers. They alone are in a position to judge of the professional as distinguished from the political and social accomplishments of an officer. 15. The Navy itself must clarify its thought, unify its efforts. It must stand out for the efficiency of the Navy and the good of the country. It must resist any tendency to disregard military needs and to use the Navy as a political tool. The officers of the Navy must maintain the spirit of their service and unite against such mistaken policies and such ignoring of real necessities as have occurred during the last administration. The Navy must clean house, erad- icate sycophancy, and brand the time servers in its own ranks who betray the Navy for their personal advancement. 16. The country must take a more active interest in the welfare of its first line of defence. It must insist on having full and correct reports of the condition of the Navy. It must demand and exact a full responsibility from the officials entrusted with the direction and administration of the Navy. Naval officers should be permitted a greater liberty of ex- pression in order that the repetition of such a demoralizing tyranny as that of Mr. Daniels may be prevented. VI Theodore Roosevelt stated the fundamental principles un- derlying naval administration and policy, in his letter to the Senate in February, 1909, transmitting the report of the NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR 459 ]Mahan-Moody commission on naval reorganization. After referring to the principles laid down by Admiral Mahan, Roosevelt said: " In their essence these principles amount to a declaration that the Navy should be treated, not witli a view to any special or lo- cal interest, but from the standpoint of the interests of the whole country, and that all other considerations should be suboidinated, to keeping it in the highest condition of military efficiency, for it must be prepared for war, or else it is useless, and it cannot be prepared for war unless always in the highest state of military efficiency. The whole object of the organization of the Navy Department is to create machinery which will, in time of peace, prepare for war. ..." The organization should be " based upon the fundamental and all-essential proposition that a navy exists and ought only to exist for war and for war alone: for the efficacy of the Navy in securing and guaranteeing peace depends ab- solutely upon its evident efficiency for war. Preparation for war can only be thorough and complete if the Secre- tary has the same expert military assistance and the same advisers in time of peace as in time of war. . . . " Perfection of organization and training and perfect pre- paredness cost no more than slip-shod inefficiency in so spending money as to disregard, or even prevent or impede, proper training and preparedness. . . . Money should be spent wisely instead of, as at present, spending it so that a certain proportion is wasted in friction or useless work. Training and preparation are essential elements of suc- cess in war. It is necessary to have the best ships and to have a sufficient number of them ; but the number and charac- ter of ships will not necessarily bring victory. Efficiency in organization and personnel must be the main dependence in securing victory where there is even an approximate equality in material." 460 NAVAL LESSONS OF THE GREAT WAR The disregard of the fundamental principles from 1913 to 1917 was fully established in the naval investigation. The naval lessons of the war are nothing more than their reasser- tion. In the face of the present world situation to the West of us as well as to the East of us, they cannot longer be ignored with impunity. INDEX INDEX •' Administration of the Navy Department. Memorandum by Admiral Fiske 212 Admiralty, Board of. See, Board of Ad miralty Aftermath of war, 26 Aid for operations, 210 Aid system, 21, 233 Air service in 1913, 240 Allied conferences, 105 j„^„ra Allied decorations. See, Foreign decora- tions Allied fleets. Effect of, 314 „ ^„ Allied lines of communication 117. 44U Allied Naval Council. 105. 107, Ibb-iao, 158. 378 Allied policy Influence of Sims on, 382 Daniels criticizes. 372-3/^ ^^cSiperation with. 87. 107. 123-125. 195- 196, 293, 331-332 Plans of, 87 Prejudice agamst, 343-344 American coast. See. Atlantic coast American Defence Society, 227 American forces. Work of, 448 American interests. Protection of (Ben- Amedc^iti intervention defeated Germany. 152 American policy. See, National policies American troops _„. ,^ ,.„ Brigading with Allied troops, 148 Misleading reports regardmg, 30 Numbers transr»rted overseas. 394 Protection of, 368, 383-388 Sims's statements regarding, 147-1^ Transport routes determined by bims, Tr^Wtation of. 115. 150 152. 202. 306 AmericaWaters, Attacks in. not probable. Anti'slbmarinecraft.118-119 150 338^^^^^ also, Destroyers. Light Craft. Yacnts Anti-submarine methods, 382 "^ti submarine warfare." Mernorandum from Bureau of Ordnance. 