## The blue sword : the Naval War College and the American mission, 1919-1941

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# The blue sword : the Naval War College and the American mission, 1919-1941

Vlahos, Michael, 1951-

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THE BLUE SWORD

The Naval War College

and the

American Mission, 1919-1941

THE BLUE SWORD

THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

AND THEAMERICAN MISSION, 1919-1941

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.

Stock No. 008-047-00325-1

U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGEHISTORICAL MONOGRAPH SERIES

No. 4

CDR W.R. Pettyjohn, USN, Editor

The Naval Historical Monograph Series was established in 1975. Itconsists of book-length studies relating to the history of naval warfarethat are based, wholly or in part, on the holdings of the Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection.

Copies of volumes in this series may be obtained from theSuperintendent of Documents, U.S. Government PrintingOffice, Washington, D.C. 20402.

No. 1 John D. Hayes and John B. Hattendorf, The Writings ofStephen B. Luce (1975). Stock No. 008-047-00202-5. Price $2.80softbound.

No. 2 Craig L. Symonds, Charleston Blockade: The Journals of JohnB.Marchand, U.S. Navy, 1861-1862 (1976). Stock No. 008-047-00201-7. Price $3.00 softbound.

No. 3 Ronald Spector, Professors of War: The Naval War Collegeand the Development of the Naval Profession (1977). Stock No.008-047-00212-2. Price $2.75 softbound.

Contents may be cited in consistence with conventional researchpractices. Reprinting in whole or in part is prohibited without theexpress permission of the President, Naval War College.

Some volumes in this series were made possible by the generosity ofthe Naval War College Foundation, Inc., a charitable, nonbusinessRhode Island corporation organized to provide a private source ofsupport to the Naval War College in carrying out its mission.

U.S. Naval War College, Newport, R.I. 02840First Edition

PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS    i

FOREWORD    iii

PART I: ETHOS    1

Chapter I: The Nature of Ethos    3

Ethos and World View      3

Culture and Personality    5

The Corporation of Ethos   6

Chapter II: The National Ethos     8

Images of America   8

American Personality: The Mask of Ethos    12

Chapter III: The Corporate Ethos    15

Rites of Passage: "Shipmates Forever"       15

The Call of the Sea: From Constellation

to Monongahela    19

"Sons of Gunboats"   21

A Band of Brothers     25

Chapter IV: Mission and Ethos   29

Defender of the Faith      30

The Legacy of Darwin    37

Law and Warfare   42

The World Island   47

PART II: MISSION   55

Chapter V: The Evolution of Mission  57

Chapter VI: The Course  63

The Lectures  67

The Bibliography  71

The Theses  75

The Doctrine  85

The Fraternity  91

TABLE OF CONTENTS

(continued)

PAGE

PART III: THE ENEMY   97

Chapter VII: The Callimorphosis of the Enemy:RED   99

Chapter VIII: The Cacomorphosis of the Enemy:

ORANGE  113

Chapter IX: Behind the Mask  122

PART IV: THE GAME  131

Chapter X: The Game as Ritual: Expede Herculem ... 133

Chapter XI: The Game as Oracle: The Campaign  143

Chapter XII: The Game as Oracle: The Battle  147

Chapter XIII: The Game as Oracle: The Weapon  152

AFTERWORD  157

APPENDIX I: The Colors of the Rainbow  163

APPENDIX II: Abbreviated Titles  164

APPENDIX III: War Games Conducted at the Naval

War College, 1919-1941    166

NOTES  179

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY  196

INDEX  212

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This essay could not have been conceived, much less realized,without the full support of colleagues, teachers, and friends . . .and those "keepers of the flame," the archivists:

To Ruth Nicholson, C.F.W. Coker, and Charles Kelly, of theManuscript Division, Library of Congress, for their patience inhandling my cartloads of inquiry;

To Anthony Nicolosi and Evelyn Cherpak, who not only gaveme the run of the Naval War College Naval HistoricalCollection, but who listened, encouraging me to develop early"discoveries" into a complete work;

To Captain Hugh Nott, Director of the Center for AdvancedResearch, Naval War College, who gave me the official supportthat made my work possible, and the personal support that gaveit strength;

To Commander W.R. Pettyjohn, who had enough faith togive me the "push" I needed to get started; and who, as editor,gave a rough stone some polish;

To John Bird, who found the time;

To Professor Alan K. Henrikson, who acted as my Virgil inthis journey;

And to my mother and father, who gave all.

Ill

FOREWORD

HISTORY is action recalled. Visible realities have theirmemorial: the physical energies of an age are preserved in thecollective record of activity. How different the spirit of an age!Behind the mask of ritual play, beyond the actors' fadingmemory of a finished script, we remember the speeches and themotion and the changes of set and scene. The theme, pervadingall, embracing all, can be but sensed. Spirit is an intractable stagefor history: a ghostly scaffold.

What follows is an unfinished canvas of the spirit of an age, apicture of a part of a world. This is not history in the manner ofnarrative, nor a history of manners. This essay is simply aportrait of a fraternal institution: of several generations ofmembership as they passed the span of two decades. There is,within, no straight transcription of administration, of bureau-cratic bickering, of battles lost and won. Ahead is a glimpse of asociety's collective sense of self .... The nature of their reality:their world view .... The subtext of their behavior: theirethos.

This fraternal society is the officer corps of the U.S. Navy.This essay records their thought between the wars, from 1919 to1941. If there is a story here, it is of the Navy's intellectualcloister: the Naval War College, "the home of thought." This isthe story of the creation of an ethos.

As a warrior society in a quiescent era, among a martial peoplewho enshrined an unmilitary republic, the Navy lived on theperiphery of national life. Guarding the margins of Americansecurity, it played out an isolated role. Yet the American oceanicmargins have always demarcated an open frontier. More than anestranging perimeter-sanitaire, they have been an expansivehighway, compelling outward. As agent and as guardian oftransoceanic America, the Navy evolved into a central institu-tion in national life. Sharing its identity with the outward facingof America, the Navy came to embody the imagery of anenduring motif in the American ethos.

As a culture within a culture, the Navy represented a distilled,distinct subset of the aggregate of national beliefs and values.

IV

Naval thought was but one link of institutional continuity in theAmerican ethos. On one level, integral with the larger society,the Navy reflected the immediate spirit of the age. On thesubterranea of institutional role, the generational lineage of thecorporate ethos preserved a stronger spirit through time.

Through the lean years, the "locust years" between the wars,the Navy kept strong its vision of self, and of mission. Fromgeneration to generation, the Service passed down both visionand mission—of Navy and of nation. The expansive, outward-gazing symbols of a prewar era of "imperialism" weretransformed into a continuing awareness of, and readiness for,the fulfillment of mission. From 1919 to 1941, the Navy,indoctrinated at Newport, formed the institutional patterns ofkinship between two paradigms: what Frederick Merk called"Manifest Destiny and Mission."

If, in our history, there have been links between the pendulumswings of policy and of public mood—from expansive tocontractive generations—then these were forged into theinstitutional cable that anchors society. From the "insularimperialism" of the 1890s to the "global mission" of the 1950s,the Navy, from its granite-girded Atlantic monastery—theNaval War College—evolved such a connecting cable. From partto whole: the corporate spirit of the Navy reflected and advancedthe spirit, not simply of an interwar era, but of an age.

The patterns of this essay unravel from the large to the small;from catechism to ritual, ideology to action, idea to instru-mentality.

The processes of cultural distillation, from the existentialpostulates to the articulated behaviors of this society—the navalfraternity—is replicated by the vertabral framework of thiswork.

ETHOS describes the perimeter of their reality, and thelocus of its survey: Who are we, Where do we come from?

MISSION demarcates the expectational, and the ex-pected; the vision of, and the behavioral response to, thefuture: Where are we going?

THE ENEMY is the cast inversion of the values and thebelief system of their society: the evil mask, the symbiosissupporting—and defining—Mission.

THE GAME is the ritual instrument of preparation:setting Future's stage, and learning the actors' parts inFuture's play. The Game is the rehearsal of Mission.

PARTI

ETHOS

In Modern Greek H#oa implies character, disposition,temper, and appearance. Its plural form, Hfior], suggestscustoms and habits.1 Today, in strict usage, ethos is inseparablefrom the anthropological concept of culture. Usage has linkedethos to the aggregate of normative values and behavior for allof society. Whether or not the concept of ethos can usefullydescribe groups and corporations within a society is important.Are corporate variations of ethos strong enough to justify theconcept of a distinct Corporate Ethos?

A society is the sum of its groups and its institutions. Groupsboth reflect and shape the ethos of a society. Some corporategroups occupy barometric positions at the center; these act asarbiters of the normative. Others watch from the margins, andseek only self-preservation. If, in the most salient of thesebodies, a distinct Corporate Ethos can be isolated, then, in theexamination of a single group, the passage of an entire societymay be illuminated.

Thus in the search for a Navy Ethos the nature of ethos, bothnational and corporate, must be explored.

CHAPTER ITHE NATURE OF ETHOS

Ethos and World View

We make our world: we define "reality" through our sense ofself. "Man constantly imposes on this environment his ownconstructions and meaning."1 This is "the structure of things asman is aware of them,"2 the "cognitive view of life,"3Weltanschauung, world view. Every culture possesses a set ofconstructions and meanings that is distinct and variant.

In the process of defining the set of conceptual componentsthat defines world view, every culture "makes its ownassumptions about the ends and purposes of human existence."4These assumptions are the "basic postulates" of culture. In thatthese deep-running assumptions delineate the very nature ofthings—of man, and of existence—they are called "existentialpostulates."5

In turn, they are the foundation for the superstructure of asociety's world view: the framework of formal beliefs andcommonly held values that shape identity. Within the literatureof a society, such is the essence of cultural "personality."

The nature of culture, however, cannot stop simply with thecreation of a formal, idealized belief system. Throughout thegraduated continuum of world view, from existential postulatesto the most complex symbology of creed, values are abstractedthat direct the behavior of a society. In corollary to the set ofexistential postulates underlying world view is an equally basicset of "normative postulates," the aggregation of assumptionsthat "specify whether behavior is good or bad, proper orimproper."6 Custom and taboo, the "informal patterns ofculture," are shaped by these normative postulates. If existentialpostulates are the bedrock of world view, then normativepostulates are the bedrock of ethos.

Culture has been described simply as "an integrated system oflearned behavior."7 On this basis, culture creates both horizontal

and vertical integration. Just as the belief system of world viewrises along a graduated continuum from basic to complex beliefs,each level of abstracted value has its corollary in the behavioralsystem, or ethos, of a society. Beliefs inspire and directbehaviors. At the most basic level, existential postulates havetheir normative corollaries. As the symbology of the beliefsystem evolves along a continuum of value, the abstraction ofvalue becomes more complex. Essential notions of the nature ofthings are distilled into implicit creeds: the very essence of whata society determines is good and right. As the set of beliefs isprogressively distilled to the essence of a society's world view,these beliefs become both more complex and more valued. Asthey are abstracted to the very highest level of symbolism towhich a society is capable, this narrowing set of beliefs can besaid to form the implicit creed of a culture.8

This is the vision that a society holds of itself: a vision that notonly creates an ultimate sense of identity, but a vision thatshapes a society's collective purpose, or mission, within its ownworld. Mission is the most highly abstracted behavioral directiveguiding a society. A graduated continuum of behaviors mirrors aculture's scale of abstracted beliefs. At bottom is the set ofnormative corollaries defining the informal patterns of customand taboo. The scale of behaviors progresses through a series of"moral imperatives" that guide individual action at increasinglycomplex levels of societal organization.

At the apex of a complex structure of cultural behaviorpatterns, statutory and implicit, formal and customary, is asociety's collective sense of mission. Mission is the culturalmechanism for translating vision into a correct and positivepattern of action. Mission is the mobilizing agent of a society. Incomplex societies it is the spur to that series of actions that hascreated what we call "civilization." In such complex societies,beliefs are abstracted to the level at which they mark theconscious, symbolic passage of a whole people. The form thatthis passage will take, and the manner in which it is chronicledand remembered, defines the highest abstraction of behavior:mission.

In a complex society, vision is the ultimate shared statementof world view. Mission is the ultimate abstraction of collectivebehavior in pursuit of vision. The more complex a society, thegreater is the variation of perceived vision, and the morevariable the accepted parameters of behavior, both individualand institutional in the performance of mission.

Culture and Personality

Cultural "personality" exists on several levels of societalaggregation. Personality is the translation of ethos into concreteaction: the performance according to the behavioral rules andimperatives of ethos. From the Latin, persona, it is truly theplayer's mask, and we all play our parts according to anembracing script.9

Or scripts. At the nuclear level, each man and woman acceptsand reflects the basic existential and normative postulatesunderlying a culture. More complex sets of beliefs, and theirbehavioral corollaries, are the product of higher levels ofaggregation within a society. The more complex the beliefsystem of an institution, the denser is the single societal actor'spersonality. At higher levels of intellectual superstructure,individual personality continues to reflect group personality.Coexistent group membership, furthermore, multiplies thenumber of societal scripts a single actor must assimilate.

Membership at the most basic level of social organization candefine only basic personality. The highest level of membershipto which one aspires marks the highest stage of culturalpersonality and, by extension, the highest point along thecontinuum of beliefs that define world view. The point at whichindividual personality comes to reflect predominantly bothvision and mission is at the apogee of role-playing allowed byculture. Such achievement is marked not only by membership in,but by leadership of, the dominant institutions of society.

In the most complex societies, leadership is shared amongcoexistent and often conflicting institutions. Variation inperceived vision commonly results in a diffusion of mission anda struggle between dominant groups for mastery of a society. Inmodern Western civilization especially, military institutions areoften denied a leadership role in times of peace, while expectedto mobilize and inspire society in time of war. The culturalpersonality of military leaders inevitably reflects both theessential delicacy and the overriding, but latent, importance oftheir role. To a degree beyond that of collegial leaders in other,dominant, societal groups, a society's generals and admirals feelan intense, rarified sense of mission. The more peripheral therole they are forced to play in peace, the stronger must be theircollective vision of the role they will play in war. War becomes ashared expectation that, inevitable or not, creates their role as acentral, indispensable institution in society.

By centering institutional mission around the process of war,military groups tend to shape their perception of society's largermission within the context of war. Their historical vision marksthe progress of their society from war to war. In this sense, then,military institutions are one of the most active groups definingsocietal mission, delineating and extending historical traditionswith exuberant imagery.

In this context, a military institution tends to keep alive anactive and outward-facing vision of society, even in times whensuch a tradition is in eclipse. In doing so, armies and naviesprovide a strong sense of continuity for a specific historicalmission that, in Homeric terms, may be termed "heroic." Whenthe strategic situation demands or the public clamors, themission, like an old ember, is still alive.

The Corporation of Ethos

Ethos symbolizes a culture's inclusive set of behavioral/moralimperatives at every level of societal aggregation. Thetranslation of the imagery of ethos into the action of personalitymust attend each manifestation of social organization as well. Inconcrete terms, ethos is incorporated by every group in a society.Institutional values and behavior patterns, to a degree, reflectcorresponding patterns throughout the larger society.

There are central institutions in every culture that dominatethe formulation and regulation of distinct aspects of a culture'sethos. The range of variation in personality between thedominant institutions of complex societies and the specific role asingle institution may play in the evolution of ethos is apersuasive argument for the introduction of a concept of"corporate ethos."

In complex societies, key institutions or corporations mayapproach the definitional stage in the evolution of ethos. Thisfunction is most easily achieved at the most abstracted level: thatof mission. In this civilization the performance of this functionis called politics.

Not all political groups are formal institutions, endowed witha constitutional role, supported by the continuity of traditions,inspired by shared emblems of identity, and strengthened byritual and very real ties of allegiance binding its membership.They are, in fact, few. The U.S. Navy is one: a formal institutionwhose structure and historical continuity have evolved into atrue corporate ethos.

Like a culture within a culture, the Navy ethos has created adistinct set of values and behavior patterns within a complex andsophisticated world view. The Navy ethos exists at every level ofsocial aggregation. For its leadership, especially, the Navy ethosdefines a kind of cultural personality at every membership statuswithin the Navy hierarchy. Unlike more informal corporations,the Navy is a complete "way of life." The Navy ethos reflects thenational ethos at all points along the continuum of culturalvalues: from normative postulates to moral imperatives to aperceived sense of mission. Although reflected, the nationalethos is also distilled.

