US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0071/00714.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 11KB | 209 lines

$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.