372-3/3 Arctic coast, 131 .„. Armed merchantmen, 134. 185. 3/y. 4cii Armistice, 34. 38, 45 Armistic- Day, '2-73 Armored cruisers, 164, 242 Army and Navy cooperation, 24b. c^ee also. Joint Board , _^ ^^ Army and Navy Journal. 54-55 . .^. „, A^y, Criticism of, ascribed to Admiral Sims, 142 Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Office created. 15 Associated Press. 96 Atlantic coast. 84 131-132, 187 Atlantic Fleet. 105, 190-195 AulStlc. Protected steamship. lane across, 134 Aviation r o^c Fiske on needs of, 24fa Forces sent to France, 129 Naval, 31, 246 . New problems arising from, 89 Unnreparedness in (FuUam), 24t. Azores, 125, 12&-132, 189 Babcock, Comdr. J. V . 99, 126 iSer.%^ra^-c' J-. Testimony of. 281-282. 295-304 Bainbridge, Captain William. 13 Baker, Newton D., Secretary of War, 32 Balfour, Hon. Arthur J.. 148, 433 Baltimore, U.S.S., 17 Bamett. Gen. George. 53 Barron. Captain Samuel, 15 Bases in France established, 128 Battle-cruiser raid on convoys. 134 Battle of Jutland. 186. 330 ^^Clrk^. requested by British Navy. 124. 310-311 ^ , Q^ «o9 ooo Delay in sending abroad, 85, 332-^33 Condition of, in 1917, 164, Ibb. ^u/. 264-267. 365 Misleading reports regardmg, 30 Reserve Force fleet 189 ^-^.0^0 Bayley. Admiral Sir Lewis 147. 156. 358 Beatty. Admiral David. 124 ^'Awarded Slsfi^Sished Service Medal. 72 Authorizes sending battleships abroad 85 Considered Germany a possible foe, Slii Fullam writes to. 241 Hostility to ideas from abroad, 34.J Ignorant of the Secretary's attitude, 335 Not a graduate of the Naval War College, Op^n?on of Admiral Sims's jud^ent 334 Relations with the Secretary, 327-329 Reserve Force authorized by. 172 Sims's contentions admitted by. 344 <;im<;'s statement regardmg, 4iu-4ii Statement Regarding naval conditions in 1917, 336 Testimony of, 281, 3^J -s-^J Testimony regarding war pans, 284-29-5 Visit abroad, 117-118, 123-126 463 464 INDEX Benson. Admiral W. S.~cont. War plans approved by, 167 s^L?",'!.'?^.",^'"**-™<^*^'ons to Sims. o2, 143-144, 410 Berehaven, 125 "Black" war plan. See, War plans B iss. Gen. Tasker H., 148, 152 Blue, Rear Admiral Victor. 176-177 221 240,282,320 '"-i". ^^i. Board of Admiralty, Effort to create, 15 Board of Admiralty, British. See, British Board of Admiralty Board of Inspection, 326 Bo^d ^^^^ Awards. See, Knight Board of Navy Commissioners, 13-14 ^yfP'i^n.^JP^^ policy," 349, 367, 36&- •i/U, 432-433 Bordeaux, 396 Breckinridge, Ck)l. Henry, 28 Brest, France, 129, 396 Bristol, Captain M. L., 246 British Admiralty, 108 Asks for naval war policy, 433 .i^'^^<, ^y President Wilson, 434. 436-438 ^^120 ^^'^ '^°"^''y system submitted by. Sims accused of relying on, 155-156, 343 o^o oir*^^ honorary membership on, «j/o, Ool British Board of Admiralty, 223-224. 381 British Fleet, 272-273 o ^^i, ^oi America protected by, 284 314 British Navy, 24, 350 British policy, 156 Browning Vice Admiral Sir M. E., 195-197 Bryan, William Jennings, 11 Building program, 28, 308, 314, 398 401 441 ' Bureau of Detail. See, Office of Detail Bureau of Navigation, 164-165, 167. 175 Bureau of Ordnance, 167, 372-373 Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, 167 Canary Islands, 131 Caperton, Admiral W. B.. 51, 243 Capitol, Burning of, 13 Cecil, Lord Robert, 148 Censorship in Navy Department, 28, 195 Certain Naval Lessons of the Great War " 75 et seq., 425 Charleston, S. C, 15-16 Chase, Captain V.O., 167 Chief of Naval Operations, 21, 28, 445, 455- 456. See also, Benson, Admiral W S • Office of Naval Operations Chiefs of Bureaus. 258 Chile. 17 Civil War, 8, 14 Civilian control of the Navy, 5, 13 14 23 215, 316, 428, 455 ' ' Coffee, Comdr. R. B., 442 Coffman. Admiral DeWitt, Testimony of. Committee on Conference, 15 Concentration, Principle of, 81, 131 Conduct of the War. Review of, 292-294 Cone, Captain Hutch I., 99 Confidential papers, 66-68 Congress, Building program adopted, 28 Congress, Criticism not directed at, 154 i-ails to provide efficient naval organiza- tion, 315 Foreign decorations approved by, 45 Increase in personnel authorized by, 172 Naval plans and technique not within the sphere of, 456 National policy determined by, 456 Refuses to create naval staff, 20 Secretary Daniels's medal awards arouses 53 ' Secretary Daniels criticized in, 27 Willingness to provide funds, 1 19 Congressional Medal of Honor. 44 Convoy System, 31 Adopted, 435 Arrival of first convoys, 120 British Admiralty influenced by Sims, 344 British Admiralty submits plans, 120 395 '" af^opting, 90. 