The Navy ethos is. an intensification of the American ethos,the product of the special role that the Navy has played andcontinues to play in American life. The Navy is, to a measurabledegree, a society apart: a culture within a culture. Yet it hasremained a central institution in American society. As a rarifiedpart of America, it illuminates more clearly than any othernational corporation a unique set of values in the Americanethos. As an intensification of the national ethos, the Navy has,in critical periods of our history, played a decisive, evendominant, role in shaping of the passage of this society. Beforeexamining the Navy both as corporate and unique ethos, it isessential to connect institutional with national world view.

CHAPTER IITHE NATIONAL ETHOS

Images of America

What is America?

Throughout our history, America has been defined ininseparable contradistinction. Both in isolation and inassociation; a part of European civilization, and yet apart.Conceived as a New World, cast in the imagery of the Old,America was first an idea for which a place was found. As J.H.Elliott has confessed, "dreams were always more important thanrealities in the relationship of the Old World and the New."1

As secure sanctuary and as Utopian garden, America was safeand fertile ground for the transplantation of successive liberalvisions evolving within the European oikoumene, a larger, morecomprehensive society. According to Vernon Louis Parrington,these "germinal contributions were the bequests successively ofEnglish Independency, of French romantic theory, of theindustrial revolution and laissez faire, of 19th century science,and of Continental theories of collectivism."2 Although "native"American society evolved toward a complexity and organizationrivaling the seats of European culture, American thought hasnever reached true autochthony. Convinced of their essentialuniqueness, Americans have stood for 350 years on the culturalfrontier, if not periphery, of the European world view. TheUnited States is a "national society." "American culture" is partof a larger, ecumenical whole. America has both reflected andreshaped European vision, and in the process created a specialmission, one that has had the historical effect of defining theAmerican personality, both in isolation from, and in associationwith, Europe.

The symbolic agent of this definition was the concept of the"American Frontier." The notion of a frontier is inescapablygeographic, rich in the social overtones of the soil: the yeomanfarmer, the Utopian garden, the agrarian virtues; and rich in

tradition: Hesiod, Cato, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, and the latter-dayphysiocrats were all called upon to sing the praises of the new,noble society. The frontier and the agrarian myth areinseparable in American folklore.3 Even the slogans resoundthrough our history: Manifest Destiny, Continentalism, AllMexico, 54-40 or Fight, Free Men and Free Soil. ModernAmerican historiography, from Frederick Jackson Turner to C.Vann Woodward to Robin Winks have embraced, or wrestledwith, the enduring image of the American Frontier.

It is the central symbol of the American world view; itsmythology continues to shape the American ethos. TheAmerican personality has, for 200 years of nationhood, defineditself, and has been defined, in the context of the frontiermetaphor.

As a geographic metaphor, the American Frontier created asevere, and as yet unrealized, harness on the evolution of thisnation's perceived sense of historical mission. By focusingprimarily on a continental frontier-image, America chose alandlocked vision on which to posit its world view. TheAmerican Frontier is inward-gazing. Our frontier mythology, ina long process of historical accumulation of imagery, has tendedto define America and Americanism in isolated terms. Theoriginal, New World images of "sanctuary" and "garden," intheir unity, forged a force of cultural fission, pulling Americafrom its membership in the oikoumene of this civilization. Asboth C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter implied at theheight of the cold war, only the permanent historical loss of"free security" could reverse America's societal desire to defineitself apart.4

Mythology has come to define the American world viewalmost exclusively in terms of a continental frontier. Ourcinematic obsession with the American "West" is a testament toour unquestioning acceptance of this myth.

Yet there is another frontier in the American tradition, aseaborne frontier.

There are, within our national world view, two Americas. Oneis inward-gazing, one outward-facing. One looked toward thewilderness of an untamed continent, one toward the wildernessspray of the world ocean. One is based on agrarian philosophy,one on mercantalist principles. One exalts the farmer, oneidealizes the sailor. One is limited to a continent. One isimplicitly global. The western frontier demanded an army tokeep the peace and fought campaigns on the level of police

actions. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans demanded a navy,prepared to meet the demands of deterrence and diplomacy.

This twin tradition is deep-rooted. As Henry Nash Smithwrote, in the year of Korea, 1950:

The early visions of an American empire embody twodifferent if often mingled conceptions. There is, on the onehand, the notion of empire as command of the sea, and onthe other hand the notion of empire as a populous futuresociety occupying the interior of the American continent.5

The agrarian vision is unmistakably Jeffersonian, while themercantile is just as indelibly Hamiltonian. Ironically, bothvisions imply a separation from Europe, and both the creation ofan American Empire. Hamilton spoke of "erecting one greatAmerican system, superior to the control of all transatlanticforce or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connectionbetween the old and the new world."6

This is a vision of equality, not disassociation. In that itimplied an equality of competition with European societies,Hamilton's vision of America was one of identity with theEuropean oikoumene, as long as such relationship was on termsof America's choosing:

Our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim atan ascendant in the system of American affairs.7

Hamilton envisaged an American hegemony along Europeanlines and according to European political traditions. As FelixGilbert wrote, it was "the fitting of 'old policy' to the Americanscene."8

In this sense, one of shared, transatlantic ethos, Hamilton'svision was a force pulling America toward a closer ecumenicalmembership with the Old World, while Jefferson's Louisianagaze and his vision of new American republics, like "eaglets"hatching beyond the Mississippi, tended to reinforce the notionof American separation and uniqueness.

Coexistent, the two Americas evolved in exclusion, divorceduntil the fifth decade of the 19th century. With the continentallimits of the United States demarcated after the Mexican War,America stood on the shores of the Pacific. Seafaring America,by that time, was bringing the commerce of China to New

England and Yankee whalers hunted across the breadth of thePacific. In 1853, the U.S. Navy opened the door to Japan. TheAmerican frontier at that moment, and just for a moment,returned to the image of the "Passage to India." Americanmission, in the eyes of Thomas Hart Benton, Asa Whitney, andWilliam Gilpin, was to extend the American empire across thePacific:

The untransacted destiny of the American people to subduethe continent—to rush over this vast field to the PacificOcean—to teach old nations a new civilization—to confirmthe destiny of the' human race—to shed a new andresplendent glory on mankind 9

For a brief decade the two frontiers were fused. The exotic scapeof the South Seas brought by Melville to a hungry public in 1846-47 was an extension of the frontier myth of the Utopian garden.California, the newest state of the union, was tied to theRepublic by clipper, almost as if it were a faraway archipelago.

This unity of vision in the American world view was shatteredby the Civil War. Yet, once established, the image of atranspacific American frontier would remain as a latentcomponent in our culture. Four times in the future, this imagewould come to shape America's perceived sense of mission: in1898, in 1941, in 1950, and in 1964. As in 1853, the U.S. Navywould play an instrumental role both in the translation of visionto mission and in the performance of mission in action.

As Walt Whitman wrote, on the occasion of the arrival of thefirst Japanese envoys to America in 1860:

For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant,

I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant,

I chant the world on my Western sea,

I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,

I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a

vision it comes to me,

I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy,

My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,

My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,

Young   Libertad!    With   the   venerable   Asia,   the   all-mother 10

American Personality: The Mask of Ethos

Before attempting to examine the Navy as a uniquecorporation—a distinct society within a national society—it isimportant first to describe the larger context of national"personality." If the Navy ethos created a notional Navypersonality, then the Navy as a corporate identity should beviewed both as a thematic and variational component in theAmerican personality.

The imagery that, in its complete set, comprises world viewalong a vertical axis defines a corollary set of behaviors on ahorizontal plane. This is ethos, the set of normative values that,in its turn, is translated into actions. This, the collective set ofperformances of a society's actors, is the fused form of persona—the "personality"—of culture.

A culture must be defined in terms of the inclusive set of worldview, ethos, and personality along both vertical and horizontalaxes. By this definition, there exists no distinct Americanculture. There is a national society, which is but a member of alarger association called an oikoumene. America shares so manybasic components of its world view with European societies thatit cannot claim a legitimate, separate, cultural identity.

In spite of original and reaffirmed ties of culture, Americansociety has preserved a self-proclaimed tradition of culturaluniqueness. To sustain this perception, American nationalsociety has created a set of cultural variations, lovingly preservedin folklore and in mythology.

The core of American folklore is rooted in the image of theWestern frontier. From the moment of its politicalindependence from Europe, American personality has beenpredominantly associated with an ethos that both American"natives" and European observers announced as the product of afrontier world view. The notion of a society on the very rim ofcivilization has created an expectation of cultural sensibilitiesshaped by an untutored environment. Physical roughness begetssocial roughness. Frances Trollope was not the first, andcertainly not the last, European visitor who would write of theeffect of a frontier environment on American mind and mores;in 1832:

The "simple" manner of living in Western America wasmore distasteful to me from its levelling effects on themanners of the people, than from the personal privationsthat it rendered necessary The total and universal want

of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable,that I was constantly endeavoring to account for it... there isalways something in the expression or the accent that jars

the feelings and shocks the taste In America that polish

which removes the courser and rougher parts of our natureis unknown and undreamed of.11

How ironic, that the heroic image of the American as a roughand ready, straight-shooting, cigar-chewing Leather stocking,traceable to James Fenimore Cooper's stories of the frontier,should have displaced the seafaring heroes of novels like ThePilot. For Cooper, who wrote the first real history of the U.S.Navy, America's oceanic tradition carried equal weight.

In his letters during the Mexican War Cooper revealed hisrecognition of the triumph of continentalist over seafaringAmerica.12 The Civil War, and the destruction of the Yankeemerchant marine, exacerbated this displacement. As Americaturned inward in the aftermath of war and reconstruction,Whitman's paean to Pacific destiny was discarded.

As a corporate tradition whose fortunes were bound to theother half of the American world view, the oceanic rather thanthe continental vision, the historical foundations of the Navyethos tended to create the personality of a society apart. By theend of the 19th century the U.S. Navy was, in effect, a societyperceptively isolated from the main currents of Americansociety, as the American nation was, by its own admission,separate from the European social order.

In essential thesis, this notion was an illusion but it was acherished illusion, reinforced by historical folklore. In the case ofthe Navy, its isolation from mainstream America from 1865 to1895 was neither cherished nor illusory. It was a bitter fact andpermeated each naval officer's sense of identity and worth inrelationship to American society. As Alfred Thayer Mahanwrote of the visit of a French admiral to an American warship inthe 1880s,

... one of these old war-horses, not yet turned out to grass orslaughter, ship-rigged to royals, and slow-steamed. His gazewas meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "Ousont les neiges d'antan?" ... he saw before him an historicalmemento, sweeping gently, doubtless, the chords ofyouthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he said at last; "I'anciensysteme. Nous l'avons eu."13

By 1890, Oscar Wilde could write of America, "You have yourmanners and your Navy."14

This age marked the nadir of the oceanic vision as an essentialcomponent of the American world view. The Navy roleanchored at the very margin of American national life. Yet thesame year as Wilde's sneer, Mahan published The Influence ofSeapower Upon History. Within 8 short years the Navy, andAmerica's transpacific mission, would experience a remarkablerenaissance. Rehabilitated, the Navy, and Oceanic America,would retain to the present era a coequal status with theContinentalist School.

Although status had been rewon, the Second America had lostthe connective associations of historical mythology. FrederickJackson Turner had already, in 1893, codified the "Myth of theAmerican Frontier."15 The long intermythologicum had brokenthe spell of the American seafaring tradition, as it had flourishedbefore 1861. America was, in future, to be defined according to asingle historical image. This awareness, certainly subconscious,has had a depressive influence on the corporate ethos of the U.S.Navy in the 20th century. The eclipse of the mythology ofseafaring America—as one of the central symbols of Americanidentity—has, indirectly, shaped the corporate "personality" ofthe modern Navy. Now, in turning at last to face the subject ofthis essay—the Navy as corporation and as ethos—this crucialrecognition must be remembered.

CHAPTER IIITHE CORPORATE ETHOS

This is the body of basic beliefs, translated into patterns ofbehavior, that define the Navy as a corporate allegiance. Thereare functional analogues here to any corporate structure inAmerican society. In the classic period of this essay, the initialprocesses of defining role and identity and the rituals ofmembership were far more intense and all-encompassing in theNavy than in other secular groups in national society. AtAnnapolis, corporate indoctrination was extended to adefinitional degree in individual personality and could be called aform of "acculturation." With its isolated environment, highlyritualized and severe rites of passage, and demanding emphasison fellowship, the Navy created for its officer corps thefoundation of a separate society: an embracing ethos.

A man's sense of membership in this society, as one of itsleaders, was shaped by four kinds of experiences. These arecalled here "Rites of Passage," "The Call of the Sea," "Sons ofGunboats," and "A Band of Brothers." Each is native to theNavy; together they create the sum of essential ethos, uponwhich could later be laid the higher institutional calling ofmission.

Rites of Passage: "Shipmates Forever"

The manner in which an officer was brought into the world ofthe U.S. Navy was, in its classic period, something like beingborn again, and raised anew, and acculturated to an alien society.As Albert Gleaves wrote:

Every officer of the United States Navy, whatever his ownantecedents, has the best of rearing at the most receptive ageand the honour of the Service to maintain. His bestancestors are the men who have come before him in thatService l

These italicized images reveal the implicit allegiances of a manto his family or tribe.The "classic period" of America's Navy hasbeen applied as a societal definition: that era when the Navyethos was strongest and the process of its acculturation mostintense. This period, roughly from 1885-1945, marked theclosest translation of the body of Navy "traditions," or worldview, into a shared sense of mission. This was the time ofAnnapolis and Newport; the heyday of the Academy and theWar College as functional institutions in the transmission of"cultural" values.

For as a society apart, the Navy created ties of allegiance andbadges of identity that bound its officers for life. Membershipwas awarded to a young man not merely as a diploma, signalingthe end of the initial period of acculturation. The course atAnnapolis was a structural, as well as symbolic, rite de passage. Ifthe War College instilled the mature elements of the Navyethos, the Naval Academy created the primal. An officer's senseof mission was forged at the intellectual peak of his career; hisframework of meaning, his manners, his behavioral manual, hiscultural compass bearing, his personality, were hammered out atthe start, at Annapolis.

In this heyday time, the cultural laxity described so lovingly byMahan had been bred out. The oldsters of 1856 were gone andthe majority of midshipmen no longer tattooed right forearmswith "Goddess of Liberty."2 As he lamented:

I remember, in later days and later manners, when we wereall compelled to be well buttoned up to the throat, a youngofficer remarked to me disparagingly of another, "He's thesort of man, you know, who would wear a frock-coatunbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My friendhad achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he haddefined a species.3

"Respect for individual tastes" departed. "Hazing" arrived.

Hazing became a crucial component of the process of Navyacculturation at Annapolis after the 1860s.4 Unpleasant as italways was, it was just as inevitably remembered with proudfondness. Like "Jack Nastyface" during the Great War againstBonaparte who refused to accept a messmate as a true brotheruntil his back bore the mark of "the cat," the Americanmidshipman accepted hazing as the natural and sole proof of

admission. Membership in a selective fraternity demanded, likethe sun dance of the Cheyenne, a physical rite of passage.

The test of Annapolis was severe. Julius Augustus Furer, classsecretary of '01, would write of the 30 men in his class, out of 97,who did not graduate.5 Attrition by this time was the exclusiveproduct of academic and physical severity. Mahan's class, 1859,graduated only 20 out of 49 entrants but his perspective revealedan essential difference. "The dwindling numbers testifies ratherto the imperfection of educational processes throughout thecountry than to the severity of the tests, which were very farbelow those of today."6

By the 20th century, the Annapolis experience had created itsown body of folklore, enshrined in popular sentiment. Theextent of its permeation was revealed in a film produced byWarner Brothers in 1935, Shipmates Forever. Although astandard "Hollywood" product, it represents an authenticsource. Not merely a barometer of national attitudes toward theNavy in the midthirties, it is a remarkable paradigm ofcontemporary Navy values. The film presents a rare historical"window" to view the mythology of the Naval Academy and itsrole in the creation of the Navy ethos. Research into the papersof Dudley Knox reveals that the Navy worked closely withWarner Brothers in the production of the film.7 Bluntly put, itwas a magnificent, and sentimental, piece of propaganda.

