$Unique_ID{USH00714} $Pretitle{74} $Title{On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor Chapter VIII Picking the Fleet Staff} $Subtitle{} $Author{Richardson, Adm. James O.} $Affiliation{USN} $Subject{staff officer commander officers navy admiral fleet lieutenant high knowledge} $Volume{} $Date{1973} $Log{} Book: On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor Author: Richardson, Adm. James O. Affiliation: USN Date: 1973 Chapter VIII Picking the Fleet Staff Picking the Staff Every officer in command in the Navy is anxious to have competent subordinates. Most officers in command are desirous of having only the best that are available. As I was slated to go from command of the Battle Force to command of the Fleet, six or seven months after going to sea, I believed it would be highly desirable from a Fleet viewpoint to have my staff move along with me to the CINCUS billet. I wanted a staff amongst whose members a high degree of teamwork and mutual respect and understanding would exist. I wanted officers whose reputations for personal professional competence was of the very best. I wanted very much to avoid having on the staff any officer who thought the mantle of the Commander-in-Chief descended on him (i.e., who sought to arrogate to himself the power and authority of a four-star admiral). In picking the staff, these considerations had to be kept in the forefront. I had had an instructive experience when serving as Chief of Staff to Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet in 1935 and 1936. About two weeks before Admiral Reeves was to be detached, I prepared the following memorandum to be circulated to the staff: I have a few things I want to tell you before the Staff breaks up and I hope that what I have to say will prove helpful to you in the future because that is my purpose in talking. In order that I may certainly say what I feel should be said, and in order that there may be no doubt as to what I have said, I have written my remarks. You have rendered long, faithful and highly valued service to the Admiral and from his point of view your performance of your duty to him has been of the highest order. From remarks made to me by many officers both Afloat and Ashore, I am constrained to believe that there is a relatively large group of officers who rightly or wrongly do not hold the same high opinion as to the manner in which you have performed your duty to the Navy. This group believes that the good of the Navy demands that there should exist as far as is possible a spirit of understanding, good will and cooperation between the higher officers of the Navy; that no officer does his full duty to the Navy who does not do his utmost to foster this desirable relationship; and that if friction, discord and ill will unhappily do enter this relationship any officer who seizes every opportunity to aggravate the existing unfortunate situation is woefully lacking in his conception of the duty he owes to the Navy. Are you proud of your record in this respect? As a result of the manner in which you have performed your duty to the Admiral you have received superb reports of fitness couched in terms of fulsome praise. My knowledge of the Navy and of the experience of other officers in similar circumstances leads me to believe that the full value of these excellent reports of fitness will not accrue to you unless they are confirmed and substantiated by subsequent reporting seniors to whom your relationship is less personal. In practically all the remarks you have heard me make incident to courtesies shown the Admiral prior to his detachment, I was speaking in the capacity of Chief of Staff; but in what I am about to say to you I am speaking as a Rear Admiral in the Navy. During my association with you on the Staff on many occasions you have taken up matters directly with the Admiral without my prior knowledge and without informing me of the circumstances after action had been taken. This has been done when neither the urgency of the case, its confidential nature nor its routine character rendered such procedure necessary or proper. Furthermore on other occasions after a matter had been fully discussed with the Admiral and decision reached in my presence as to the course of action to be taken, some of you have later, without my knowledge, made different recommendations, resulting in a change in the decision without your subsequently informing me. You have proceeded in this way, in some cases through ignorance, in others through thoughtlessness, and in others deliberately and intentionally. Such action indicates lack of proper conception of Staff work, or heedlessness, or bad manners. I finally decided not to circulate this memorandum to the staff, believing that it would disrupt and markedly lessen the effectiveness of the turnover of the business of the Fleet command to the members of Admiral Hepburn's staff, some of whom were already on board preparing themselves for taking up the staff work. I realized also that it would mar the harmoniousness of the various staff get-togethers normally held at a change-of-command time. The decision not to circulate the memorandum did not change my belief that it was a sound statement of professional naval standards and well justified in the circumstances. I also was convinced that one "bad apple" on a staff