119-121, 339, Jellicoe on, 120 Losses reduced by, 1 13 Navy Department ignorant of, 133-134 President Wilson on, 438 Sims's advocacy of, 382 Success of, 404 Vessels to be supplied by America, 120 Convoys, Attacks on, 386 Convoys Battle cruiser raid against, 134 Opposed by the Department (Pratt.), 287 Corbett, Sir Julian, 24 Gotten, Captain Lyman A.. 442 Council of National Defense, 111-112 Cowles, Rear Admiral W. S , 21 Creel Bureau, 32 " The Crisis of the Naval War," by Admiral Jellicoe, 382-383 y ^uuuidj Cronan, Captain W. P., 221 Cruisers, 435 Cuban waters, Fleet detained in, 166, 191 Daniels, Josephus, Secretary of the Navy See also. Navy Department Address at Naval War College, 4-5 Admiral. Sims's sea service questioned by, d9 Adniiral Sims's letter pigeon-holed, 75 Advice of naval officers disregarded, 248 Aid system ignored by, 22 A pacifist, 211 Apparently vindicated by reports sent out from Department, 31 Appointment of, 211 Attempts to divert attack, 364 Beclouds issues, 66 Benson's relation with, 327 Censorship established by, 28 Changes lists of medal awards, 57-58 Character, 211, 215, 248 Compared with Pelletan, 251 Criticized by press and in Congress, 27 Cross-examination of, 407 Deceived the country through his re- ports, 405 Effort to discredit Sims, 359-360 Endeavors to defend administration, 94 Enlistments stopped by, 172-173 Favoritism shown by, 64 Fiske attacked by, 225-226 INDEX 465 Daniels, Josephus — cont. Foreign decorations opposed by, 45 Good intentions of, 445 Letter describing services of Sims, 360 Letter to Senator Page, 65 List of awards characterized, 56 List of documents presented as evidence by, 351-352 List of medal awards, 48, 72-73 Medal awards at variance with an- noimced policies of, 64 Methods of defence, 255-261 Military principles violated by, 10-11 Misleading information given out by, 29 Mismanagement of Department, 26 Misrepresentations of, 363 et seq. Misuse of power by, 65 Naval ofiicers ignored by, 296 Pacifism of, 23, 247, 451-452 Peace activities, main interest of, 452 Personalities in testimony of, 354-359 Policies, 4, 11,33, 76 Procrastination of, 168-169, 173, 176, 203, 328-329 Requests commanding officers to make recommendations on medal awards, 46-47 Responsibility for conditions, 64, 204, 260, 319 Sims attacked by, 66, 354-355 Sims commended by, 128, 378-380 Sims's interview with, before departure abroad, 143 Sims recommended as Admiral for life by, 360 Speeches of, 35 Statement regarding Admiral Sims, 97-98 Statement regarding Fiske, 227-228, 236 Statement regarding General Board's letter, 228-229 Statistics of medal awards, 58-63 Tactics of the defenders of, 141 et seq. Tactics of, 346 et seq., 408, 416 Testimony of, 346-419 Testimony of, reviewed by Sims, 348-350 Testimony on publication of confidential papers, 68 Violated trust as a public official, 7 Violated principles of organization, 213 Visits Naval War College, 212 War plans of Office of Operations not approved by, 167 War speeches, "The Navy and the Na- tion," quoted, 32 Welfare of the service at heart, 445 Witnesses for, 255-261, 279-280, 347 Davis, Comdr. C. H., 15 Davison, H. P., 146 Dayton, A. G., 21 Declaration of London, 211 Defeat, The Navy our insurance against, 24 Defeat on sea narrowly averted, 102 Defeatist policy, 50, 56 Defences. See, National defence. Delay. See also. Navy Department — Delays. Delay, Dangers of, 447-448 Demobilization, Secretary Daniels on, 38 Depth charges, 382 Destroyers Building program, 170, 308, 398, 436 Delay in sending to the war zone, 394 Forces sent abroad, 85, 155, 198, 394 Kept on patrol service, 192 Misleading reports regarding, 30 Need of, abroad, 441 New vessels not equipped, 182 Not ready in 1917, 306 Patrolling the Atlantic coast, 394 Personnel inadequate, 164 Sims's letter to President Wilson, 439 Dewey, Admiral George, 18-20, 216, 228, 231, 236-237 Discipline, Effect on, of publishing con- fidential papers, 67 Distinguished Service Medal, 47, 49, 57, 72 Division of the Fleet, 39-40, 261 Dixie. U.S.S., 129, 198 "Don't let the British pull the wool over your eyes," 82, 143-144, 410 Dreadnaughts. See, Battleships Du Pont, Captain S. F., 15, 16. Edison, Thomas A., 368 Edwards, Lieut. Comdr. W. A., 99 Efficiency, Naval, 11-12 Egan, Martin, 150 Europe, Situation in 1917, 104 European War After-war effects, 5 Allies in danger of losing, 112-113 Effect of tonnage losses, 117 German defeat due to American inter- vention, 152 Ignored by the Secretary, 429 Losses, 101, 113-116, 153-154, 286-287 Memorandum of General Board on, 218-219 Naval lessons of, simimarized, 454-458 Outbreak of, 217 Prolonged by American delay, 113-116, 446-448 Situation not understood by American officers, 133 Evans, Rear Admiral R. D., 21 Fisher, Lord, 457 Fiske, Rear Admiral Bradley A. Aid for Operations in 1913, 211 Administrative plan prepared by, 366 Attacked by Secretary Daniels, 225 Chief adviser to the Secretary, 211 Fight for preparedness, 450 Inventions of, 209 Memorandum on administration of Navy Department, 212, 222-225 Memorandum, Loss of, 418 On aviation needs of the Navy, 246 On naval unpreparedness, 27 On preparedness, 12 Recommends establishment of Chief of Naval Operations, 28 Reply to Secretary Daniels, 450 Services to the Navy, 210 Suppression of, 236, 325-326 Testimony of, 209-236 Flag officers, Selection of, 399-400 Fletcher, Admiral F. F. Member of General Board, 