In that Shipmates Forever encapsulates all the motifs of theAnnapolis mythology, the film presents a romanticized, butemotionally authentic, description of the Navy's rites of passage.Dick Powell, playing a young singer, is from an old Navy family.His father is CINCUS, and about to retire. He desperately wantshis son to follow him but he will not force him. Finally, it is thecommanding adjuration in the portrait of his grandfather, acommodore from the old sailing navy, that propels Powelltoward Annapolis. At the Academy he does well academicallybut he chafes under the hazing of upperclassmen, who tease theex-crooner mercilessly. He is forced to sing, night after night,endless stanzes of "Abdul Abulbul Amir" to his everlastingdistaste. As the outsider, intellectually and temperamentally, hecuts himself off from his classmates and rejects their appeals tofellowship. He is redeemed from isolation only by risking deathin attempting to save the life of a shipmate when a boilerexplodes in an old battleship during a summer cruise. He falls inlove with Ruby Keeler, who is implicitly devoted to the Navyeven though both her father and brother had been lost at sea. In

the end, as commander of the Brigade of Midshipmen, he stands,a hero and brother officer, as he receives his commission in theU.S. Navy.

All of the basic, personal elements of the Navy ethos arerevealed in this film. Made during the halcyon period of theNavy, before its greatest test of war, Shipmates Forevercaptured the feeling, the sensibility, of a distinct ethos. AlbertGleaves, also writing in the 1930s, called this the "background ofthe Navy." Like the movie, he described the Navy ethos in theauthentic, unself-conscious language of a member when hespoke of the men

who devote their whole lives to the steady, quietperformance of duty, the rigours of discipline, the trainingand welfare of the men trusted to their command, the tactand good breeding that keep an efficient and happy ship anda wardroom what a gentleman's should be, and above all, tothe faithful discharge of responsibility. All this on a salary offrom fourteen hundred to six thousand dollars a year, andevery married officer has the assurance from a gratefulcountry of a pension to his widow of thirty dollars a monthfor the support of herself and any children they may have!Nothing but love of the Service and pride in it can keep aman in such a profession, and nothing but love of herhusband and pride in his career can make a woman stand byhim and keep him in it.8

Those qualities that so immediately describe the naval officerof that era—duty, responsibility, devotion, steadiness, rigor,faithful, good breeding, a gentleman, pride, and even love—arespontaneous and autochthonous. They were the highly valuedcreed of a special world view, the moral imperative of an ethos.They are, by modern standards, all the more remarkable for theconscious central role they played in the makeup of individualpersonality.

This unbreakable identification of "character" with the largervision and mission of the Navy was the cultural product of post-Civil War Annapolis; of a naval academy that may have lost atraditionally relaxed and individual style of training and replacedit with a rigorous process of acculturation not unlike that foundin the leadership groups of separate and distinct societies. Indoing so, the Navy was able to "raise" a group of men who notonly created a unified institutional notion of national missionbut who had the drive to see it realized.

19The Call of the Sea: From Constellation toMonongahela

WHEN, staunchly entering port,

After long ventures, hauling up, worn and old,

Battered by sea and wind, torn by many a fight,With the original sails all gone, replaced, or mended,I only saw, at last, the beauty of the ship.9

To see the old sailing ship, as Whitman saw her, was to sensethe sublime: this understanding was the central "mystery" ofman and the sea. The majesty of wind and sail, the disciplinedemanded of survival under canvas alone, the integration of manand ark, sea and sky, in interactive harmony and strife, was therhythm of the seafaring frontier. Even after steam had displacedsail for a generation of navymen, they could not proudly callthemselves "sailors" until they had close-reefed topsails in awinter gale.

The tradition was immutable. Midshipmen who sailed toEngland and Maderia in 1899 in the old Monongahelarecaptured the world of their naval "ancestors." At the Academy,a midshipman was schooled in engineering, and given themodern tools of his trade. At sea, hauling on sheets and staysduring his summer cruise, he was surrounded by continuity andcontext, and given his identity.

In this baptismal ritual, the character and past of the ship,etched in every plank, was a reminder and an adjuration. "Wornand old," the ship was a reminder of those other generations ofofficers who had paced her decks; "torn by many a fight," shewas an adjuration to the young midshipman to duty, to fall in asthey had to the guns in defense of the Constitution. The oldMonongahela, last of the wooden sail training ships, had foughtat Port Hudson and at Mobile Bay with Farragut and bore thebattle scars of Confederate guns. The men who would make, inJulius Augustus Furer's words, "the last cruise made bymidshipmen to Europe in sail,"10 would include oneCOMBATFOR, one COMSCOFOR, one CINCUS, the presidentof the Naval War College during World War II, the Commanderof the 14th Naval District on 7 December, and one COMINCHfor that same great war to be.

In the same manner, William Sowden Sims, in 1877, sailed asa midshipman in Constellation which, although it had been"rebuilt" in 1855, could trace its bloodline to the Quasi-war withFrance and that fabled fight with Llnsugente in 1798.11 Each

naval generation was able to reforge its own, personal links withits ancestry. Sims, who would command all U.S. naval forces inEurope during the First World War, was able, howevertenuously, to feel the Navy of Nelson and of Decatur; King, who

would serve as COMINCH during the Second, was able for amoment to cast back to Farragut and Porter.

How conscious was the awareness of this continuity? WhenMahan attended the Academy in the late 1850s it was withwistful awareness of the passing of an age. His class, 1859, wasone of the last to sail in ships without steam when such were stillon cruising stations before the war; and serve under men,veterans of 1812, who still scorned "funnel and screw." His firstcruise after graduation was in such a ship, the fated frigateCongress. Of her he wrote, in reverence:

The "Congress" was a magnificent ship of her period. Theadjective is not too strong. Having been built about 1840,she represented the culmination of the sail era, which,judged by her, reached then the splendid maturity that initself, to the prophetic eye, presages decay andvanishment.12

If anything, the awareness of continuity was yet stronger foran old crew than for an old ship. If there could be codified acollective memory of the Navy ethos in its most basic form—itstradition—then surely its source would be the "Old Salt," and theform of his transmission, the "spun yarn":

The gunner of the first ship in which I served aftergraduation told me that in 1832, when he was a youngseaman before the mast on board a sloop of war in theMediterranean... that she stood into the harbor of Maltaunder all sail, royal and studding sails, to make a flying moor.Within fifteen minutes she was all in, the ship moored, sails

furled, and yards squared  Now I dare say that some of

my brother officers may cavil at this story 13

In a way the image of the "Old Timer" was, among officers in the20th-century Navy, a sentimental market-post, both as anincarnation of ancestral tradition and as a reminder of thewonder of youth. There is a famous photograph of four of thesemen taken aboard Mohican in 1888. These graybeards, withpipe, seated on ditty boxes, surrounded by coiled line and taut

rigging, evoked a special memory in senior officers of the 1930s.Joseph Taussig, who served as Assistant Chief of NavalOperations from 1933-36, wrote about the careers of thesestaunch sailors for the 1937 Navy Day Annual:

The fine type of the old salt depicted here is now extinct sofar as our navy is concerned. It is fitting, therefore, to make arecord of some of the things that are known of these men. Itis felt also that those of the old navy who were closelyassociated with the wonderful sailor men of those days, aswell as the modern navy who never had the pleasure of suchassociations, will appreciate the quotations written by theofficers who were shipmates of these men.14

This was more than unabashed sentiment. In the personalpapers of Albert Gleaves and Montgomery Meigs Taylor, bothcommanders of the Asiatic Fleet in the interwar era, there arepreserved copies of this same photograph, with simplecomments about four old men in an old wooden ship:remembered by admirals in their sleek steel cruisers. Thecontinuity was not simply conscious; it was enduring.15

As Furer wrote of his transatlantic cruise in Monon in 1899,"We worked the ship and had perhaps a dozen or so old salts toshow us the ropes."16 There is a world of implication in thatstatement. As Mahan admitted of his own midshipman'sexperience, "for most of us the object was to acquire a seaman'sknowledge, not an officer's."17 A man is a sailor before he is anaval officer; that conviction has never fully been lost. Thoselucky "young gentlemen" who sailed Monon to Europe and wholater led America's Navy in world war were the last "sailingofficers" of their service; yet the end of a tradition only. Theemotional role of the sailing ship in the Navy ethos remained as,for each new generation, "at last, the beauty of the ship."

Sons of Gunboats

"Hurrah my lads! It's a settled thing; next week we shapeour course to the Marquesas!" The Marquesas! What strangevisions of outlandish things does the very name spirit up!Lovely houris—cannibal banquets—groves of cocoa-nuts—coral reefs—tattooed chiefs—and bamboo temples; sunnyvalleys planted with breadfruit trees—carved canoesdancing on the flashing blue waters—savage woodlands

guarded by horrible idols ... I felt an irresistible curiosity tosee those islands which the olden voyagers had so glowinglydescribed.18

So Herman Melville began Typee, which thrilled literaryAmerica in 1846. Like Whitman's Passage to India, he caughtthe sum of imagery by which America would come to define theexotic scape of the South Seas, and the fabled lands that laybeyond: India and Cathay. At the end of the 19th century, theSpanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion and the PhilippineInsurrection again created a sheen of romance around theexperiences of American sailors in China and the islands of thePacific.

When the big gray battleship South Dakota crossed the reefinto the harbor of Papeete, Tahiti, on an autumn noon in 1919,Albert Gleaves, CINCASIATIC, spoke as Melville had in Omoo,when Julia dropped anchor there 77 years before. Thedescriptions are strikingly similar. In their shared imagery of theexotic, Gleaves and Melville create a continuity in the languageof seafaring America. Gleaves' memory of a dance by Samoan"maidens" echoes the prose of Melville in "Preparations for aFeast," from Typee:

The dance is considered the most graceful of all the SouthSea Islands, and the dress is just within the Law of Eden. Afringe of banana leaves around the waist, the naked bodiesglistening with coconut oil, and a necklace of hybiscus andtiny shells compose the costume de rigeur. The girls' figures,beautifully formed, are like bronze nymphs.19

Unlike the pictures of whaling ships and China clippers, thisexperience was a Navy excursion, framed in the imagery ofwhite-hulled gunboats. The scene implied more than Yankeeadventure: the setting carried strong overtones of a young andvigorous republic seeking its destiny among the decayingempires of Spain and China. Within the image of the exotic lay astronger theme.

For young naval officers, as brash ensigns or "passedmidshipmen" on their first cruise, gunboat service in China oramong the islands of the Philippine archipelago became theremembered core of the romance of life at sea. They wereforever marked, as was Melville six decades before, by the lure ofthose shimmering islands. Of those who graduated from the

Academy between 1898 and 1903, the majority saw early servicein the Asiatic Fleet. In 1902, the year J.O. Richardson leftAnnapolis, 41 of 59 members of the class were posted to theAsiatic Station.20 Of the men who would come to dominate theNavy between 1919 and 1941, Pratt and Standley and Yarnelland Knox and Richardson, their early cruises had included a tourin the Western Pacific.

Decades later, Harry E. Yarnell recalled his own adventures ingunboat service, beginning with the origins of a certain"society":

In May, 1900, a number of officers met on the U.S.S. Alava inManila Bay and organized a society under the somewhatgrandiose title of "The Ancient and Honorable Society ofthe Sons of Gunboats." Admiral Dewey was electedHonorary President 21

These gunboats were Victorian relics of the Empire of Spain,patrolling the waters around such unimagined places asZamboanga and Tawi Tawi and Sandakan. There were localinsurrections to be quelled, and Moro pirates gunrunning andabducting Borneo women, and native regattas and celebrations,and wily chieftains to be bargained with or outsmarted.22

The young officers who would, late in their careers, shapeAmerica's response to the Japanese imperial challenge, wereperhaps only dimly aware of an American Pacific mission whenthey chased bandits through shoal waters in the Sulu Sea. Theformative impressions, however, that would come to shape theirpersonal sense of mission as American naval officers, wereimplanted when they were but "Sons of Gunboats."

Some measure to which these young officers came to treasurethe memory of those first cruises in Chinese and Philippinewaters, charged with the anticipation of meeting Boxer or Moro,or the spectacle of Slav facing Samurai in sea combat, can besensed from their replies to old shipmates.

In 1942 Martin Swanson, "Boatswain Mate, U.S.S. Yorktown,1898-1901," wrote to Adm. Harry E. Yarnell:

So many things are happening to-day that seems to have hadits beginning back in the days of the Boxer Rebellion. Iremember when Mr. Arthur McArthur, Jr. went on board aChinese cruiser to hoist the American flag in order to save itfrom the Japs. That happened in Chefoo, I think!23

To which Admiral Yarnell responded:

I was very glad to get the letter recalling the days when wewere shipmates on the Yorktown in China. I think you arethe first one of the Yorktown ship's company that I haveseen in many years. Most of the officers who served on theYorktown at that time are now dead.24

He went on then to talk about incidents in China during theBoxer crisis and at some length. Even more evocative was theexchange between Clifford Calfinch and Adm. Ernest J. King.Calfinch wrote, in 1941:

Wonder if you remember the good old days on the Good shipCincinnati on the Asiatic Station, the Championship Football game between the Flag Ship Wisconsin and theCincinnati at Amoy China, when we followed the RussianCruiser into the harbor of Manila, and the trip to ChemulpoKorea and up the Yalu River, and the many otherhappenings, which I like to look back to with such fondmemories.25

King replied with a warmth that some would calluncharacteristic:

I now wish to thank you for good wishes—it is fine to knowthat an old shipmate of long ago keeps track of his old Navy

friends What memories your letter brings up about our

cruise in China in the old CINCINNATI, and the incidentsof the Russo-Japanese War. Some day we must meet up andrevive those old days. By the way, do you happen to have acopy of that picture of the First Division which was taken inShanghai one Sunday morning after inspection 26

... The mind drifts back, so clearly, each incident of thosetimes etched in a kind of sharp clarity, as though it had happenedjust yesterday. Both Yarnell and King unhesitatingly reached forthe image of "shipmate," even though writing to former enlistedmen. For they were just that, before the climb to highercommand began to separate future admirals from theassociations of their youth. Perhaps this explains why Kingsigned his reply to Calfinch as "Sometime Ensign, U.S. Navy,U.S.S. CINCINNATI." The corporate links connecting a man to

his service, be they sentimental, form a subtle, and notinsignificant, underpinning to ethos.

A Band of Brothers

When Adm. Albert Gleaves sat down to write about his life,he began with what he called "The Background," which wasshared by every naval officer:

It has been formed by those who have kept honour clear byrisking and often giving their lives for others in the sea, or inblazing turrets, or wrecked submarines, or standing by dyingcomrades in obscure places of the earth, whether or not anyother men will ever know or "long remember" it.27

He was describing the central mystery of the corporate ethos:the basic recognition behind those rituals and badges ofassociation that define membership in, and allegiance to, acorporate group. In a society within a society, for the U.S. Navyespecially, this recognition of absolute commitment to the groupinevitably created a special sense of fraternity.

For the aspiring officer, the process of initiation involved aseries of intense experiences. The demanding routine of theAcademy was an intellectual and corporate rite of passage.Through 1900 at least, the midshipman cruises, with wind andsail, offered not only context but continuity. "Gunboat" serviceon the Asiatic Station, for those who would come to commandthe Navy before Pearl Harbor, mixed authentic adventure with apersonal translation of "mission" on the exotic frontier ofcivilization. These experiences, in concatenation, both definedand reinforced the basic postulates of identity. At the heart ofeach was the recognition of responsibility to one's shipmates.

Since Shakespeare in Henry V—"we few, we happy few"—has worked its way like a sentimental teredo into the ark of navalmythology. Before the Battle of the Nile, Horatio Nelsonreferred indulgently to his captains as "a band of brothers."28This old English image, then, became the incarnation of navalesprit de corps, the vital element in battle, the key to victory atsea. In the First World War, Jellicoe's failure to recreate theNelson "touch" haunted the Royal Navy, and to thesuperstitious—and what sailor is not?—became the unstatedcause of failure on the North Sea. That was why Jutland, and they"would gravely shake their heads, was no Trafalgar, and not evena Glorious First of June.29

A true fraternity of officers in the Nelsonic mold became, bythe 1890s, a naval article of faith. Mahan's adjurations on thesuccessful application of seapower in the pursuit of empire werelargely responsible for the renaissance of the Navy ethos. Hisown double volume, The Life of Nelson, is a testament to theAmerican notion of the naval fraternity as a unified, highlymotivated, offensively minded corps of officers and meninspired by a shared vision and mission: specifically after thefashion of Nelson, and the British tradition.30

The permeation of the notion of a naval fraternity can bemarked by several indicators. One is by the names shipmatesgive each other. Mahan, in his reminiscences, speaks of "nauticalcharacters" he knew in the same breath as figures from the seastories of Marryat and Cooper: "Boatswain Chucks," "GunnerTallboys," "Jack Easy," "Boltrope," and "Trysail."31 Nauticalliterature both mirrored and reevoked for Mahan one of theenduring traditions of the sea.

