On another occasion, a senior officer made the skipper of a sister ship run an irregular course during firing practice, so that his own destroyer might compile a better comparative score.38
The pressures produced two kinds of sailors: men who sought longevity in the avoidance of mistakes; and men who realized that their only security lay in maintaining a high level of professional competence, best fostered by pride and dedication. But peacetime training was only sufficiently rigorous to undermine the careless and patently unfit; it took active operations to distinguish between good shiphandlers and great captains.39
If not always realistic, the peacetime competitions bred alertness, willingness, and a faculty for what Hemingway called grace under pressure. More than the careful statistics of technical accomplishment recorded by the Fleet Training Division, these intangibles of the professional were the legacy that the regular sailors of the thirties left for the young volunteers of the forties.
a In the Air Corps in the 1930’s “. . . we were operating under the old Army principle: you never fight the outfits which you have in peace. You’re actually just a holding operation, to develop new tactics perhaps—new equipment, new training measures and aids. But when war comes . . . you will need to form your outfits from the Reserves, and build them up. Then, eventually, you . . . fight.”
b The bombers sustained about 80 .50-caliber hits per plane, the fighters 12.
c Lieutenant Commander A.B. Vosseller was one of those who believed in a significant offensive role for the PBY. In 1941, he would command a Patrol Squadron in the North Atlantic and discover that sometimes theory and practice are unfriendly companions.
2. A Destroyer for Sadie Hawkins Day
THE FIRST ATLANTIC FLEET was born in January 1906, evolving out of the old North Atlantic Station, then North Atlantic Fleet. But ironically, as a harbinger of the future, its first important mission was in the Pacific as part of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet.” In World War I, its heavy ships maintained ocean patrols, but it was the humble destroyers and subchasers that saw combat against the U-boats and won the victory at sea.
After the war, despite fears over dispersing the Navy, Secretary Josephus Daniels overruled his assistant, Franklin Roosevelt, and determined to transfer ships to the Pacific to deter Imperial Japan, which during the war had improved her strategic position by capturing Germany’s Pacific islands. Thus, on 30 June 1919, half of the Atlantic forces were detached to make up the new Pacific Fleet; the latter received the more modern vessels. The shift was announced as a means of stirring a healthy spirit of rivalry in the service by creating competing fleets.
Then, in 1922, the Navy was divided into four components: Battle Force, the major task force, which comprised most of the heavy ships and was shaped to fight the main fleet engagement of the future; Scouting Force, which was organized to conduct reconnaissance in strength and thus was strong in cruisers; Control Force, which consisted of the light forces, mainly older cruisers, destroyers, and small craft, needed to defend advanced bases and lines of communication against raiders; Base Force, which conducted training and provided logistical support. The Atlantic Fleet, as such, was abolished by General Order No. 94, of 6 December 1922. Its ships were distributed between Scouting Force and Control Force. One-third of the battleships—about six—were retained with Scouting Force in the Atlantic, so that the East Coast was still well defended against all but the strongest attack.
But the task force organization, so excellent in wartime, showed weaknesses in peacetime. The ships evolved different procedures and doctrines as a result of different missions in different oceans. Since the entire Fleet would have to be concentrated in the event of war, standardized training was vital to cohesion in battle. Thus, in December 1930, type commands were set up within each task force to ensure adequate maintenance and common training. Then, in April 1931, Control Force was abolished in order to free ships for other duties; only Scouting Force remained assigned to the Atlantic.
Early in 1932, as a result of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Scouting Force was sent to the Pacific to join Battle Force for the annual Fleet Problem, after which it did not return to the Atlantic. Although East Coast politicians complained at the fait accompli, the transfer was a warning to Japan. Less than a score of ships, most of them old, remained in the Atlantic. These were known collectively as Training Squadron, for their major duty was to conduct the annual training cruises for midshipmen and reservists. The force consisted of the old battleships Arkansas and Wyoming and the nine four-stack destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 10. In the Canal Zone, the Special Service Squadron, or “Banana Fleet,” mustered an ancient light cruiser or two, several gunboats, and in flush times, a few old four-stackers; its function was to protect Americans during the periodic revolutions of the Caribbean states. Its last significant sortie was made in August 1933, during Fulgencio Batista’s “Sergeant’s Revolt” in Cuba, when the light cruiser Richmond and several four-stackers dashed for Havana, but there proved no need for intervention. In the fall of 1936, Squadron 40-T was established to evacuate and assist American nationals in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and “keep an eye on things” in European waters. Usually consisting of an old light cruiser and a pair of four-stackers, the Squadron, basing for the most part at the French Mediterranean ports, remained on duty until October 1940. Once in the early going, off Bilbao, a Nationalist bomber mistakenly attacked the Kane, dropping six bombs in the water nearby; the destroyer fired two 3-inch antiaircraft rounds at the plane, but missed. Both the Forty Tares and the Banana sailors generally enjoyed cushy duty, but the former, amid the European glitter, were expected to maintain a spit-and-polish image.
In July 1937, Training Squadron became Training Detachment, and the force received reinforcement. The battleships Texas and New York joined the Arkansas and Wyoming, and the number of four-stackers was increased to seventeen: Flagship Decatur and Destroyer Division 28 (the Roper, Dickerson, Leary, Herbert, and Schenck), DesDiv 29 (the Tattnall, Badger, Jacob Jones, Tillman, and J. Fred Talbott), and DesDiv 30 (the Manley, Fairfax, Taylor, Babbitt, Claxton, and Hamilton).1
From May through September, the ships carried out midshipmen’s practice cruises, ROTC cruises, merchant marine training cruises, and Reserve cruises; from January through March, they conducted the annual Fleet Landing Exercises, known as Flex, in the Caribbean. The rest of the time, the ships carried out individual battle practices, participated in division and squadron tactical exercises, went into the yards for upkeep and refitting, and showed the flag in East Coast and Caribbean ports.
Rear Admiral Alfred W. Johnson commanded Training Detachment. He was a solid, able officer, but somewhat lacking in dynamism. His force’s connection with the Flex problems convinced him of the usefulness of amphibious warfare, and he was one of the few naval officers of the thirties who gave much thought to the complexities of landing assault troops on hostile beaches and supporting them with gunfire and supplies. He worked to expand the scope of the Flex practices and helped to secure patrol planes and submarines for them. The Flex landings off Puerto Rico did much to demonstrate the feasibility of the amphibious theories being developed by the Marines, but lack of suitable assault craft, vital transports, tankers, and auxiliaries, necessary communications equipment, and other important gear meant that the state of the art still lagged well behind the hopes of the Marines.
In the Flex 4 exercises of 1938, lack of transports resulted in the assault troops being crowded into the battleships, cramping the infantrymen and hampering the ships in their delivery of effective gunfire support. The shortage of cargo ships hampered the landing of artillery and other heavy equipment. Ship-to-shore communications were inadequate to permit necessary control and coordination of the battle. The lack of landing craft meant that the assault troops had to use ships’ boats, which were fragile, exposed, difficult to handle in the surf, and too small to accommodate sufficient men to allow a rapid buildup of firepower and momentum on the beaches; because less than two battalions could be landed simultaneously, assaults were not formidable, and invariably