261 Testimony of, 263, 277 Fleet, At Guantanamo Bay, 191 466 INDEX Fleet Battleships, Only efficient units to be kept in commission, 456 Division of, 39-40, 261 Kept in Cuban waters, 191 Kept in Mexican waters, 191 Organization of, 326 Personnel shortage 185 Strength of, at outbreak of war, 191 Units dispersed at outbreak of war, 81 Unpreparedness of, 183 et seq. Fletcher, Captain W. B., 104 Foch, General Ferdinand, 381 Folger, Rear Admiral. W. M.. 21 Ford, Henry, 368 Foreign decorations, 44-45, 355, 380-381 Fox, Albert W., 76 Fox, Captain Gustavus V., 15-16 France Bases established on French coast, 128 Forces sent to, 129 Ministry of Marine, 108, 128, 433 Policy, 156 Front. See, War Zone Fullam, Admiral W. F. Career of. 238-239 Commander in Chief of Pacific Reserve Fleet, 239 Letter to Admiral Benson, 241 Reply to Secretary Daniels, 450 Testimony of, 92, 238-254 Fullinwider, Commander, 372-373, 376 Gardner, Hon. A. P., 22 General Board Advisory only, 21, 210, 224 Establishment of, 21 Letter of August 1, 1914, 417-418 Memoranda presented by, 300 Recommendations of, 177, 218, 300-302, 314 Secretary Daniels statement regarding, 228-232 The "Black" war plan, 397 War plans of, disapproved, 411 War plans formulated by, 414 Work of, 296 General Staff, 214 Secretary Daniels on, 37 Value of, 223-224 German coast. Blockade of, 373-374 German Fleet, 234 German High Seas Fleet, 34, 267 German merchant vessels, 170, 436 German Navy, Prepared in 1914, 24 German ports, 133, 440 Germany Defeat of, due to American intervention, 152 Possibility of war with, 325, 429 Gibraltar, 129, 131 Gleaves, Rear Admiral Albert, 206 Goethals, General G. W., 314 Grand Fleet. See also, British Fleet Reinforcement by American battle- ships requested, 124 Grant, Rear Admiral A. W., Testimony of, 53, 93, 187-190 Grasset, Rear Admiral, 195-196 Guacanayabo, Gulf of, 191 Guantanamo Bay, 191 Guildhall speech, 143 Gunboats, 338 Gunnery, 209, 365 Gunnery exercises, 184 Hale, Senator Frederick, Chairman of Senate sub-committee, 42, 53-54, 77, 95. 157, 160 Hampton Roads, 192 Harvey, Col. George, 27 Hasbrouck, Capt. R. D., 54 " He kept us out of war," 330 Heligoland, 439 Historical Section, 149 History, Teachings of, ignored, 9 Hobson, Hon. R. P., 234 Holland. 439 Hong Kong. Dewey at. 18-19 Hoover. Herbert, 111, 335 House Mission, 118 House Naval Committee, 31, 225, 234 Irish. coast. Submarines for, 125 Irish question, 98 Italian Navy Department, 108 Jellicoe, Admiral J. J. American battleships requested by, 124 Naval war plans requested by, 433, 435 On the convoy system, 120 Sims commended by, 382-383 Jenkins, J. W., 32 Joint Army and Navy Board, 418-419 Jones, Admiral H. A., 51 Kittredge, Lt. T. B., 99 Knight, Rear Admiral Austin M. Appointed on Board of Medal Awards, 46 Calls meeting of General Board, 217, 219 Distinguished Service Medal awarded to, 51 On naval unpreparedness, 27 Testimony of, 53 Knight Board on Medal awards, 45-48, 52 Reconvened, 64 ' Scope and powers of, 65 Secretary Daniels's medal awards ignored by, 72 Knox, Captain D. W., 99, 149 Laning, Captain Harris Testimony of, 93, 161-170 Services of, 315 Le Breton, Comdr. D. B., 237 Liberia, 131 Light craft. 118-119.441 Lincoln. President. 15 Listening devices. 382 Lodge. Senator H. C, 227 Long, Captain B. A., 99 Luce, Rear Admiral S. B. Appointed on Moody Board, 21 Comment on Valparaiso affair, 17 Comment on orders to Dewey at Hong Kong. 19 On the lessons of the Civil War, 16-17 On civilian control of the Navy, 14 On preparedness, 12 War College founded by, 18 Lusitania, 225, 325 INDEX 467 Madeira Islands, 131 Mahan, Rear Admiral A. T. Appointed on Moody Board, Zl Influence of writings of, 18 „ "Influence of Sea Power upon History quoted, 82 ^ , r,r> Member of Naval War Board, 20 On defensive warfare, 332 On preparedness, 12 Maiw, U.S. S.,18, 222 Manila Bay, Battle of, 10, 19-20 Mann, Hon. J. R., 235 Marine Corp)s, 57 Material Division, 242-243, 318 Material, Not ready, 321 Maurice, General Sir Frederick, 157 Mayo, Admiral H. T. Disagrees with Sims, 98 ., ^^.^ r,r.r. Report of, on Naval Council, 20z--iU^ Sims confirmed by, 207 Sims subordinate to, 97, 341 Testimony of, 53, 93. 190-208 ,^ , ._ Visit abroad. 117-118, 123-125, 190-195 McCormick, Senator MediU, 53, 92 McGowan, Admiral S., 167 McKean, Rear Admiral J. S. Hostile to Sims and the Secretary, 318 Memorandum on construction of light craft, 322 Quoted, 96 „ Testimony of, 282-292, 318-323 McKinley, President, 19 McNamee, Captain Luke, 442 Medal awards, 41 et seq. Defeatist policy adopted, 50 Findings of Senate sub-committee, 56-57 Knight Board appointed, 46 Knight Board ignores the Secretary s awards, 72 Officers protest against, 63-64 Purpose of investigation, 53-54 Recommendations from commanding officers called for, 46 Report of sub-committee of Senate Naval Affairs Committee. 