This was a tradition renewed by young American navalofficers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The men whoheld command in the U.S. Fleet between the wars calledthemselves by names hearkening to the world of Cooper andMelville and Dana. Rear Adm. Burrell C. Allen was "Buck," RearAdm. Percy W. Foote was known as "Commodore," Rear Adm.Arthur S. Carpenter was "Chips," Adm. C.C. Bloch was "Judge,"Adm. C.P. Snyder was "Peck,*' Adm. Harold R. Stark was"Betty," Adm. E.C. Kalbfus was "Ned," Adm. Thomas C. Hartwas "Dad," Rear Adm. W.R. Furlong was "Dutch," and RearAdm. Julius Augustus Furer was "Dutchy." These were notsimply casual nicknames; this was the address of correspondenceby these men throughout their careers.32 As a style it was nearlyunique; neither the naval "generations" before the First norafter the Second World Wars had such a strong and consciousbrand of fellowship.

The sense of fraternity had another indicator in theattachment of groups of officers to the ships in which theyserved. This was true not only of shared service in each namedship but of the common associations of larger groups of officerswith representative classes and types. To those who receivedcommissions at the turn of the century, the ships of the ArmoredCruiser Squadron, bristling with guns and four stately stacks,embodied a raffish romance:

Here's to the cruisers of the FleetSo goldurn fast, they're hard to beat,

The battleships, they may be fine,But me for a cruiser every time.

The officers are a bunch of drunks.

They keep their white clothes in their trunks.They stand their watches in their bunks.

In the Armored Cruiser Squadron.33

Not so different in esprit were the stanzas found in Adm.William Sowden Sims' papers, also from the first decade of thiscentury, entitled, simply, Destroyer Men:

There's a roll and pitch and heave and hitch

To the nautical gait they take,For they're used to the cant of the decks aslant

As the white-toothed combers break

On the plates that thrum like a beaten drumAs the knife bow leaps through the yeasty deeps

With the speed of a shell in flight.

Oh, their scorn is quick for the crews who stick

To a battleship's steady floor,For they love the lurch of their own frail perch

At thirty-five knots or more.They don't get much of the drill and such

That the battleship jackies do,But sail the seas in their dungarees,

A grimy destroyer's crew.34

To those who served in the Armored Cruiser Squadron or theTorpedo Flotilla, there remained a special feeling of kinship.Like the"'Sons of Gunboats" remembered by Yarnell, thesedistinct fellowships of officers celebrated their membership inarduous or exotic service in poetry and in song, centering on theremembered image of a ship type: the incarnation, both of themoment recalled and their place in it, as though its shape and itspurpose had been a mirror of their own.

A spirit it was, not so very different from that of Nelson's fleeta century before. Then, the anthem of the British sailor was"Spanish Ladies," the lyric of the Grand Fleet blockading Brestin the last months before Trafalgar:

We'll rant and we'll roar like true British SailorsWe'll rant and we'll roar across the salt sea

Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England

From Ushant to Scilly is forty five leagues.

This version of the old song was found among the papers ofRear Adm. Stephen B. Luce, the founder of the Naval WarCollege. When the U.S.S. Galena put in to Port Royal in Jamaicaat the end of 1888, Luce carefully transcribed the verses, "givenby English sailors."35 The notion of a naval fraternity, drawingboth inspiration and continuity from a tradition endowed withovertones of transatlantic ancestry, was a conscious model forthe American sea officer.

Finally, the corporate ethos of the U.S. Navy created intensefeelings of allegiance between officers and their service. A manwho had passed through the ritualized process of initiation andacculturation and who then gave the measure of his mature lifebecame indivisible from the fleet. If he were, at the watershedrank of captain, to be "passed over" for selection to highercommand, the rejection was emotionally devastating. A navalofficer in his early fifties, though still physically vigorous, hadaccumulated too heavy a sea chest of associations to move to anew berth.

Capt. J.V. Babcock, after 2 years commanding the NavalR.O.T.C. Unit at Yale University from 1931-33, was faced withthis final recognition. He wrote to Capt. Dudley W. Knox, theNestorian figure of the interwar Navy, on a Depression Octoberand ended his confession with this sad defiance:

/ am not giving up. 36 odd years connection with aprofession to which one has devoted every effort andthought, holding its best interests paramount to every otherconsideration—personal, family—everything—is not easilyrelinquished. Even if forced to retire, my inclinations—myloyalty—would still be toward the Service.36

The corporate ethos was the foundation for thesuperstructure of mission that gave the Navy political andstrategic suasion in American national society. At the heart ofthe corporate ethos was a feeling of fellowship among theleadership of the Navy society. This fraternity was linked to atradition and a "way of life" so ritualized, so all-embracing, that,for the naval generation before Pearl Harbor, these patternscould be represented as a set of behaviors approaching a distinctethos. The very intensity and autochthony of the Navy corporateethos was responsible for the symbolic power, and political pull,in the Navy's higher sense of mission in American life.

CHAPTER IVMISSION AND ETHOS

"Mission" defined the role of the Navy in national society. Ifthe corporate ethos demarcated institutional norms, missionfocused on the formulation of policy. One described the Navy asa society, one as a polity. In the generation of political influencethrough time, mission created both historical context andexpectation. As mission implied a role for the Navy in themaking of national policy, mission sought as well a role in themaking of national history.

"Mission" was a pliant doctrine, shifting its perceivedboundary posts with the prevailing public mood. Theparameters of military participation in American political lifeyield not only to generations, but to the course of events.Beneath the cant of doctrine, and the leash of public statement, isthe free run of private correspondence: the den of ethos. There,the deeper continuities of mission were shared for generations,and passed down, within the naval fraternity, from officer toofficer. For the U.S. Navy between the wars, the actor's mask ofpublic doctrine, worn annually for congressional shows, hid adespairing off-stage face.

"Mission," both as public doctine and as private heresy, wasthe highest expression of the Navy ethos. The fraternity of thesea provided both environmental and institutional context: thecorporate ethos was primarily turned inward. War anddiplomacy generated national and international commitment;Navy mission in the 20th century reflected a nation's evolutionoutward.

Mission in the Navy ethos can be explored from fourreference points: "Defender of the Faith," "The Legacy ofDarwin," "Law and Warfare," and "The World Island." Eachmotif in the Navy mission was linked to a historical paradigmcoexistent in American national society. As national paradigmswere displaced by succeeding fashion, correspondent motifs ofthe Navy mission were compounded. By the interwar era, the

Navy mission had evolved through successive admixture into arich compound: a strong blend of variant attitudes of the Navy'spart in the making, and the future, of America.

Defender of the Faith

The first, and original, motif of the Navy mission was rootedin the image of the Navy as "Shield of the Republic." Thismetaphor was a response to the strategic insecurity of YoungAmerica, a nation open to blockade and the bombardment orseizure of all major ports. The course of America's first two warsprovided ample reason for such insecurity. The Civil War,ironically, demonstrated America's continuing strategicmaritime vulnerability; although the blockading andamphibious operations were initiated by the U.S. Navy. Anexchange of relative position, had America been placed inconflict with the "predominant naval power," was hardlybeyond imagination. In fact, British preparations for war againstthe Union in December 1861 exposed the weakness of theAmerican coast, North and South, to blockade by a navypossessed of sufficient force and New World bases.1 Thestrategic equation of the 19th century supported Washington'sprediction that the United States, by 1812, could no longer besuccessfully invaded.2 Not until 1903 was the nation completelyfree from the specter of blockade.3

As the predominant metaphor of the Navy's role in nationalstrategy throughout the 19th century, the "Shield Paradigm"claimed two "schools": one Jeffersonian, one Hamiltonian.Traced from their source, the two schools, "Anti-Navalist" and"Navalist,"4 represented the bifurcated branch of the Americanethos. Jefferson, supported by a party dominated by agrarianWestern and Southern interests, defined America's maritimesecurity at the limiting range of a 24-pounder coastal battery: 3miles. His administration built 177 gunboats, incapable of realseagoing operations.5 As long as the nation's shores were freefrom invasion and some shred of coastal trade survived, thequestion of strategic blockade was irrelevant. Jeffersonianconcepts of national security did not extend beyond the iron yett,bolted, in the sanctuary wall.

Writing as "Publius," Hamilton, in 1787, conceived of adivergent framework of national security. Linking America'sfuture growth, even its survival, to an "active commerce, anextensive    navigation,   and   a   flourishing   marine,"6   he

underscored "the necessity of naval protection."7 Far fromlimiting its duty to the defense of American enterprise,Hamilton envisaged the Navy as a tool of internationaldiplomacy: "a resource for influencing the conduct of Europeannations towards us."8 He called America's strategic position inthe New World "a most commanding one"; toward which theaccretion of a small battle fleet, "a few ships of the line," couldpromote the United States as "the arbiter of Europe in America,able to incline the balance of European competitions in this partof the world as our interests may dictate."9 In this contextHamilton was perhaps the first American to forecast a strategicpolicy of hemispheric security.

By calling for the United States "to aim at an ascendant in thesystem of American affairs," by identifying naval power as thecritical means to the achievement of this end, Publius fashionedthe image of America's future national, and naval, policy. In hisprevision of the Monroe Doctrine, the Navy mission, althoughdefensive in motive, was a defensive posture on a hemisphericstrategic scale. Hamilton posited a security system tailored tonational economic strength. The modest battle force hesuggested appropriating during his generation would be but afirst step. Ultimately, to achieve "the ascendant" in the NewWorld, a "Federal" navy would require a battle fleet capable ofrepelling sorties by the strongest squadrons of the Old.10

Jefferson and Hamilton created two divergent constructionsof American naval policy, emanating from two visions ofAmerica's future, set in a historical tense of inalienableopposition. The debate did not slacken during the periodbetween the two great wars. In fact, the imagery of Jefferson andHamilton was consciously employed, like Latin homilies, tojustify the orthodoxy of the "true faith" of American foreignpolicy and the nation's true strategic needs.

In a lecture entitled "The National Interest," revisionisthistorian Charles Beard faced the assembled class of the ArmyWar College on a cold January morning in 1935 and informedthem, bluntly, "that the Hamiltonian conception of nationalinterest, however logical and charming and attractive it may be,now lies amid ruins of its own making."11 In Beard's indictment,the "true faith" of the American ethos, which he called thenational interest, was "Jeffersonian." What the historian labeledas "Hamiltonian," the search for international markets, was hisown shibboleth for the imperialism of private capital. Navalpower was the agent of its expansion: "unconditional supremacy

upon the sea is necessary to the enforcement of all privateinterests, assertions, or claims against all other governments."12Unlike Hamilton's vision, which "lays emphasis on interestrather than the nation, Jefferson emphasized the nation ratherthan interest."13 Beard viewed both Hamilton and themaintenance of an oceanic navy as essentially British heresies:"Our country is a continental power," and the nation's onlylegitimate interest "to defend itself against any foreign powerthat might break in upon its domestic security and peace."14Beard, the latter-day Jeffersonian strategist, also defined"domestic security" according to a literal coastal cannon, nodoubt upgraded in range. Technology had not yet displacedtradition.

Understandably, the U.S. Navy adopted a modifiedHamiltonian, or broad construction, of traditional images ofAmerican naval policy. By the interwar era the Navy mission asoriginally conceived by Hamilton had evolved into a relativelysophisticated argument, operating on several levels ofevidentiary support. These operated, although not consciously,on three tiers: "The Lessons of History," "The Interpretation ofScripture," and "The Handwriting on the Wall."

In opposition to Beard's paradigmatic representation ofJefferson, the American ethos, and the national interest, theNavy turned to one of its own, Capt. Dudley W. Knox, tochampion a countervailing paradigm. As chief of the NavyDepartment's Historical Section between the wars, Knox wassomething of a minister of propaganda for the Navy. Between1930 and 1940 he wrote at least 44 major public addresses forCharles Francis Adams, Ernest Lee Jahncke, and ClaudeSwanson, Secretaries of the Navy, and Admirals Standley andStark, who held the CNO post during that decade.15 Otherofficers making public statements regularly sought him out foradvice and guidance.16 The body of his writing andcorrespondence provided a clear definition of the Navy'smission within the traditional framework of American foreignpolicy. As chief ideologue, he delineated the three tiers of theNavy response to Jefferson, and Beard.

"The Lessons of History," appropriately, were cast from theperiod embracing the publication of the Federalist Papers to theTreaty of Ghent. The lessons of Hamilton's own era were seized,again and again, to illustrate the need for a strong ocean-rangingnavy. In the seminal period of this nation's foreign policy, from1788-1814,   maritime   questions   played   a   central   role   in

decisionmaking. Without sufficient naval power, the issuesleading to the Quasi-war with France, the Barbary wars, and theWar of 1812 could not have been resolved; with sufficient navalpower, war in each case would have been unnecessary andresolution achieved through deterrence diplomacy.

Knox drove home this point with especial strength in a"Memorandum prepared for the President at his direction."Dated 13 January 1938, the short essay spelled out the lessons ofAmerica's first naval wars to Franklin Roosevelt. The vitalcenter of Knox's thesis lay in a long quote from the ultimateHamiltonian document, "The Farewell Address."17 Writtenwhile Roosevelt was struggling for passage of the secondVinson-Trammell Act, Knox's "lesson" was contemporary intheme:

Throughout this whole set of experiences with the BarbaryPowers and France, weakness on our part was a stronginfluence towards getting us into wars. The influence ofadequate naval force, used as a backing to diplomacy, wellproved itself to be the best instrument of peace. Time hasnot changed these principles.18

In close association with Roosevelt, Knox was directed,beginning in 1933, to supervise the preparation and publicationof documents dealing with the Quasi-war with France and theBarbary wars. Knox implied that there was more than a discretepolitical purpose to the creation of the 14-volume set; theproject required congressional approval. Did Roosevelt wish topost a subtle reminder of the "lessons of history" to a legislaturelapsing into traditional forgetfulness?19

By 1939, the historical lessons of the early years of theRepublic, when the Navy was neglected, had become anidentifiable metaphor in every Navy Day speech and radioaddress. For example, a radio broadcast by Standley of that year,on the 18th Navy Day, highlights the function of the "lesson" inNavy propaganda:

The war of the American Revolution marked the beginningof our naval effort—it also marked the initiation of a habitwhich is still with us—the failure of our people to profit bythe lessons of history.20

By placing the vagaries of the contemporary scene in analogywith the first years of nationhood, the Navy was able to link its

mission to the source of traditional American foreign policy: theFarewell Address. By identifying original with immediate policyissues, the Navy refreshed the words of Hamilton andWashington with weight and context. Not only was the Navy,then, wedded to tradition; tradition was made relevant and, inbecoming once more an authentic voice, was renewed.

"The Interpretation of Scripture" followed the reaffirmationof historical source. Once the Navy mission had been bonded toHamilton's concept of the "national interest," and the vexationsof early America linked to the modern scene, the argument couldcontinue by connecting contemporary concepts of "interests" to18th-century embryo. There were several mottoes:

— "It is a proverb that a weak nation is a contemptiblenation."21 Admiral Gleaves said this in a radio broadcast onNavy Day, 1922, echoing Publius, and "a nation, despicable in itsweakness."22 America must be strong, to maintain even a shredof dignity.

— American neutrality can only be preserved through navalstrength.23 When Dudley Knox, in 1937, wrote that it was"becoming increasingly obvious that moral suasion would notdeter" potential belligerents, he was only reviving Washington'swarning in the Farewell Address: "the most sincere neutrality isnot a sufficient guard."24 When Knox underscored "the futilityof weakness in preserving neutrality,"25 he restated Hamilton'sadjuration, that the unarmed nation "forfeits even the privilegeof being neutral."26

— "An active commerce," wrote Publius, carried "in our ownbottoms," comprised the American "wings by which we mightsoar to greatness."27 In 20th-century reiteration, Knox wrote,for the 1936 Navy Day address: "We turn more and moretowards overseas markets... all of our trade contacts with theoutside world must necessarily be by sea. A merchant marinecapable of carrying a large proportion of our commerce is a

necessity "28 Restating Hamilton, Standley, in August 1940,

reminded the radio audience that the Navy was the champion ofAmerican commerce: "Our trade freedom depends entirely uponseapower."29

— "An adequate Navy is the cheapest imaginable insuranceagainst future extravagance in blood and treasure."30 JuliusAugustus Furer made this plea for "preparedness" in a 1927Navy Day address in Pittsburgh. This theme traced its ancestryto Washington. Knox, in his memorandum to Roosevelt, quotedfrom Washington's annual address to Congress, 1793:

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if wedesire to secure peace, it must be known that we are at alltimes ready for war.31

Navy leaders in the interwar era were fond of quoting both fromWashington and Theodore Roosevelt, who was remembered,between the wars, as a kind of "Founding Father" of the U.S.Navy. The coincidence of Navy Day and Roosevelt's birthdaywas a recurrent motif in Navy Day speeches. Gleaves ended hisradio address for Navy Day, 1922, with a quotation of the 26thPresident, almost identical to the words of the first:

We need to keep in a condition of preparedness especially asregards the Navy, not because we want war, but because wedesire to stand with those whose plea is listened to withrespectful attention.32

These were the four pillars of the traditional Navy mission as"Shield of the Republic," holding lineage from Hamilton andWashington. Each column had a shibboleth as capital, easilyrecognized, employed again and again in the Navy's meagerinterwar propaganda effort: "America must have a strong navyto command respect"; "American neutrality requires navalmuscle"; "America's future depends upon an independentmarine"; and "Only preparedness can preserve peace." Thesewere the images chosen, subconsciously, from Hamilton's papernumber eleven from The Federalist; the bedrock of tradition, thesubliminal text of Navy scripture.