could expose a fleet commander to much eyebrow raising by his subordinates - both in high and low positions. I was determined to avoid "bad apples." My staff as Commander Battle Force, on the day I took command, on June 24, 1939, was as follows: Captain Sherwoode A. Taffinder (1906) Chief of Staff and Aide Captain Bernhard H. Bieri (1911) Force Operations Officer Commander Osborne B. Hardison (1916) Aviation Aide Commander Thorvald A. Solberg (1916) Force Engineer Commander Ernest E. Herrmann (1918) Force Gunnery Commander George C. Dyer (1918) Aide and Flag Secretary Commander Marcy M. Dupre (1919) Assistant Operations Officer Lieutenant Commander Maurice E. Curts (1919) Force Communications Officer Lieutenant Commander Thomas I. Raftery (1922) Force Aerological Officer Lieutenant Daniel T. Eddy (1927) Aide and Flag Lieutenant Lieutenant David T. Ferrier (1929) Radio Officer Lieutenant (jg) Harry B. Stark (1936) Communication Watch Officer Ensign Newell E. Thomas (1937) Communication Watch Officer Ensign Earl W. Cassidy (1937) Communication Watch Officer Ensign Joseph A. Dodson, Jr. (1937) Communication Watch Officer Ensign John C. Patty, Jr. (1937) Communication Watch Officer Captain Kent C. Melhorn (MC) (1908) Force Surgeon Captain William N. Hughes (SC) (1904) Force Paymaster Commander Sidney E. Dudley (CC) (1916) Force Constructor Lieutenant Colonel Le Roy P. Hunt (USMC) (1917) Force Marine Officer Hughes, Hardison, Solberg, Dudley, and Hunt were nominated to me by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, Aeronautics, Engineering, Construction and Repair, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, respectively. After a review of their records and after making inquiry in regard to them, I accepted the nominations. The five young communication watch officers were nominated to me by Commanding Officers of ships on which they were serving with the Battle Force. Raftery, the aerologist, was already on the staff of Admiral Kalbfus, the current Commander Battle Force, and the Bureau of Aeronautics desired that he stay on the Battle Force staff, as he had gone to sea only in June 1938. I picked Taffinder, Bieri, and Dyer. Dyer recommended Hermann, Dupre, Curts, and Eddy to me. I chose Captain Sherwoode A. Taffinder as my Chief of Staff because I believed that a Fleet or force commander should be free of all details, and yet, these details should be forcibly and effectively handled with sound judgment. The Chief of Staff must be both a self-starter and an expediter, yet he must have such a personality that he welds the members of the staff together and does not drive them apart, or permit them to fly apart from constant friction. He must be able to compromise opposing professional opinions without losing the meat of new ideas. Taffinder had all these qualities to a very high degree. I chose Bieri as my Operations Officer because he had an extremely keen mind and extremely broad professional knowledge and training, as well as a very fine grasp of naval operations, both in the strategical and tactical fields. He had a wonderful sense of what was practical and what was not. His interests were in the Navy and not in himself. He had a tremendous capacity for effective work. His standards were very high; he had plenty of iron in his system - and moreover, young officers looked up to him with adoration. When the Surgeon General of the Navy (Percy S. Rossiter) asked me whom I wanted as Force Surgeon and Fleet Surgeon when I became Commander-in-Chief, I said, "Commander Joel T. Boone." I had a very high opinion of Boone's capabilities, but I knew he was slated for duty in Guam following a very serious stomach operation. After some discussion, Rossiter agreed to nominate Boone for a more appropriate assignment and proposed Captain Kent C. Melhorn (Medical Corps) for the sea assignment. I accepted with alacrity because I had known and liked Melhorn since 1909. I had a high opinion of his professional ability and would have asked for him in the first place, except for a desire to help Boone, and the knowledge that Melhorn had already served as Fleet Surgeon with Reeves. Of the nine seasoned Line officers on the staff, lieutenant commander or above, seven became Flag Officers of the rank of two stars or above; i.e., Taffinder, Bieri, Hardison, Solberg, Hermann, Dyer, and Curts. It is interesting to compare this with the staff on which I served as Chief of Staff, and which I did not believe had been loyal to the Navy, in addition to being loyal to their admiral. Of the nine seasoned Line officers, lieutenant commander or above, on this staff, three later became Flag Officers of the rank of two stars or above. The captains of this 1939 Battle Force staff had had from 28 to 35 years of commissioned training, the commanders from 20 to 23 years, the lieutenant commanders from 17 to 19 years. They had a far greater knowledge of the Navy, and particularly of the Fleet, than the nineteen-year captains and twelve-year commanders of today. And they still had tremendous drive to take full advantage of their professional knowledge and their skill as officers and leaders. So while their ranks were low and their numbers were quite insignificant, in comparison with present day Commanders-in-Chief staffs, they were a top-notch outfit and served the Fleet and the Navy well.