70-72 Secretary Daniels's list, 42, 48-49, 56 Secretary Daniels changes the lists, 5/ Senate hearings, 3, 41, et seq. _ Sims's Comment on the Secretary s list, 43 Sims protests against, 49 . , , „ Sims refuses the Distinguished Service Medal, 49 Statistical analysis, 58-^ Testimony of Secretary Daniels, ba Unsuccessful actions rewarded, 50 Medals. See also. Foreign decorations Merchant vessels, 355-356 388-389 Mexican waters. Fleet in, 191, 21/, 2JU Mever, George V. L., Secretary of the Navy, 21, 247, 427 Militarism, 103 Military policy of the U.S., 11 Militant principles violated, 101, V6^, ,391 Mine, New type of, 374-376 Mine barrage. See. North Sea barrage Minister of Shipping, 439 Monitors, 16 Monroe Doctrine, 219 Moody, W. H., Secretary of the Navy, 21 Moody Board on Reorganization of the Navy, 21, 225, 238 Morale _ . . „„ ,, Decline of, after the Armistice, 38, 41 Effect of conditions in the Department, 453 , . J , Effect of injudicious bestowal of medals, 43 Effect of medal awards, 63-64 Effect of publishing confidential papers, 67 Importance of, 41 Influences tending to lower, 213 Moral unpreparedness, 108, 110, 111 Sims, on the effect of the Secretary's medal awards, 49 ,77-78 Morton, Paul, Secretary of the Navy 21 National defence, 425. See also, Unpre- paredness Elements of, 10 Navy, the first line of, 102, 458 Past good fortune, 22 National policies, 156, 283 _ National policy. Should be determined by Congress, 456 Naval Affairs Committee Hearings on medal awards, 3, 27 et seq. Results of testimony before, 10 Naval aviation. See Aviation. Naval bases abroad, 396 Naval Conference, 1917, 190 Naval Conference at Old Point Comfort, 196-197 Naval Consulting Board, 366, 450 Naval Council of the Allies Mayo's report, 202 Sims represents Navy Department, 80 Subjects presented. 201-203 Naval Guns in France, 31, 140 Naval Institute Proceedings, Quoted, 178 Naval lessons of the War, Summary of, 454-458 Naval Militia, 139 Naval Mission of the Allies, 312 Naval officers not responsible for condi- tion of the Navy, 204, 329 Naval organization, 8 et seq. Naval Overseas Transportation Service, 394 Naval policy. See also. Navy Depart- ment—Policy Dependent upon national policy, 454 Errors of, 11 First statement of, 109 General Board to make recommenda- tions regarding. 21 , Necessity for modifications m, 454 Principles of (Roosevelt), 458-459 Sims's recommendations adopted, llJ-llcS Naval Reserve Force, 139, 401 Naval Staff, 22 Necessity for, 214, 221 Type of officers required for, 442 Naval strategy. Principles of, violated, 131 Naval War Board, 20 Naval War College, 210, 212, 216 Benson not a graduate of, 340 Command officers should complete courses at, 457-458 Foundation of, 18 468 INDEX Naval War College — cont. Graduates of, for staff officers, 442 Sims the President of, 383 War plans formulated by, 20 Navy. See also, Daniels, Josephus, Secre- tary of the Navy; Navy Department Achievements of, 135-136, 348, 393-395, 400-402, 423 Civilian control of. See Civilian control Condition of, in 1917, 6 Defensive policy adopted, 403 Delay in sending forces abroad, 416 Disintegration after the armistice, 38 Effect of a weak navy, 11 Efficiency of, according to the Secretary, 4-5 Elements of efficiency, 11 Failure of, during War of 1812, 13 First line of national defence, 102, 458 Importance of, 6 Inefficient units should be discarded, 456 Mission of, 213 Need for greater public interest in, 458 Officers of, not criticized by Sims, 443- 444 Organization, Object of, 459 Personnel. See, Personnel. Secretary Daniels on, 35-37 Sims's attacks not directed at the, 353, 408 Sound policies should be pursued, 458 State of, in 1917, 419-420 Strength required, 454 Strength not based on numbers of ves- sels, 457 Summary of war activities (Daniels), 401-402 The Secretary, the official voice of, 65 Unpreparedness of, 22, 95, 101, 108, 183 €tseq.,2X&, 260, 264-267, 292, 391- 392, 444-449 Badger's testimony, 297 Benson's testimony, 281, 324, 329 Daniels responsible for conditions, 284 Daniels's testimony, 346-421 Department's witnesses corroborate Sims, 280-294 Fiske's testimony, 210-237 Laning's testimony, 161-170 McKean's testimony, 282-283, 317- 321 Mayo's testimony, 203-206 Plunkett's testimony, 186 Pratt's testimony, 283-284, 306-307 Sims's testimony, 422-432 Situation in the Pacific, 243-246 Statistics, 419-420 Washington's testimony, 233 Vessels not equipped, 108 Navy and Army cooperation, 245 "The Navy and the Nation," by Secre- tary Daniels, 32 Navy Commissioners. See, Board of Navy Commissioners Navy Cross, 47, 73 Navy Department. See also, Daniels, Josephus, Secretary of the Navy; Navy Administration, Faults of, 161 Authority vested in the Secretary, 206, 295, 427-428, 444-445 Navy Department — cont. Bureaus should be coordinated, 455 Civil War, Unprepared during 8, 14 el seq. Commander-in-Chief of Fleet ignored by, 199 Commanding officers interfered with, 82 Conditions, 112, 306-307 Convoy system opposed, 120 Cooperation with the Allies, 80-81, 87, 110, 122-125, 158, 162, 195-196, 293, 331-332 Decisions made without