"The Handwriting on the Wall" was the Navy's collectivewarning of America's potential fate if the "lessons" of its pastand the scriptual adjurations of the Navy mission were to beignored. Perhaps the most evocative and traditional warningwas made by Admiral Standley in his August 1940 radio address.He began by prophesying that, with superior coalition, thisgroup would "wage a war of strangulation" against theAmerican economy.33 In The Federalist, Hamilton warned of asimilar fate, in which "national wealth would be stifled and lost,and poverty and disgrace would overspread the country."34 InStandley's nightmare,

we should soon find ourselves driven from the markets ofthe world. Our living standards would decline beneathanything we had ever known. If we considered to live under

this form of economic tyranny, the least effort to live in anydegree of Political or Religious Liberty would bring downupon us the specter of starvation or direct attack. The choicewould not be ours.35

Standley's imagery was an unconscious, yet striking mimesis ofHamilton:

It would be in the power of the maritime nations, availingthemselves of our universal impotence, to prescribe theconditions of our political existence.36

In the year of the Washington Conference, Gleaves revivedthe imagery of "impotence" when he spoke of "a Naval Holidayand an impotent Navy."37 The results of the naval conference atWashington had a devastating emotional effect on Navyleadership. Watching the promise of American naval supremacyhauled from slipway to scrapyard, gazing helplessly as a freezeon Pacific base development wrecked the Orange war plan,chafing at the ignorance of Congress and public to push for afleet built to Treaty limits, officers could do little to halt the slideof the Navy to second-class status. As early as 1922 Knox warnedin a fiery pamphlet of The Eclipse of American Sea Power}9,Sixteen years later, he wrote: "The failure to limit armaments byinternational agreement is the greatest world tragedy since theholocaust of the World War."39 In 1922 Gleaves said that "theUnited States got the full kick of the Conference Treaty";40 in1938 Knox could agree that "America took it on the chin when itcame to a naval limitation."41

The relative erosion of American seapower between the warsheightened the sonority of naval invocation of "TheHandwriting on the Wall." Furer's 1927 radio address rangCassandra-like:

Since the beginning of recorded history, no nation havingworld contacts equivalent to those of the United States, haslong survived as a leading nation after losing sea power,whether we consider the small world of Carthage, or theever larger worlds of Venice, Spain, Holland, Germany. Alldeclined because of lack of adequate sea power.42

By defining the Navy mission along a historical continuumtraceable to the very genesis of American foreign policy, the

Navy's   leadership   was   able   to   cement   an   unbreachable

foundation for the interpretation of contemporary policy. Theirgoal was to develop naval policy within the context of nationalstrategy. In doing so, these men—perhaps unwillingideologues—arrived at their own definition of national interestsand national strategy: their own vision of America.

The Legacy of Darwin

Social Darwinism had its heyday in the last decade of the 19thand the first decade of the 20th centuries. As an explanation andas an exculpation, it provided the "European World" with adoctrine at once more malleable and more modern thantraditional theories of "national interest." Used by Americanleadership groups primarily to defend the necessity for whatFrederick Merk has termed the "Insular Imperialism" of 1898,and its aftermath,43 Social Darwinism permeated the Navymission. Promoted by the writings of Mahan, the Navy's use ofDarwinian imagery had a profound, and traceable, influence onthe climate of political life. Decisions were made in anatmosphere casually referrent to both Darwin and Mahan. TheNavy sensed "the spirit of the age," accepted its world view, andreinforced its ethos. As Mahan said, at the Royal Naval College,Dartmouth:

Man cannot escape the spirit of his age. It surrounds him asan atmosphere. It bears him as a current, sweeping himcontinually into new conditions. These, which constitute hischangeful environment, even if they do not essentially,though gradually, change his native character.44

What may be said of a man may be enlarged to include a society.The U.S. Navy embraced Social Darwinism in part because itembodied the prevailing spirit of the age, and so carried moralimperative in national ethos; in part because it offered the Navya more expansive role in national life, and the making ofnational future. The traditional motifs of the Navy mission as"Shield of the Republic" held scant appeal in an era devoid ofvisible threat to established American interests and security.Evolving overseas interests, cast in Darwinian marketmetaphor, required naval protection. The generation of the"Sons of Gunboats" could anticipate adventure in exotic scape,and experience the sensation of status as agents of the Americanvariant of Mahan's paradigm: they felt themselves the cuttingedge of seapower in pursuit of empire.45

Social Darwinism as a moral justification of the Navy missionbegan to recede after America's entry into war in 1917. TheGerman threat raised the stock of the "Shield" paradigm,reviving traditional Hamiltonian perspective of the Navy's role.After the armistice, the brief sway of the "Wilsonian" visioncreated an expectation of the Navy as "Guardian" of a newinternational order. Hughes and Lodge transmuted thissweeping revision of the world political system into a morestrictly constructed set of international legal arrangements. Thelimitation of naval armaments, as well as the four and ninepower treaties achieved at Washington, promised to usher in anera of legal resolution to international conflict.

As cooperation replaced conflict as the perceived mainspringof international relations, the postulates defining SocialDarwinism were discredited by example. Recent history hadproduced a Great War that had seemed but the culmination of aprocess of "Darwinian" social evolution. Now, with peace andjustice triumphant, the prevailing mood among the recent allieswas one of relief. Civilization had been spared, the deadly cycle ofDarwinian struggle among nations had been broken. The worldhad been given another chance. Social Darwinism, as a paradigmassociated with conditions before the Great War, no longersimply described world dynamics; it created them. In order thatthe world polity might move toward a bright future, sharedthrough cooperation and legal order, the paradigm of a naturalorder rooted in struggle, founded on power, and principledwithout mercy, must be forever interred.46

Postwar idealism buried the legacy of Darwin: a new age hadbrought a new public spirit in American politics. To a degree, theNavy ethos evolved to accept and reflect this new paradigm inthe national ethos. To a greater degree, the Navy kept alive thevision, if not the politics, of Social Darwinism. In part, thisallegiance was because of the thorough indoctrination of theworks of Mahan to the leadership generation of the interwar era.Mahan's writing was infused with the imagery of SocialDarwinism:

All around us is strife; "the struggle of life," "the race oflife," are phrases so familiar that we do not feel theirsignificance till we stop to think about them. Everywherenation is arrayed against nation; our own no less thanothers.47

By 1918, naval officers had grown accustomed to viewing the"realities" of the international political system through aDarwinian lens. In this highly referent world view the legalagreements of the Washington Treaty System were suspect, forthey in no way altered fundamental world dynamics. Nationswould continue to struggle for existence, to vie for supremacy;and in this eternal competition, only the fittest would survive.

After the World War, three basic motifs of Social Darwinismcontinued in Navy currency: the struggle for markets, thestruggle for living space, the struggle for racial supremacy.

On 28 July 1915, Rear Adm. A.M. Knight, president of theNaval War College, presented a working definition of thestruggle for markets:

The present almost world-wide war appears to be a strugglefor industrial and commercial supremacy; or, moreconcretely, for control of the markets and the carrying tradeof the world.48

In May 1918, only 6 months from the armistice, the Navy'sLondon Planning Section called "War the ultimate form ofeconomic competition." In their analysis, "the necessity formarkets" dominated "the national policies of the world" duringthe 19th century. From their perspective, there was no doubtthat "the intensified economic struggle of the past fifty years hasled to the present war."49

Fifteen years later, even before the rise of the "revisionist"dictatorships and the rearmament of the world, the Navyleadership thought in terms of a world posited on a struggle foreconomic advantage. In his annual lecture to the Naval WarCollege on "National Strategy," Dudley Knox, on 7 October1932, spoke of a "titanic economic struggle." American nationalstrategy "must be predicted first of all upon the existence ofcompetition, especially in the economic field, as the fundamentalbasis of national life."50

Each of these pronouncements—prewar, war, and postwar—was privately expressed and confidentially held. Together theyrepresent as well a continuum of values expressed through time.Knox was a student at the Naval War College in 1913, the sameyear Knight took over as president. In 1918, as a member of theNaval Planning Section in London, Knox drafted thememorandum that spoke of history as "economic struggle." Asdeliverer of the climatic lecture of the War College course of the

1930s, Knox handed a fully shaped world view to the futureleaders of the Second World War, as he had been given his by theold generation of the War College before the First. A similarcontinuity linked the other, salient motifs of Social Darwinismthrough time, from generation to generation.

The Navy's vision of the struggle for living space was unrolledby Capt. W.L. Rogers at a General Board meeting, 27 July 1915:

The world is now approaching a crisis of overcrowding

It is a reasonable belief that the present great war is one of aseries   to   follow  of  comparable  magnitude  due   to   the

increasing population of the world As the world fills up

and strong and virile peoples find they must expand orstarve, the victors must finally challenge the United States.51

The Naval Planning Section in London echoed this vision at theend of the war, in Memorandum No. 21. Capts. F.H. Schofield,Luke McNamee, and Dudley Knox, its authors, concluded that"fundamental policies assume an aggressive aspect... withnations having a great density of population, combined with ahigh rate of increase and a restricted area for expansion."52 In a1921 lecture delivered at the Naval War College, Capt. R.R.Belknap characterized Japan as "an island power of prolific andalready crowded population," whose "teeming" people must"gradually expand to the mainland."53 Knox, writing in 1938,came to much the same judgment: "Unquestionably, thefundamental aspect of Japan's adventure on the continent iseconomic. She seeks relief from overpopulation."54

Rodgers was president of the Naval War College, 1911-13,while Knox was a student, as well as Schofield. Belknap wasdirector of the Strategy Department at the War College, 1921-23, and McNamee was its president from 1933-34.55 Again, thecontinuum of world view was linked by values transmittedthrough the Newport nexus.

The material needs of societies have their corollary in thespirit of peoples: what is called national character. In the Navymotifs of Social Darwinism, the struggle for racial supremacywas not only a causal factor in the struggle for markets and livingspace, it was the key to success in material competition, themystical cipher of survival. In its international relations theUnited States would inevitably face cultures, then called "races,"possessed of the vital energy needed not only to survive, but tosurpass. These races were the natural enemies of America.

In 1910 Mahan compared both Japan and Germany to Sparta,as "manifesting the same restless need for self-assertion andexpansion"; their national cultures, however unpleasant theywere made by possessing these qualities, were, "as an element ofmere force, whether in economics or in international polities,superior."56 Rodgers' memorandum of 1915 called nations likeGermany and Japan "strong and virile peoples," and, as "races,"implied that they "are not altruistic but egoistic, and theirnational policies are primarily selfish and are advanced only byforce."57 Memorandum No. 21, in 1918, came to the samefindings: "when their racial characteristics are virile andmilitaristic, and their form of government autocratic, strongtendency towards forcible expansion must be expected.Germany and Japan are nations which fulfill these conditions."58

During the period between the two great wars, the Navy'simagery of a coming struggle for racial, as well as economic,supremacy focused primarily on Japan. Belknap, in 1921, spokeof the possible "unification of the yellow race" under Japanesesuzerainty, "with effect too far-reaching on white civilization forsuch a possible eventuality to be accepted. The outcomethreatens our race."59 Twenty years later, Capt. W.D. Puleston,biographer of Mahan and Director of Naval Intelligence, couldwrite of the Japanese character:

The basic cause of Japan's desire to obtain more territory isinnate and for that reason is more dangerous than if it hadbeen artificially created: it springs from the fecund, virile,courageous and acquisitive Japanese people.60

This is a spiritual restatement of Mahan: the world view of aformer age transplanted unaltered to another era. In similarfashion, Adm. H.D. Yarnell's important 1938 memorandum,"Situation in the Pacific," echoed almost word for word theimagery of Memorandum No. 21, drafted in 1918. As a younglieutenant commander, Yarnell served on the Naval PlanningSection in London; he was part of the writing of that wartimedocument. Twenty years had not shaken Darwin from his worldview.61

The survival of "Darwinian" motifs in the Navy world viewcreated a texture of cynicism to the Navy ethos, and anexpectation of inevitable conflict in the Navy mission. Thecombined triad of conflict over markets, living space, and racialsupremacy prompted the London Planning Section to concludethat all national policies were rooted in two instincts:

(1) Self preservation, and

(2) Self interest62

as though nations were like enormous saurians, locked in combatfor survival in some Jurassic scene. This unstated sense of worlddynamics provoked a profoundly pessimistic definition of Navymission. Rodgers, in 1915, went so far as to suggest "that thepurpose of our Navy is to protect the nation from undueeconomic pressure in the face of advancing populations."63 Incontrast to the Hamiltonian vision of the Navy mission, as theagent of United States ascendancy in the hemisphere, theequalizer of New World to Old, the Darwinian vision made theNavy merely the agent of American survival in a spectral futureof successive world wars.

Law and Warfare

Before a victorious armistice thrust America into the ring-center of the world order, the United States role in the legalpreservation and regulation of that order was narrowlyconstructed. According to Hamilton's tetrarchal division of theglobe, America claimed ascendancy over the "hemisphere" ofthe New World. The Monroe Doctrine created the legalframework for a New World international system, oroikoumene. By 1903, in the second Venezuelan crisis, the U.S.battle fleet was able to sublimely cement Old World acceptanceof this concept on the fringes of international law. Within theAmerican sphere, the United States, ascendant, was able,through the enforcement agencies of Navy and Marine Corps, toact both as peacemaker and lawgiver.64

International global participation before 1917 was slight. Theactive, though minor part played by U.S Marines in the BoxerRebellion was more an emblem of new-found Americanmembership in the "Imperial Club" than it was a sign of a policyof legal and military "globalism."65 Succeeding transoceanicdisplays of force—the cruise of the "Great White Fleet" and theEuropean cruises of 1910-13—were unilateral forays, andinvolved no legal negotiation. America's use of armed forces onthe world stage before 1917 was purely demonstrative.66

After Versailles, the United States, as an ex-member of aglobal military alliance, had accepted associations with the othergreat powers, the traditional arbiters of the world order. As thepredominant postwar military power, the United States wasexpected to take an active role in the legal preservation and

regulation of the international system: to arbitrate, to intervene,to forcibly settle conflict between nations; not simply within theAmerican, but throughout the world, sphere. Between the wars,the Navy's perceived peacetime mission diverged from thisexpectation.

