Army & Navy – NAVY: E for Egregious?

Hanson W. Baldwin, most temperate of military commentators and an Annapolis graduate himself, let go a full salvo at the Navy. It hit where it hurt: smack on the Navy’s big E (for efficiency).

Baldwin’s serious charge: the Bureau of Ordnance is clogged by inertia and inefficiency, specifically in the development of naval mines and torpedoes; the Navy itself countenances inefficiency in high ranks, has done nothing to rid its command of deadwood. His invidious comparison: the Army has.

Beyond mines and torpedoes, wrote Baldwin in the New York Times this week, naval shells are not all they might be. And if U.S. ships have the best anti-aircraft armament in the world, not all the credit goes to the “Potomac Gun Club,” as Baldwin calls “the little clique of high officers who had been prominent in the Bureau of Ordnance.”

Foreign Guns. “Our ships have by far the best anti-aircraft armament of any in the world. But only the 5-in. guns are of American design. The 40-mm. gun and the 20-mm. gun are of foreign design.

“A year after our entry into the war the Japanese were still using a torpedo with a far larger charge of explosives than ours; there were many early complaints about the inadequacy of our torpedo equipment. Slowly we have overcome this initial enemy advantage, although the Germans have recently been using an acoustic-magnetic-contact type of torpedo that may well be more advanced than anything we have. . . .

“Many of these weaknesses have been, or are being, remedied. But American naval mines are still inferior. . . . And there are still inertia and inefficiency in some parts of the Bureau of Ordnance. . . . This is not due to any lack of technical brains; some of the best service and civilian minds in the nation have been available . . . some of them . . . have resigned in disgust. Red tape, slow-moving controlling mentalities, and the lack of a sense of urgency on the part of some of the Bureau’s officers are responsible.”

Navy’s Problem. “. . . More broadly, the problem is the Navy’s. The Navy has had a far less hard-boiled policy toward inefficiency and slowness than the Army. Not a single admiral or captain . . . has been retired or reduced in rank because of inefficiency or incapacity . . . whereas many general officers and colonels in the Army have felt the ax. …

“The Navy has done a magnificent job in this war—particularly the Navy afloat. But the Navy could do an even more magnificent job—particularly the Navy ashore—if it would clean house, even at the expense of personal heartaches, put the accent upon efficiency.”