adequate in- formation, 81, 89 Delays in, 85, 101, 109-113, 117 et sea., 162, 168, 286-287, 311, 391, 433, 44&- 448 Destroyers not hastened to the front, 81 Division of authority in, 205, 295 Documents presented as evidence by, 351-352 Establishment of, 13 Fleet dispersed at outbreak of war, 81 Forces dispersed by, 131-132 Forces held back from War Zone, 276 Gravity of the situation not realized by, 83, 90 History of, 13-19 Medals for heroism, 45 Military principles violated by, 101, 289-292 Misleading information given out by, 29 Misled by enemy propaganda, 131 Mission of, 213, 444 Mistakes of, 74, 80 Office of Assistant Secretary created, 15 Officers lose confidence in, 41 Orders issued to subordinates, 199 Organization of, 210, 213-215, 223, 245- 246, 293, 315, 401, 427, 455 Daniels responsible for conditions, 293, 319 Personnel. See, Personnel. Prejudice against the Allies, 344 Policy, 197, 201 "Audacious" policy, 349 Defensive at first, 330-331 Delay in announcing, 86-87, 109, 433 Lack of, 108, 293, 451 Mayo's testimony, 194 Messages relating to, 435 Pratt's testimony, 42, 308, 312-313, 435 Sims's testimony, 85, 424 Vacillating, 392, 428 Wilson's testimony, 276 Reforms necessary, 205-206, 424 Refusal to send battleships abroad, 85 Reorganization necessary, 454-455 Responsibility assumed by officers with- out Secretary's authorization, 169 Roosevelt urges reform of, 20 Scope of investigation, 92 et seq. Senate Committee votes to investigate, 90-91 Shipping lost by delays in, 114 Sims's criticisms of, summarized, 80-82 Sims ignorant of plans of, 86, 128-130 Sims not suppprted by, 81 Sims's instructions on departure abroad, 82 Sims's relations with, 112 INDEX 469 Navy Department — cont. Sims, the representative of, 104-105 Uncertain channels of information re- Hed upon, 127 War of 1812, 13 War plans. See, War plans Navy League, 20-21, 27-28, 225-226 233, 235 Navy Yards, 321 Neutrality. 219, 267, 298, 302, 444, 451 New York Herald, 55 Newberry, Senator T. H., 53 Newport, R. I., 217 News associations, 96 Niblack, Admiral Albert, Testimony of, 261. 263, 277 North American Review, 4 North Sea, 24 Mines in, 439 North Sea Barrage, 31, 98, 133, 140, 311- 312, 368-369, 371-377 Northcliffe, Lord, 433, 435 Norway, 202 Office of Detail, 14 Office of Naval Operations, 450. See also, Benson, Admiral W. S., Chief of Naval Operations Establishment of, 233-236, 366 Responsibility of, for conditions, 317, et seq. Work of, 296,321 War plans drawn up by, 167 Officers. See also. Flag Officers Secretary Daniels' selection of, 452-453, 458 Officers lose confidence in the Navy Dept., 41 Oilers, 202 Operations, Chief of. See, Chief of Naval Operations Organization. See also. Navy Department Organization Efficiency in, 451, 459 Principles of, 213 Ostend, 371 Pacific Fleet, 243 Pacific, Navy's activities in, 86 Pacific Reserve Fleet, 242 Pacifism in the Navy Department, 159, et. seq., 298, 304, 317, 444, 451 Page, Senator C. S., 52, 65 Page, Walter H., U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Admiral Sims's mission inspired by, 103, 143 Asks for statement of naval policy, 433- 435 On menace of submarine campaign, 335 Recommends sending more ships abroad, 85 Palmer, Captain Leigh C. Called before investigating committee, 93 Corroborates evidence on personnel, 170-171 Personnel built up by. 241 Present at interview of Admirals Benson and Sims, 143-144 Testimony of, 171-176 Patrol force, 187, 194, 276, 403 Pelletan, Camille. 251 Pennsylvania, U. S. S., 369 Penrose, Senator Boies, 359 Perry, Commodore Oliver Hazard, 13 Personnel Bureau of Navigation's statement on, suppressed, 165 Decline of, after the armistice, 38 Enlisted men, 401 Enlistments made without authority, 169 Enlistments stopp)ed by the Secretary, 172-173 Forces necessary for efficiency, 457 General Board recommends increase of, 177 Increase of, 220, 398 Necessity for trained men, 12 Palmer's efforts, 241 Secretary Daniels's selection of officers, 452-453, 458 Shortage, 108, 110 At outbreak of war, 217, 221 Department responsible for, 293 Estimates, 171-172, 179-181 Testimony of Admiral Badger, 281-282 Testimony of Admiral Fiske, 223 Testimony of Admiral Plunkett, 184 Testimony of Captain Laning, 161-170 Testimony of Admiral McKean, 320 Testimony of Captain Taussig, 176-182 Training of, 307 Pershing. Gen. John J., 150-151, 156-157 Philippine insurrection, 20 Pittman, Senator Key, 53-54, 78, 94, 141, 153, 336 Plunkett, Rear Admiral C. P., 93 Testimony of, 183-187 Policy. See, National Policy; Navy De- partment — Policy Poindexter. Senator Miles, 53, 92 Port Arthur. 24 Porter, Admiral David, 8, 17 Pratt, Captain W. V., 167, 442 Letter to Senator Hale. 42 Memorandum on policy. 312 Sims criticized by. 304. 310-311 Testimony of, 283-292, 304-316 Work of, 309, 315 Preparedness, 8 et seq. See also. National defence; Navy — Unpreparedness of; Unpreparedness Press, The Secretary's use of the. 94-96 Procrastination in the Navy Department, 159 et seq. Projectiles, 401 Promotion, Based on merit, 457 Pye, Comdr. W. S.,442 Quarters for the men. 173 Queenstown, 44. 