The mission of the U.S. Navy as peacemaker became a crucialcomponent of a mild propaganda effort. Between theWashington Conference and the Munich crisis, Navy leadershipwas reluctant to underscore the role of the fleet in general war. "Ibelieve that themes relating to the need of a Navy for possiblewar will be harmful, and build up a widespread public opinionagainst the Navy."67 So the Navy's chief interwar ideologue,Dudley Knox, wrote in his instructions on the use of radiopropaganda. In Knox's opinion, "public opinion unquestionablyrules the country," and the Navy, in its public broadcasts, must atall costs "studiously avoid" antagonizing "any American Societydevoted to the promotion of peace."68 Knox's propagandasolution admitted of only two, public, Navy missions:

viz (1) the value of a Navy in promoting overseascommerce, and (2) the Navy as a peacemaker. The Countryshould know more of this diplomatic, peacemaking navalfunction, and that the Navy is by far the greatest peacemakerin its government.69

This was written in 1930. Throughout the 1920s, Navy Dayspeeches reflected Knox's adjuration: to emphasize the Navy'sgoal "to substitute law for war in the settlement of internationaldifferences."70 Those were also Gleaves' words in his Navy Daybroadcast of 1922. His role as recent Commander of the AsiaticFleet had required delicate, frontline diplomatic maneuvering inSiberia. He did not hesitate to hammer home the Navy's part in"the maintenance of order" in Vladivostock, or in stamping outpiracy in the China Seas, or in "protecting missionaries frombandits," or in refugee relief and transportation from "the quayin Smyrna," or in feeding the starving from Odessa toTienstien.71 The Navy's peacemaking role was given pride ofplace among Navy missions:

It is well to remind you that the Navy has never caused a waror tempted the country to go to war. It has been a potentfactor in preventing war and in protecting lives andproperty. The Navy has saved more lives and property than

it has ever destroyed. The Navy is a great constructiveforce.72

In casting for images of actual armed intervention by Navy andMarines to enforce peace, Navy propagandists were forced,during the interwar era, to call on ambiguous Caribbeancampaigns, most from the prewar age of "Dollar Diplomacy."Any taint of "imperial" self-interest in these incidents wasignored rather than denied. As Gleaves described theseexpeditions "in Haiti and San Domingo; in Cuba and Nicaragua,the Navy—and the Marines—has preserved law and order. Ithas built roads, school houses and hospitals and introducedsanitation."73 The missions of Law and Civilization, as Victorianevolutionary throwbacks, survived as the Navy's phenotype ofthe peacemaking mission. Within the Navy's world view, theLatin American interventions of the gunboat era, and theinternational uses of military force suggested after 1919, differedonly in degree. Unilateral or multilateral, the Navy's vision of itspeacemaking mission evolved from a notion of American"idealism," and not from a strong belief in international law:

The United States is the first nation in the history of theworld to practice idealism in its international affairs. Whatother nation can point to altruistic policies such as thosepursued by the United States toward the Philippines, Cuba,Santo Domingo, Haiti, China? Perhaps if we become strongenough at sea we can indoctrinate the world with Americanidealism that unselfishness in international affairs willbecome a habit and an accepted element in the morality ofnations 74

Tempered by the postulates of Hamilton, the Navy wastempted to view the concept of an international legal order asanother "instrument of European greatness" by which,according to Publius, the European sphere, "by force and byfraud," "extended her dominion over them all."75 Furer's 1927vision of "American idealism" revealed an almost Hamiltonianmistrust of the European oikoumene. In assuming thatAmerican values were inherently superior to those of othercultures, Navy leaders implicitly rejected American submissionto an external framework of international conduct. This notionwas reinforced in the early 20th century by the "survival" and"struggle" motifs of Social Darwinism. Not only, by tradition,

was the world run by a moral standard inferior to the American;the remorseless conflict of nation against nation was beyond thecontrol of any supranational legal framework. The outbreak ofEuropean war in 1914 merely confirmed these essentialpostulates. To American naval officers, the external world wasas full of dangers as it was of cynicism. As W.L. Rodgers,president of the Naval War College, wrote in 1915:

International Law, as a rule of conduct, is more practicabletoday, than it will be in the near future. As the world fills upwith strong and virile peoples, the code of internationalmanners which we call "international law" will become as oflittle force as is the code of individual manners in a panic-stricken crowd.76

The deep thread of pessimism in Rodgers' vision stemmed inpart from the gathering apocalyptic quality of the Great War. Toequate the law of nations with the vagaries of "manners," likeErasmus regarding our folly, was to assume that the world orderpossessed a natural state, unchanged by cycles of war and peace.If the United States were to act as peacemaker, this missionshould be confined to its own sphere: America and the trans-Philippine Pacific. Within that system, peace, and law, would beAmerican.77

After the Great War the Navy continued to define its missionin terms of the defense of national interests. An equal missionpriority to enforce an international legal system was considereda derisory role for America's Navy. For a brief moment,immediately after the armistice, a small claque of officers led byAssistant Chief of Naval Operations, William Veazie Pratt,were swept away by the spirit of a victorious postwar world. On11 November 1918 these men submitted a memorandum to theCNO, "Proposed Plans for Establishment of League of NationsArmy and Navy." At its heart Pratt's concept was one of Anglo-American world codominion, with supporting roles allotted tothe minor allies. A predominant English-speaking navy wouldrule the seas and perform much the same maritime regulation ashad the Royal Navy throughout the 19th century. The UnitedStates and Great Britain would each contribute an equal share. Inthis fashion, arms limitation would be assured.78

Pratt's impulse was to replace international competition withcooperation, realized through the instrument of superpowercollaboration.   In    1919   this   was   a   simple   and   realistic

arrangement, for the United States and Great Britain were theonly first-rank military and industrial powers and theircollective naval power could easily have dominated the globe.The arms limitation agreement signed in Washington 3 yearslater stopped short of real arms control and merely restricted themost superficial index of seapower, the capital ship. The navaltreaties of 1922 and 1930 were the only movements the UnitedStates made between the wars to participate in a formal, legalframework of a world order. The nation was not ready foranything approaching Anglo-American codominion.

The Navy was even less ready. Apart from Pratt and hisacolytes in the CNO's Office, Adm. William S. Sims, thenpresident of the Naval War College, continued to championAnglo-American friendship as he had since his famous Guildhallspeech in 1910.79 Sims' was a minority opinion in the service.His Anglophilia was mistrusted, especially so by Adm. WilliamS. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations.80 Benson still judgedBritish motives along Darwinian and Hamiltonian lines: theywere fierce competitors, and they had always destroyed theircommercial rivals, even those their allies:

It should be clearly and constantly borne in mind that a fixedand continuous aim of British diplomacy... is to further theinterests of British commerce at the expense of every othernation, whether friend or enemy.81

At the same time that Pratt's group was discussing a futureworld order based on Anglo-American codominion, the U.S.Naval Planning Section was discussing a future war with theBritish Empire. In Memorandum No. 67, dated 21 November

1918, Knox, McNamee, and Schofield concluded that the"natural state" of the world had been unchanged by global war.The United States and Great Britain were rivals whose interestsmust inevitably conflict. Cooperation would never supplantcompetition; and competition too often leads to war. "These arethe facts of the case irrespective of the state of the EntenteCordiale existing between the two countries."82

Navy, as well as nation, rejected an international mission after

1919. The Navy followed the prevailing public mood, andemphasized its role as peacemaker and lawgiver within atraditionally demarcated American sphere. Beyond theboundary posts of strategic interest, the Navy mission embraced

the active, though unilateral, defense of American commercialinterests, as on the Yangtze. As one of the twin navalstanchions supporting an international legal system the UnitedStates would have been forced to accept two revisionistpostulates in its world view: codominion with its traditionalrival and ancient enemy and the authority of an external ethos, asuperior legal code. America, and its Navy, was unequal to suchsubordination.

The World Island

"Mission" reached its ultimate evolution before Pearl Harborwith the paradigm of the "world island." Autochthonous to theNavy, it represented the final blend of motifs in the making ofthe Navy mission before the watershed of world war. Borrowingits imagery in part from each of three basic antecedentparadigms, the "world island" was the most completely realizedmetaphor created by the Navy to illuminate its role in an erawhen the concept of a "national strategy" was publicly despised.

It was as the metaphoric hub of the Navy's concept of nationalstrategy that the paradigm of the "world island" was formallydeveloped. In 1932, 1933 and 1934, Capt. D.W. Knox deliveredan annual autumn lecture at the Naval War College entitled"National Strategy."83 As the existential postulate of Americanidentity, the image of the "world island" was the centerpiece ofKnox's thesis. He attributed its invention to William HowardGardiner, although his language reveals roots extending farbelow the topsoil of the contemporary scene, reaching down toHumboldt and Hamilton:

... the United States is analogous to a great world island nearthe middle of the single great world ocean, with naturalocean routes radiating east, west and south to the three otherprincipal commercial regions of the world.84

So America was favored by Destiny, like Rome andConstantinople, to become the nexus of world intercourse, at thecenter of a globe-girdling temperate zone: "the isothermalzodiac." In unconscious echo of Publius, Knox divided the earthinto four spheres, with the United States at the hub, reaching outin compass sweep, embracing the world periphery, as thoughthe great globe itself was but a flat projection, a Mercator-likereality with America at its center. This was the "basic condition"

of world dynamics, the "cardinal predicate of external nationalpolicy and strategy."85

Here was the metastasis of the Navy mission that succeededthe Great War. Gone was the sway of what W.L. Rodgers in 1915mimetically called America's "splendid isolation,"86 by whichthe United States would guarantee through its naval bulwark thesecurity of a fortress-like American system. Gone was theLondon Planning Section's vision of the Navy mission "toensure our own preservation."87

Knox, by a decisive inversion of imagery, turned both theHamiltonian and Darwinian interpretations of the Navymission outward. By redefining the context of American identityfrom inward-facing to outward-gazing, he transformed theimplications of the Navy mission from the defense of theAmerican system to the global extension of intrinsic Americaninterests. His vision of America as a "world island" created anessential corollary for national strategy: "It at once lifts us out ofthat narrow smothering assumption as to the Navy's mission,which is carried in the commonly accepted meaning of the term'National Defense.'"88

By defining the United States as a "world island," and notmerely a separate sphere, a New World, an American islandirrevocably riven from Europe, Africa, and Asia, Knoxproclaimed that the time had come to fulfill the promiseinherent in the Hamiltonian vision of America, "to dictate theterms of the connection between the old and the new world!"89Now, the United States, and its commerce, need not simply bedefended. America, the triumphant economic giant, must extenditself to the periphery of the planet. In proclaiming arejuvenated vision of American Destiny, no less manifest for itsemphasis on "active commerce," Knox separated what henamed "national interests" from the traditional shibboleths offoreign policy. At one rhetoric stroke, he detached the Navyfrom its strict constitutional role of supporting governmentpolicy, to a far-ranging mission of defending national interests:all inclusive. National strategy, Knox argued, was the formalframework for extending national interests through war anddiplomacy. If so-called "national policies" had become, throughtwisted usage and tired convention, "more nearly fiction thanfact," then they must be discarded. Both the Monroe Doctrineand the Open Door Policy were scrapped by Knox as realisticbases for national strategy. The Navy had a calling higher thanthe litany-like support of dead slogans:

To be sound, policies must be firmly rooted in nationalinterests; policies so based will permanently surviveirrespective of temporary vagaries of political theories; andnaval officers must base our national strategy on inherentnational interests, rather than on vaguely defined policies.90

As a world island, American national interests wereindivisible from American maritime interests:

The maintenance of these inherent maritime interests,essential to national economic life, requires an adequateAmerican merchant marine and navy together with suitably

placed insular bases The Navy's mission is mainly linked

to the security of our maritime interests, and thus ournational economy.91

This was taking Hamilton's adjuration to create an "activecommerce" to its final extension: the rim of the world. Knox'sappreciation of "adequate" encompassed a U.S. Navy, at aminimum, 10 percent larger than the British and fully twice thesize of the Japanese Fleet.92 No less than a complete arc of basesin the Western Pacific, including the Solomons as well as thePhilippine archipelago, providing alternate offensive axes,would satisfy American maritime interests in the Pacific; in theAtlantic, the acquisition of Trinidad and part of French Guianawas necessary to secure these interests.93 A fully developednetwork of forward bases was essential, in Knox's vision, for thefulfillment of national strategy.

These specific requirements, ironically, did not differ indegree from those of the General Board in 1915, nor of theLondon Planning Section in 1918. The critical distinction wasone of world view. The Knox of 1932 had matured from theKnox of 1918. Rodgers, to the General Board, drew a plan for anAmerican fortress, besieged by "strong and virile peoples." "Theduty of the Navy is to preserve the United States fromunendurable economic pressure."94 With equal emphasis,"preservation" was the guiding image of Knox, McNamee andSchofield in their 1918 memorandum to Benson.95 Fourteenyears later Knox offered to the students of the Naval WarCollege a different kind of promise. When he spoke of "insularbases." their functional imagery no longer described a defensiveperimeter against Japanese and European "pressure"; he threwout, with an expansive gesture, the phrase "a chain of islands,"

like a "broad highway" to rich markets and economic wealth.96Like Whitman's vision:

I chant the world on my Western sea,I chant copious the islands beyond,

thick as stars in the sky,I chant America the mistress,

I chant a greater supremacy 97

Knox transformed Darwinian pejoration by infusing a tiredcreed with the energy of a distinctly American brand of ManifestDestiny. "The World Island" is a phrase redolent of earlyAmerica, of Benton and Whitney and Gilpin, as well asHumboldt and Hamilton. Knox united the notion ofinternational "economic competition," interwoven as it was intothe tapestry of the Navy mission, with a positive, expansivepromise of American destiny. As a commercial and maritimerealization of America's role in the world system, as an"American entrepot," Knox drew unconscious inspiration fromHamilton.98 Knox previsioned the United States as a worldleader through naval, as well as economic, strength. In this, heextended America beyond the limits imposed by 19th-centurynational strategy.

America must accept a realistic relationship with the rest ofthe world, and scrap its distancing idealism, if ever it hoped toachieve a predominant place. The United States, Knoxdemanded, "must eliminate altruism from its nationalstrategy."99 By this, he meant simply that America must, like allother nations, look out for its own interests:

... it behooves our own government to play the game ofnational strategy under the universally accepted rules if theinterests of America are to be preserved and world welfare isto be truly advanced. The world will profit most from astrong America.100

If the United States were ever to join a world order, it must do sofrom a position of strength; by implication, superior strength.In a single lecture, Knox managed to fuse all three coexistentparadigms of a Navy mission into a single, alloyed image.Reaction to his presentation at Newport can be gauged in partby his return, 3 years in a row, to score the same points tosucceeding classes at the War College.101 In 1934 Capt. MiltonDavis, head of the Department of Intelligence, wrote to Knox:

The only criticism I could see in your lecture was that youapproached the problem as an imperialist. Many of ourpeople are not imperialists and some look upon your viewsas rather extreme. However, they were the views we werebrought up on under Theodore Roosevelt, and many of usfeel they are pretty good after all.102

That teachers at the War College could still praise policies apostwar world had branded as "imperialist" reveals thecontinuity of the Navy mission from the generation of Mahan,through to the generation that would fight a global war atdecade's end.

Divergence between public mood and Navy mission betweenthe wars obliged the service to share its beliefs in strict privacy."National Strategy," submitted to the Naval Institute in 1933,was rejected for the award of prize essay, or even of honorablemention. In spite of the support of major voices in the NavalEstablishment, including Adms. Fiske, Jones, and Schofield, theBoard of Control of the Naval Institute hesitated to drawcontroversy, especially at a time when the Navy was fighting forits fiscal life. With the Vinson-Trammell Act not yet throughthe Senate, the Navy hierarchy stopped short of sanctioningKnox's exuberant portrayal of national strategy. To thecontrary, those essays awarded were, in Knox's excoriatingprose, plainly "defeatist," whose "weak-kneed advice is mostextraordinary as coming from a group of naval officers."103

Even more symptomatic of the Navy's fear of foreveralienating public opinion was a rebuttal written by Knox in 1932for the Secretary of the Navy. Answering an article by CharlesBeard for Harper's Magazine, "Our Confusion Over NationalDefense," Knox was forced to take exception to the historian'saccusation that the Navy was attempting to create "a Navystrong enough to defend American trade everywhere and tocarry on and win a major operation in any waters of the worldagainst any power or combination of powers."104

In his reply, Knox averred unequivocally that "I am not awarethat any naval officer in recent times has seriously advanced suchan extreme view of our naval needs."105 Yet Knox was, himself,the very officer who implicitly described the Navy mission inthose terms. Beard, had he been able to attend Knox'spresentations at the War College, could not have drawn a bettersummary.

Ultimately, no matter its public protestations and placatoryploys, the Navy was with Knox. By Munich, if not earlier, theNavy leadership was speaking publicly in imagery not farremoved from the thesis of that decisive lecture, "NationalStrategy."106 Privately, in confidential correspondence, leaderssought ways to build up fleet strength. With the Washingtonand London Treaties due to expire on 31 December 1936, theNavy, in the perceptions of its leaders, would at last be freedfrom the ropes of the ratios, cut to lengths of 5:5:3. In 1935Standley, then CNO, wrote to the president of the Naval WarCollege, E.C. Kalbfus, concerning the post-Treaty naval buildingprogram for the United States. Kalbfus unhesitatinglyadvocated that the Navy "strive for a higher numerical ratio."His advice regarding Japan revealed a continuity of missionrequirements:

The present treaty ratio is satisfactory in so far as a BLUEdefensive war is concerned, but it is considered inadequatefor a trans-Pacific offensive campaign. In the latter case, aratio of at least 2:1 in favor of BLUE is indicated. We muststrive to create a national sentiment in favor of increasingthe navy: the opportunity should be seized to build up to apoint at which war could be carried to ORANGE.107

This was the same ratio recommended by Knox to the GeneralBoard in 1921.108 Through a small irony of Fate, it was to be theexact ratio needed by the United States to turn the tide of thePacific War in 1943-1944.109 The Washington and LondonTreaties limited naval armaments; they were unable to curb theNavy's sense of its mission, and the unalterable definition of thetools necessary to its fulfillment. Kalbfus was writing in thefloodtide of national, public sentiment against embroilingAmerica in any future foreign war. The Navy mission, and themen who held to it, marched to a different cadence, and with amore certain step.

In just 3 years the degenerative slippage of the world ordertoward a repeat performance, in less than a generation, of itsformer folly seemed a vindication of the motifs of the Navymission. Writing for the Atlantic Monthly, in 1938 Knox couldwrite of "a world seething with a spirit of great unrest andaggression," as though the hostile forces of a former age wereagain gathering to threaten America.110 That same year, H.E.Yarnell, as CINCASIATIC, wrote a long memorandum for

Roosevelt describing his plan for an allied quarantine operationagainst Japan. The coalition of Great Britain, France, theNetherlands, and China would be led by the transoceanic navalpower of the United States. As Knox renewed the legacy ofDarwin, Yarnell revived something of the spirit of America asleader of a world order, in law and warfare.111 When Standleyspoke over CBS radio on 10 August 1940 and called for directmilitary aid to Great Britain, he spoke of the ocean as "a broadhighway" for America in its intercourse with friendly nations;and, equally, as an open path for the enemy to blockade Americaand strangle its economy.112 In unconscious litany, he intonedthe alembic imagery of Knox.

By the end of the interwar era, the image of the "worldisland," America, reaching out across both great global oceans tohelp its friends and hold at bay its gathering enemies, hadpermeated the Navy mission, and subsumed the traditional, theDarwinian, and the internationalist components that haduneasy coexistence for a generation. The image of America assecure sanctuary, isolated and apart—a peaceful New Worldremoved from the turbulence of the old—had lost its lastadherents. As Furer said, on Navy Day, 1927:

The United States is helpless to withdraw from the worldand live in isolation, even if we so desired — It would be asimpossible to pursue such a policy as it would be for you tobuild a wall around your community and live out of contactwith the outside world.113

Even if that defensive perimeter were to encompass all of LatinAmerica, as well as the trans-Philippine Pacific, it could not bedefended. Rodgers' and Knight's 1915 vision of America's futurehad been recast on an external mold. Knox shifted America'sperceived place from periphery to center. By focusing for ageneration on both Atlantic and Pacific war strategies the Navycame to accept, and then to repeat, the outlines of a new worldview. The Navy, at the end of the interwar era, had come todefine America as the coming center stage toward which theworld's conflicts would be drawn, "as to a cockpit."114 TheNavy's perceived mission became one of extension: east, west,south; no longer simply to bar the oceans to the enemy, but tosecure their waters for America's passage. America could notafford to wait; it must sally forth to meet the world on its own,transoceanic, terms.

PART II

MISSION

Mission, between the wars, was created in "the mortar-and-stone"1 shell overlooking Narragansett Bay: the Naval WarCollege. Within its walls each year, officer classes were offered acourse in indoctrination. This, the indoctrination of mission,was the final stage in Command acculturation. An officer wasinstilled with a body of basic beliefs, translated into patterns ofbehavior that defined the Navy as a corporate allegiance, atAnnapolis. Ethos was forged in its elementary, corporate format the Naval Academy. Mission, the edge of Ethos, was temperedat the War College.

Mission, the ultimate abstraction of collective behavior in thepursuit of a shared vision, was reserved for future Commandleadership. In 1924, Capt. J.R. Poinsett Pringle wrote:

The Mission of the War College is to assist in the training ofofficers for high command. The College aims to instructofficers in the principles of Naval Warfare 2

This was the official line, the public verse. In informal effort theWar College achieved more. Yes, the course at Newport taughtmiddle-ranking officers "how to" fight a fleet; "how to" estimatea situation; "how to" make command decisions; "how to" drawplans and issue orders; even, "how to" avoid internationalincidents

Beyond the Art of the Admiral, etiquette and estimate,Newport inspired esprit. Command spirit infected the place; theWar College instructed less than it instilled. In transcending"training," the War College indeed achieved more.

In effect, the War College, between the wars, was chargedwith the evolution of Command identity, of escalation beyond

professional world view. If the course could not transformengineers into envoys, gunnery chefs into marechals* Newportat least enveloped the student in an atmosphere of historicaldecision, redolent of moments when the fate of nation and ofempire was laid to the scales. From war games to lectures on"National Strategy," from "The Estimate of the Situation" to thedrafting of a thesis, each man was sublimely freed to fantasize ofsupreme command; for the first time in his career, urgedofficially to link professional identity with national politics, highpolicy, and grand strategy.

It was the education of the ideology of mission.

*Thus keeping Napoleon's promise that "every French soldier carries in his cartridge pouchthe baton of a Marshal of France." E. Blaze, La Vie militaire sous /'Empire.

CHAPTER VTHE EVOLUTION OF MISSION

The indoctrination of Mission was imbued on three levels:three evolutionary branches developing three distinct, thoughcomplementary, species of naval officer. These patterns ofacculturation evolved successively. By the end of the interwarera, they formed a layered network on which the War Collegestudent climbed, from lowest to highest branch. His personalevolution mirrored the evolution of education.

"Navy, know thyself"; so Luce admonished in 1911, in his"Delphian injunction."1 The basic branch in the acculturation ofcommand was "the study of our profession—the art of war."2This was the first great task of the War College when Rear Adm.Stephen Bleecker Luce, founder and first president, was theNavy's Nestor.

We are told the naval officer of today is a "fightingengineer," and this mockery of truth has been accepted bythe profession. On this pernicious theory, naval educationnow concerns itself with the engine room and the batteryalone. There it stops. Naval education now concerns itselfwith the training of arms or legs only. It takes no thought ofbrains.3

In an era when there were more applications to the new Schoolof Steam Engineering than to the War College, Luce's accusationunderscored a reality: the Navy of the early part of this centurywas a profession of the technician. In order to create "competentstrategists," men able to command fleets as well as engine roomsand 12-inch turrets, Luce championed the War College cause.Exclaiming: "We do not understand our own profession,!" hiswarning was unequivocal. "Your profession is the art of war, andnature will be avenged if you violate one of its laws inundertaking to make a part greater than the whole." Nature, or

the   enemy.   No   wonder   that   he   should   cry,  at  the  totalsubjugation of naval art to naval technology:

This is a total eclipse of the mental vision.You cannot even see the grim humor in it!4

First, the War College had to teach the Navy to fight: not as amachine, but as a military polity; a flexible force capable ofshaping strategy to suit political objectives in war. War wastaught as a complete process, not simply as a prelude to theclimatic clash of dreadnoughts. The first, and necessary,evolutionary step was to teach officers to perceive of themselvesas potential strategists as well as seadogs.

This was the lowest of the branches, but the most basic: thebeginning.

If Luce was the Navy's nestorial figure, then Adm. WilliamSowden Sims, a generation later, was its wrathful Achilles.Returning triumphant from the European War, he refused theCNO post and the higher fleet commands and retreated, sulking,to his granite tent on Goat Island. More than he wished to leadthe Navy, he dreamed of its reform. Most desperately, he foughtto make the War College the cultural nexus of the Navy.

It is my conviction that the War College should be made theprinciple asset of the Navy... my convictions are so strongthat I would urge that the needs of the College be givenprecedence over all other demands upon the Department,even if such a course can be carried out only by actualreduction of the size of the Fleet 5

These were strong words. Where Luce advised, Sims adjured."Ships and equipment mean nothing," the modern Argivedeclared, without "brains," without officers "trained in the art ofcommand and coordinated effort."6 Luce pleaded for moreofficers "to take up the study of the art of war"; Sims demanded"a definite policy that hereafter no officer not a War Collegegraduate will be assigned to any important position, eitherashore or afloat."7

As Sims sought to expand the institutional role of the WarCollege, he pushed to extend its indoctrinative role in themaking of ethos: vertical, as well as horizontal, evolution. In hisconception of the Course, he included, in the subject list:

3. The mission of the Navy. Which would includethe exposition of the Navy's role as related

to other functions of the Government.

4. History as affecting the above subject.8

By 1919 'the art of war" and "the art of command" wererecognized as the fundamental, not the firmamental, objectivesof the War College Course. Sims perceived a higher mission forhis service than readiness for, and efficiency in, battle. This wasthe intermediate branch: the forging of the identity of the navalofficer as an agent of policy formulation as well as execution.Sims and the younger men under his tutelage, his "Band ofBrothers," stressed the role of the War College in preparingofficers for the formulation of war plans: the range ofoperational option that extends the contingencies of NationalStrategy.9 By expanding the horizons of America's perceivedmilitary capabilities the Navy would, implicitly, propel policyinitiatives outward. In testing the limits of America's strategicnaval weapon, the War College could seat the scope on the barrelof Washington's foreign policy, if not its political target.

The evolutionary mutation towards the third branch of theindoctrination of Mission occurred in the early 1930s. Theofficer to first insinuate this genetic watershed in world viewwas Capt. D.W. Knox. In his seminal lecture, "NationalStrategy," delivered in 1932, 1933, and 1934, he openly posited arevolutionary thesis: that the Navy should define "our nationalstrategic outlook upon inherent national interests rather thanupon vaguely defined policies."10 The Navy must become thedynamo of American strategy: advocate as well as agent andadvisor. As he expressed his concept under "confidential"classification, he felt secure in skirting the behavioral canons ofthe political sector of the Navy ethos:

... there should not be any shade of disloyalty on our part infully supporting the national policies as currentlyinterpreted with due authority.

But I conceive it to be equally our duty and solemn trustthat we should use for the benefit of the country theknowledge and judgment which professional experiencegives us in regard to national policies. As an integral andimportant element in the National Government, the Navyis duty bound in the formulation of national strategy.11

Not even Sims had come out so strongly in support of thepolitical mission of the Navy. How well Knox knew of Navyleverage in Washington; for in early January 1915, he andBradley Fiske, Aide for Operations, hammered out their jointplan for an Office of Chief of Naval Operations, and pushed itthrough Congress over the protests of the teetotaling Secretaryof the Navy, Josephus Daniels!12 In his maturity, Knox was ableto draw from his dedication to the Navy mission and lay hisvision clearly to the future leadership of his service. This was theorigin of the third branch.

Like wily Odysseus, Knox had insinuated the Navy into theconceptual citadel of national decisionmaking. The mission ofthe War College, and so, of the Navy, had evolved through threestrategic tiers: from Operations, to Planning, to Policy.

This pattern of supraimpositionary evolution was reflected bythe public imagery of Newport convocation and graduationaddresses at each stage. Rear Adm. Austin M. Knight, presidentof the college, addressed the opening course for the Class ofJanuary 1914, at the watershed between the indoctrination levelof operational strategy and strategic planning. Knightinstinctively defined the role of the War College in theacculturation of ethos when he suggested that the course atNewport "aims to teach not so much right living, as rightthinking,—from which it is believed that right living willresult."13 This is a simple, but serviceable, demarcation of theeducation of mission:

What the College aims to give you, then, is not a set ofprecepts but a course of training; not rules, but principles;not action, but preparation for action.14

Here Knight departed from the education of the first branch,"involving instructive principles of strategy and tactics." Heannounced at this, the first full-year course ever to be offered atthe college, that "we shall soon be prepared to furnish officerswho can furnish war plans." In this, he implied that Newportwould become the campus of operational training and, soon, thenursery of future naval policy: "Our hope is to furnishCommanders-in-Chief [operational] and Chiefs of Staff[preparatory] who will be well equipped to prepare suchplans... an output of officers fitted to prepare plans."15 An exofficio member of the General Board, and a close associate ofBradley Fiske, then Aide for Operations, Knight may well have

put a double meaning to the phrase, Chiefs of Staff; implyingthat the War College would, in future, shape "the character of aGeneral Staff." In precisely one year the Office of Chief of NavalOperations entered the Naval Establishment through themidwifery of Fiske and Knox. Not quite a full-blown GeneralStaff, the new office was still the first formal agency of theservice charged with the formal authority in the "preparationand readiness of plans for use in war . . . ."16

The second watershed of mission, from strategic planning tothe formulation of strategic policy: from naval to national, maybe glimpsed in the imagery of a 1932 speech. Intended forSecretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams, the graduationpolemic was ghostwritten by D.W. Knox. The address stressedthe role of the War College in increasing the "efficiency of thefleet" through "professional perfection" and "teamwork."These objectives, Knox wrote, were "the indoctrination whichevolves at the War College, is taken to the Fleet, and is furtherdeveloped there."17 This was only a reiteration of the firstbranch of the ideology of mission. His argument for the role ofthe War College in the Navy mission was extended, when "wehave also to consider the many political matters which haveinevitable naval relationships."18 Adams, Knox's mouthpiece,then came to the central thesis, resonant of the reasoning in"National Strategy" delivered for the first time at Newport thatyear:

While the prime purpose of the Navy of our country is tosupport the national policies, it is obvious that the veryformulation   of   such    policies    must    require    naval

consideration Naval officers must be prepared, as a

matter of duty, to give such assistance in the evolution ofnational policies.19

Knox reaffirmed the role of the college in the investiture ofmission, this mission, from generation to generation of officers.The "mortar-and-stone" of Newport sheltered one of the keyintellectual components in the maintenance of American globalstature; for Knox, a "happy coincidence" that the institutionalrole of the college took root in the service "at a time when ourcountry found its place as a leading world power."20

The role of the War College in the perceived making ofmission reached its apogee in the mid-1950s. Capt. LeonardJames Dow, head of the Course of Advanced Study in Strategy

and Sea Power from 1953 to 1956, addressed the War CollegeClass at its commencement that June. The imagery of his speechmarked the logical culmination of Knox's vision a quartercentury before. Now, openly and proudly, Dow put the conceptof training for higher command from naval to nationalleadership: "It is not beyond conceivance that we might have afuture President of the United States right here in our midst."21No longer were the nation's armed services simply an integraleccentric in the machinery of policy formulation:

A nation's military power has become the panacea to berelied upon to settle all issues, A nation's military strengthhas become the criterion of its ability to survive. Militarystrength and war potential have become the stabilizers ofthe peace.22

The nation's armed services were now at the very center ofnational strategy, and "the men who minister the NationalPolicy must thoroughly understand war and conflict, and themeaning of military power."23 In Dow's postwar equation,"military and civil leadership" were now coequal partners. Ifanything, neostrategic questions, those concerning nuclearweapons, had unquestioned pride of place; and, by implication,so had military leadership:

The United States has accepted the role of leader for the freenations of the world. Our military leaders and our statesmenmust be properly trained to assume these graveresponsibilities.24

So, the cresting of naval, and national, mission; with the WarCollege, for a brief cold war moment, regarded as an ImperialAcademy for Pax Americana. This was the product of anevolutionary process. As the college matured, its perceived senseof mission grew in sophistication. By 1941 successivegenerations had demarcated an expansive potential role for theNavy. The course of the world war but confirmed the gatheringexpectation, within the Newport-indoctrinated service, of itsinherent centrality in the making of national strategy. WhenAmerica made its metamorphosis from great power to globalpower, by inculcation as well as inclination, the Navy wasprepared for the displacement.

CHAPTER VITHE COURSE

In the War College Course—the lectures, the reading, thetheses, the doctrine, the intellectual fraternity throughgenerations of classes—may be traced the patterns of evolution,and the progressive mutation of the education of mission.

The Course was the structural center, the intellectualironwork of Newport. Before 1911, the Course lasted only some4 months: the annual "Summer Conference." Stripped of therigorous expectations of a formal term, the setting of theSummer Conference never quite shed the sensations of a seasideresort. Time was too short, the pace too relaxed, for the lastingimprint of indoctrination.1 With the coming of the "LongCourse" in 1911, the chance for a comprehensive curriculum wascreated. The Long Course involved a few students only, whostayed at Newport after the recess of the Summer Conference inOctober. They used the extra 12 months for the study "of a muchfuller treatment of the subjects included in the existing SummerCourse," although it was admitted that the new course "involvedno new features." In its 3 years of coexistence with the SummerConference, the Long Course graduated only sixteen students, anaverage of five a year.2

Real academic approaches were not adopted until 1914. Then,by order of the Secretary of the Navy, the War College Coursewas organized into two annual classes, set to commence inJanuary and June of each year. At President Knight's request,"officers in attendance were grouped in classes of fifteen each."The essential components of what would become the traditionalWar College curriculum were delineated by Knight. Fully sixtimes the number of officers would benefit from the completecourse.3

No longer would the granite, Atlantic-washed walls servesimply as a forum for the Navy's leadership, where they mightcome, with the General Board in tow, to tackle a "strategicproblem" through a balmy ocean summer. After 1914, and

especially after the wartime intercollegium of 1917-1919, thecollege achieved its primary mutation. From forum it wastransformed into a stoa\ the college passed from an era of opendialogue and debate to a long period of rigorous, and rigid,instruction.4 After the birth of the War Plans Division in 1919,the War College lost its informal, though important, influencein strategic planning. Newport was no longer the "conferencecenter" for strategic planning: the preeminent, though muted,operational function of the War College was removed toPennsylvania Avenue.