130. 384 Reading. Lord, 148 Reserve Fleet, 189 Reserve Force. 169-170, 172 Retired officers, 247 Rodman, Admiral Hugh Commands battleships sent abroad, 271- 273 Lack of information shown by, 273-275 470 INDEX Rodman, Admiral Hugh — cont. Reported to Sims, 272 Sims corroborated by, 270-275 Sims criticized by, 95, 268-270 Testimony of, 262, 264-265, 267-275 Roosevelt, F. D., Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 221 Roosevelt, President, Moody Board ap- pointed by, 21 Roosevelt, President On preparedness, 12 On principles of naval administration and policy, 458-459 Urges reform of Navy Department, 20 Routing ships. Navy Department plan of, 134 "Royal road to victory," 133, 376 Russia, Submarines operating off, 131 Russian ships, 202 "Safety first" policy, 84, 196, 332, 371, 431-432 Sampson, Admiral W. T., 20 Sampson-Schley controversy, 98, 270 San Diego, Cal., 244 San Francisco, Cal., 19 Schofield, Captain F. H., 167, 315 Science, Application to life, 9 Scott, Sir Percy, 383 Senate Naval Affairs Committee, 52-53, 70-72, 77, 90 et seq. Shaffer, Gen. W. R., 20 Shipping. See also. Tonnage question Losses, 113-116 Percentage of American, 122 Sims accused of favoring foreign, 121 Shipping Board, 124-125 Sims, Rear Admiral W. S. Accused of British sympathies, 98, 142- 143, 146-147, 155-156, 343, 355, 368, 377, 381 Accused of disloyalty, 149-150, 356-357 Accused of having a grievance, 94, 97- 98 Accused of Prussianizing the Navy, 359 Allied conferences attended by, 105 Anti-submarine craft requested by, 118- 119 Appears before Senate Committee, 77, 91 Appointed Commander U. S. Naval Forces, 104 Attacks on. 66. 94, 96-98, 142-143, 146- 147, 149-150, 155-156, 268-270, 343, 354-359, 377-381 Authority of Navy Department never questioned by, 135 "Certain naval lessons of the War," Letter to the Department, 74 el seq. 79, 97, 100-103 Charges of, summarized, 391-392 Comment on policy of Navy Depart- ment, 85 Comment on the Secretary's list of medal awards, 43 Comment on war losses, 153-154 Congress not criticized by, 154 Confidential reports of, made public by the Secretary, 66-68 Corroborated by Secretary's witnesses, 270-294, Criticisms constructive, 80, 102 Criticisms summarized, 80-82 Sims, Rear Admiral W. S. — cont. Criticisms supported by other officers, 54 Cross-examination of, 141 et seq. Daniels attacks, 66, 354-355 Daniels commends, 128, 378-380 Daniels confirms Sims's charges, 420-421. 422 Difficulties of Sims's position, 106-107 Distinguished Service Medal declined by, 49, 52 Effect of Sims's comment on naval situa- tion, 27 Foreign decorations recommended by, 44 Foreign shipping not favored by, 121 Ignorant of Department's plans, 86 Influence of, upon Allied pwlicies, 382 Instructions not forwarded to, 104 Instructions given on departure over- seas, 82, 103, 143 Letter to President Wilson, 439-442 Liaison officer only, 97, 269 Mission of, 83 Mistakes of the Navy Department pointed out by, 74 Navy not attacked by, 136, 138-139 Not informed regarding Department's sources of information, 127 Offered honorary membership on Admir- alty Board, 378, 381 On naval unpreparedness, 27 On the menace of the submarine cam- paign, 335 Opinions regarding European War changed, 133 Opposed to decorations, 380 Policy finally adopted, 117, 119, 128 Pratt takes issue with, 304 Protests against the Secretary's list of medal awards, 49 Recommended for permanent Admiral, 98, 360 Recommendations of, 84, 98, 117, 128, 134, 293, 310, 313 Record as a. naval officer, 69-70, 360 Relations with General Pershing, 150- 151, 156-157 Relations with the Navy Department, 81-82, 86,97. 103-106, 112, 143,288- 289 Reply to personal attacks, 361-362 Review of the Secretary's testimony, 348-350 Rodman criticizes, 268-270 Sea service questioned, 69 Services abroad, 308-309, 360 Staff inadequate, 88, 125 Statement of a war policy, 440-442 Status of, abroad, 81, 86, 97, 104-105, 269, 310, 338, 340-342, 399-400 Summary of evidence, 136-140, 322- 449 Summary of corroborative evidence, 280-294 Testimony before Senate committee, 97 et seq. Transport routes determined by, 384-385 Unity of command advocated by, 395 Urges adoption of a naval policy, 104 Slaves, Freed by war, 10 Soley, Prof. J. R., 8 South Atlantic, Navy's activities in, 86 INDEX 471 Spanish-American War, 18-20, 222 Spanish Fleet, 10 Staff onicers, 5(i, 125-127 Statistics of recommendation of medal awards, 58-63 Steamship lane across Atlantic, 134 Stewart, Captain Charles, 13 Stirling, Captain Yates, 442 St. Nazaire, 396 Strategy Board. See. Naval War Board. Strategy, Study of, 457 Strategical principles violated, 81, 84 Strauss, Admiral Joseph, Testimony of, 263 Stringham, Captain S. H., 14 Submarine campaign Benson on, 334-335 Cutting Allied lines of communication,! 17 Department's apathy regaiding, 83, 334-335, 432 Effect of early defeat of, 115 Germany's reliance on, 330 Menaceof, 11,335, 440 Necessity for defeat of, 311 Phases of, 114 President Wilson on, 438 Relation to tonnage question, 147, 151- 152. 388-389 Sims's letter to President Wilson, 439-442 Success of , 113-116 Transports went across unharmed, 132, 387-388 Submarine operations off the Atlantic coast, not to be feared, 84 Submarines American submarines asked for, 125 American submarines inefficient, 189 German building program known to Navy Department, 165-166 Mythical battles with, 30 Plans of defence against, 191-192, 440 Supply and fuel ships, 441 Supplies, Transport of. See, Tonnage question Swift Board, 225 Sypher, Commander J. H., 418 Tactics, Study of, 457 Taussig, Captain J. K. Appears before Senate Committee, 93 Censorship of an article by, 178-179 Sims corroborated by, 171, 207-208 Testimony of, 176-182 "Teamwork" Speech of Secretary Daniels, 35 Tennessee, v. S.S., 230 Thompson, Col. R. M., 20, 28, 226 Thucydides, 9 Tillman, Senator B. R., 227 Times, 379 Tirpitz, Sims called disciple of, 359 Tonnage question, 147, 151-152, 388-389 Torpedoed ships. Medals awarded com- manders of, 56 Torpedoes, 401 Tracy, Benjamin F., Secretary of the Navy, 17 Trade during war, 219 Traditions of the Navy, 4, 23, 25 Training, 224, 459 Trammel, Senator Park, 53, 141, 153 Transports German shir)s taken over for, 306 Unharmed by submarines, 132, 387-388 Troops. See, American troops. Troop convoys, 132, 436 Tugs, 85, 124-125, 306, 338-339, 396 Turnbull, Comdr. A. J., 4 Twining, Rear Admiral N. C, 99, 442 United States, Product of warfare, 10 Unity of command, 146, 395 Unpreparedness. See also. National de- fence; Navy, Unpreparedness of Results of, 24 Upton, Gen. Emory, 12 U. S. Navy. See, Navy, Vacillation in Navy Department, 392, 428 Valparaiso, Chile, 17 Vera Cruz incident, 217 Vessels, Numbers abroad, 155 "Victory at Sea" by Admiral Sims, 259, 350 Vir^inius affair, 17 War, Success in, factors determining, 10 War, Ultimate test of a stale, 9 War Council, Branch of, at Lx)ndon, 441 War Industries Board, 263 War of 1812, 13 War losses. Unnecessary losses due to delays, 101, 113, 116, 153-154,286-287 War plans Anti-submarine warfare. No plans for, 414-415 Approval withheld by the Department, 397 Badger's testimony, 299-302 Benson's testimony, 284-285 "Black" war plan, 397-398, 409-415 "Bold and Audacious" plans, 349, 36'7, 369-370, 432, 433 Bureau of Navigation hampered by lack of, 167 Bureau of Ordnance hampered by lack of, 167 Daniels's testimony, 365-366, 408-415 Defensive only, 191-192, 431-432 Details, only, considered by the Depart- ment, 132-133 Disappearance of, 397 Efforts to discover new plans, 89 First statement of, 200 Full information necessary in devising, 135 General basic plan neglected, 133 General Board's recommendations, 21, 411,414 Grant's testimony, 188-189 Lack of, 80, 108-109. 133, 162, 166-170, 175, 293. 391-392, 424, 429-430, 451 Laning's testimony, 167 Mayo's testimony, 193-195, 198-200, 204-205 Memoranda offered by Captain Pratt, 309 Mobilization plan only. 187 Necessity for. 206. 210-212 Office of Operations draws up, 167 Palmer's testimony, 174-175 Planning Dept. needed, 223-224, 455 Plunkett's testimony, 187 472 INDEX War plans — cont. Rodman asserts their existence, 271-272 Sims not informed regarding, 128-130 Value of, 210-212 Wilson's testimony, 276-277 War prolonged by delays, 101, 113-116, 153-154, 286-287 War Zone Attention of Department not concen- trated on, 87 Decisions regarding, made upon inade- quate information, 81, 89 Forces held back from, 276 Operations in, 128 Proportion of vessels in, 150-151 Wars not yet at an end, 9 Washington, Rear Admiral Thomas, Tes- timony of, 233 Washington Post, 76, 146 "We Are Ready Now," 29, 208 Welles, Gideon, Secretary of the Navy, 16 Whales mistaken for submarines, 244 Whitney, William C, Secretary of the Navy, 17 Will to victory. 110, 145, 410-411 Wilson, Admiral H. B. Confidential report regarding, made public, 66-68 Testimony of, 263, 265-266, 275-277 Troop convoys directed by, 387 Wilson, President Criticizes the British Admiralty, 434, 437-438 Hoover submits report on European situ- ation, 111-112 Instructions to Admiral Mayo, 201 Letter to Admiral Sims, 438 Reply to American Defence Society, 227 Speech on the Pennsylvania, 369-370 Winslow, Rear Admiral Herbert, 27 "Wool pulling" instructions, 82, 143-144, 410 World's Work, 100, 259 Yachts, 118, 132, 199, 306 York River, 194 Zeebrugge, 371, 440 THB COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. A*^ N (; - - ' * * '' A ^^ . s ' x^-^ .\. '// 'C'. b, "■/„^, V ■* ^0 ,.^ "t. .^^' ..-^^ \V ^-. . °^u * •> >^ • \^ -. ,<^^' -' ■A -Ql '^ cf-^ » ,0' ' ^^' :> .s^^' 'S'. V "^. c'^ .x^^' %. %' './.•" ","'«?. ' . . S ■> ,v\ .Oo. O^ * . s V^ x^ . V 1 B oo. ■^1 - ^' %>./ ^ .-^ ,v s^k. o A^ .^^^' ,-0^ '^ o 0^ .A\^' oV .^^' '^--.. DeacidJfied using the Bookkeeper process. 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