During the era of the summer conferences, discussion of the"burning" issues of the day was the heart of the experience:Should the new battleships be given all-big-gun armament(1905), were armored cruisers obsolete (1907), should the Navyput in for battle cruisers (1912)?5 The annual "strategicproblem" was the only real chance the service had each year toplan for potential war, and test the consequences. The watershedof war, real war, displaced this arrangement. Building programsand war planning became the prerogatives of an expandingOffice of the CNO.6 The president of the college remained amember of the General Board into the 1930s, yet the Board wasto lose much of its advisory clout to the CNO.7

In origin and in purpose, Newport was never intended tofulfill even a part of the function of a general staff. That it did so,in conjunction with the General Board in the early part of thecentury, was a necessity forced by the fears of Congress andSecretariat, obsessed with the specter of an American brand of"Prussian Militarism."8 As Knight observed, when War Collegepresident, there was but one proper role for Newport:

The College does not assume and cannot accept anyadministrative functions, since administration is action, andwhat the College stands for is not action, but preparation foraction.9

How well the college could dispense with operational,"administrative" distractions! The sea change began in 1914;after the Great War, the character of the War College Coursereflected a clear shift from consultation to indoctrination. Ingrowing complexity, the evolution of the curriculum highlightedthe postwar perception of Newport's role: the stoa of highcommand.

Departmental emphasis on COMMAND, STRATEGY,TACTICS, and INTERNATIONAL LAW topics remainedunaltered from an earlier era. In 1910, the last strictly "summer"year, the 4-month Course was a relaxed menu. For the first time,the "Estimate of the Situation" and the "Formulation of Orders"were introduced, "adapted almost entirely from the GermanArmy system." This marked the first formal approach toCOMMAND methodology. STRATEGY was subsumed by the"Main Problem," and TACTICS by a series of chart and boardmaneuvers played on the game board. There were eight lecturesand five questions in INTERNATIONAL LAW.10 In 1919 Simsrecast the "Staff Organization" from departmental emphasisalong informal faculty lines to a strict framework of academicdepartment and Chain of Command. The curriculum burgeoned.

COMMAND, as a Department, now embracedPrinciples of CommandEstimate of the SituationFormulation of OrdersCommunications

Organization and AdministrationPrinciples of Plan MakingDoctrine, principles ofLecture CourseCombined Operations,

while the

STRATEGY Department focused onPolicyStrategyLogistics

Scouting and ScreeningChart Maneuvers,

and the

TACTICS Departmentcontinued to run through series of Tactical Maneuvers andTactical Problems,

and the

INTERNATIONAL LAW Department expanded to suit thespirit of an age imbued with the vision of an omnibenevolentinternational legal order.11

There were other gross indicators to measure the wideningscope of the curriculum lens. During the 1936-1937 term, forexample, the Class was presented 93 lectures, compared to the 8heard in 1910. Compared with the single strategic "problem"and a clutch of tactical games in prewar conferences, the WarCollege after the Armistice took up gaming on casino scale. In1919 alone, the January and June classes racked up a total of 86war games played through 442 mornings and afternoons.12 Fouressays were now required of each student, a thesis in "Policy inIts Relation to War," in "Strategy and Logistics," in "Tactics,"and in "Command."1*

When the War College reconvened on 1 July 1919, theacademic mission was preeminent; the operational, peripheral.By 1922, the scheme of separate classes in January and Juneended, and was exchanged for a unified annual term. Thismerger enhanced unit cohesion and association among students.Class identity was encouraged and this created a subtle sense ofreinforcement and allied membership within an emerging highcommand.

When the first mergered class, 1922, matriculated, itnumbered 45 officers. With the addition of a Junior Class, from1924, class size rose to 75. After 1934, with the initiation of anAdvanced Course for rear admirals and senior captains, annualclasses began to top 90.14

There was also a Correspondence Course, established in 1914.Two courses were offered; in Strategy and Tactics, and inInternational Law. By 1926, 31 officers each month wereenrolling in the Strategy and Tactics course which required thesolution of 12 "solitaire" games of war. Perhaps these"problems" were fun: commanding midnight fleets alone, in thespare time of a late night lamp. They were certainly morepopular than the course in law; the legal conundrum attractedonly four officers each month. This simple disparity is eloquent,in small but revealing insight, of the true passion of theseAmerican seadogs.15

The Correspondence Course was but one aspect of Newport'scampaign of indoctrination, on a basic level:

The object is to disseminate throughout the Service whathas been called the "War College Doctrine," that is, gettingofficers to think along the same lines 16

The   college   was   beginning   to   reach   through   the   Navyleadership. Sims' petition that the formal Newport Course be a

prerequisite of command equal to sea duty was given gradualcorporate acceptance. In 1919, 50 percent of all flag officersafloat were graduates of the War College. In 1941,99 percent ofall flag officers were graduates of the 12-month course.17

Between the wars Newport was able to disseminate itsdoctrine; to shape the thinking of the men who would plan forand command in a Second World War. The instillation of theideology of mission can be traced through the ideology of theCourse: what these men heard and read and wrote andcatechized and the associations they made there. In the imageryof the Lectures, the Bibliography, the Theses, the Doctrine, andthe Fraternity of classes, can this process be again unwound.

The Lectures

These were the formal address; the oral inheritance ofindoctrination. In the collective body of lectures given inNewport between the wars, in the patterns woven by thecoloring threads of theme and topic and title, was theembroidery of the education of mission: the visual index, themost visibly superficial signpost, from year to year, of the thrustand weight and emphasis of the War College Course.

Between 1919 and 1937, 18 years and 20 classes, 742 lectureswere presented at Newport.18 The fewest number, 10 weredelivered in 1919; the greatest, 92, in 1937. The average was 41,and the median, 43. Compare this to the average before theGreat War which, not counting the International Law course,was on the order of six per year. Not only did the annual lectureprogram expand postwar; so, too, did the range of subjects. Inthe summer of 1910, out of eight lectures, one was on mines, oneon torpedoes, one on wireless telegraphy, one on engineering,and three on battleships and their ordnance. Seven out of eightfocused on weapons and technology; but one single lecture, "TheNavy and the Press," ventured at all into the twilight zone of thepolitical.

After the Armistice Sims stretched the program to cover anannual spectrum of seven central bands of subject concentration:Policy, Area Studies, Weapons & Tactical Doctrine, CampaignStudies, International Law, Command Organization, andSocietal/Racial Studies. Later, in 1926, Economics was added as amajor concentration. By the end of this period, four of theseeight areas, Policy, Area Studies, International Law, andEconomics, accounted for 60 percent of the annual lectureprogram.

Lectures on the subject of "Policy" comprised 10.9 percent ofall lectures. From 1919 to 1927, Professor J.O. Dealey wasresponsible for the majority of lectures on the origin andextension of American foreign policy. Typically, onepresentation would deal with the "Underlying Bases andTheories" of National Policy, one with a survey or summary ofU.S. foreign policy, one with the Monroe Doctrine, and one with"The Situation in the Far East." Some of these addresses had amuch wider dissemination than the War College in murus. Hislecture, "National Policies in the Pacific," delivered before theofficers of the Atlantic Fleet in September 1921, was distributedthroughout the Service: 400 copies to the Atlantic Fleet, 500 tothe Pacific Fleet, 100 to the Asiatic Fleet, and down the line, withsix each to "All Bureaus."19 In 1928, Professor L.M. Goodrichinherited the Policy stewardship. He continued to cover thesame areas as had his predecessor.

Beginning in 1932 the emphasis on Policy lectures nearlydoubled. That year Capt. Dudley Knox delivered his essay"National Strategy" for the first time. Professor J.P. Baxter, aclose correspondent of Knox, also began a series of lectures inthe autumn of 1932.20 The author of "The Introduction of theIronclad Warship" delivered two lectures each term for the next5 years, "The Objectives and Aims of American Foreign Policy,"and "The Navy as an Instrument of Policy." In addition, eachyear, from 1934, Professor William Y. Elliott contributed yetanother lecture entitled "National Strategy." This suddenredoubled concentration is significant. Before 1932,8.7 percentof the annual lecture program focused on national policy.Suddenly, the figure was a cool 15 percent and remained at thatlevel. In 1937 there were eight lectures on Policy and,remarkably, two addresses entitled "The Navy as an Instrumentof Policy." If the Navy crossed that great divide, the watershedbetween naval and national strategy, planning and policy,sometime during the decade of the 1930s, here was evidence ofthat portage.

The subject band encompassing Area Studies was divided.One moiety focused on the Far East, with especial emphasis onJapan; the other embraced the remaining three-quarters of theglobe. Of the 23 percent of the lecture program devoted tospecific nations or regions, 11.4 percent, fully half, concernedconditions in the Far East, with especial emphasis on Japan.From 1921-1927, the era of strategic wrangling at theWashington  Conference  and  the Kuomintang upheaval in

China, the proportion rose to 60 percent of all area addresses. Incontrast, compared to an annual average of five East Asianlectures, Latin America could claim one. The British Empire,Western Europe, the Near East, and Soviet Russia each receivedequal emphasis. The exception to this trend came in 1931-1932,when no less than five essays were invited on the Soviet state,indication enough of the strategic implications involved inAmerican recognition of the CCCP.

The statistical story reveals an unexpected trend. After 1927,interest in East Asia declined. From a seven-lecture level from1921-1927, the Pacific slice declined precipitously to a mean ofthree from 1928-1935. Then, in 1936-1937, with the coming ofSino-Japanese war, emphasis on East Asian affairs quadrupled.In these divergences of concentration, world view at Newportand among the naval profession shifted perceptual paradigms:from postwar, to "peacetime," to prewar assumptions of theJapanese "enemy."

Professor George Grafton Wilson gave his first law lecture atNewport on the subject of "Insurgency" in 1900. He continuedto teach International Law there through the 1930s. Hispresentations accounted for 15 percent of the lecture program,an average of six per year. Focusing on practical applications,Wilson still bore about him, decade after decade, the vision of aninternational order based on law: "the betterment of Mankind"through the agency of the League of Nations and the ultimatedisplacement of what he called "the Law of War."21 If ever therewas a figure devoted to this ideal at the War College, it was thatof Wilson, commuting from Cambridge, seeking the subjugationof war by law. For had he not drawn the petition, with Pratt, inthe late autumn of 1918, "Proposed Plans for Establishment ofLeague of Nations Army and Navy"?22

There were no lectures on Economics for the first 7 postwaryears. Then, in 1926-1927, there were seven. The average for thenext 11 years held at seven. During those years, Economicscaptured 17 percent of the lecture slice. Almost half of thesewere presentations on mobilization of industry and finance forwar, strategic raw materials, problems of trade and shipping,and economic strategies in wartime. The remaining moiety wasless structural; these were presentations far more redolent of thelegacy of Darwin: "The Struggle for Raw Materials andEconomic Independence"; "Economic Conflict and Its Influenceon  National  Policy";   "Economic  Penetration."   Here were

harangues to reinforce a bold world view, as they echoed theimagery of Knox in his contemporaneous "National Strategy."

In the 1920s, only 50 percent of the lecture program wasallowed to the subject geography of international relations:Economics, International Law, Area Studies, and Policy. Duringthe decade of the 1930s, the proportion rose to 70 percent.World view, as it was instilled at the War College between thewars, began to acquire an enviable sophistication. The graygranite of Newport, in the visible trappings of curriculum,assumed the mien of Sims' ideal: an authentic university.

There are other signs of an alteration of course, a turningaway from the appearance of a service trade school. Normalexpectation would assign a substantial share of the lectureprogram to technical topics, to weapons and tactical doctrine. Inthe event, only 40 such lectures were delivered during the 18years examined here: a proportional total of 5.3 percent. Three-quarters of all weapon and tactics related lectures werepresented in the 5 years between 1921 and 1926, a time offerment in the Service over the introduction and evolutionarypotential of the aircraft and the submarine. Of those 30addresses, 18, or 60 percent, focused directly on air and undersea"weapons of the future." Even Brig. Gen. "Billy" Mitchell, theinterwar Navy's most dangerous foe, came to speak his piece.No, the War College under Sims and Pratt faced therevolutionary manifestors of new technologies squarely.Accusations by some historians that there was "no incentive tocritically examine reigning ideas on the primacy of thebattleship" are, quite simply, empty.23

If interwar emphasis on weapons and tactics was minor, thelecture slice for campaigns and battles was smaller still: 4.8percent. Contrary to popular current cant, Newport did notspend a generation refighting Jutland and Gallipoli; at least, notin the lecture halls. For a twenty class span, there were only threelectures on the North Sea bout, and one was presented by aGerman admiral who commanded a battle squadron in thatcelebrated fight. There were nine Gallipoli talks, and why not?There was no comparable example of combined, amphibiousoperations for the whole of the Great War.24 The bulk ofcampaign analyses between the wars was handed over to worldwar continental strategy. There were twice as many WesternFront talks as the parcel of Jutland and Gallipoli combined.

Then there was Race. Thirteen lectures were given on the"scientific" subject of Race. Cultural Anthropology had not yet

permeated the Navy world view, and so Newport missed achance to hear from Boas or Kroeber or Malinowski. Traditionalassumptions were reinforced; and the existential postulates ofSocial Darwinism remained uncontested by the Navy in an ageattempting, in new-found enlightenment, to have themscrapped. The addresses of Dr. Lathrop Stoddard, from 1922 to1936, had eloquent titles: "Present Race Conflicts in WorldAffairs"; "Danger Points in World Affairs from a Racial Pointof View"; "Racial Aspirations as the Foundation of NationalPolicy." This last lecture was delivered annually from 1931through 1937. Other presentations, such as Dr. Garfield's "TheDeterminant of Advancing Civilizations," ProfessorThorndike's "Racial Psychology," and Professor Huntington's"Relation of Geography to the Character of Far EasternPeoples" were, in their own way, signposts demarcating theparameters of basic world view. How was the Navy's futureleadership, its war planners and battle commanders andpolicymakers, to shed the racial biases of an earlier generation—existential postulates so deeply rooted and intertwined as to beinstitutionally invisible—if they were deprived of exposure toemergent academic disciplines? Throughout the interwar erathere were no more than five lectures given in psychology andthese were confined to the psychology of command or ofpropaganda. The new social disciplines, and Anthropologyespecially, were wholly neglected.

The distribution and shifting proportions of the War Collegelecture program, then, is a small insight into the intellectualobjectives and limitations, of the Course. Far morecosmopolitan, as it evolved in Economics and in Politics and inLaw, than in its prewar guise, the Course was unable to shed theunstated, the unconscious, set of assumptions that continued tolimit the Navy's understanding of its world.

The Bibliography

There was less glitter in the reading. The lectures were publicevents, imparting a high gloss to the transmutation of ideas andthe transmission of ideology. The reading was a collective, yetprivate, experience: an innumerably repeated, mutedrecognition. Still, the reading lists of the interwar Course remainand, with them, the dust-filmed folders of student book reviews.Unlike the lectures, the private discoveries went unrecorded; butthose lingering archival fragments dangle tantalizing clues.

In 1928, at the request of the Bureau of Navigation, the WarCollege prepared a "Professional Bibliography" for distributionto "All Ships and Stations." Rear Adm. J.R. Poinsett Pringle,War College president, detailed a descending order of subjectpriority: Command, Tactics, Strategy, International Law, Policy,Current Events, Literature, Psychology, Logic. The bibliographywas very basic.

Command was covered by the five popular biographies:Mahan's Life of Nelson, Henderson's Stonewall Jackson, LiddellHart's Great Captains Unveiled, and Emil Ludwig's Bismarckand Napoleon. Tactics received the majority share with fiveworks on the great age of "fighting sail," and six on Jutland.Strategy was subsumed by Clausewitz, Foch, and Mahan, andPolicy relegated to text books: America's Foreign Relations,Introduction to World Politics, American Diplomacy. Nomention of Perkins' or Pratt's just published works on theMonroe Doctrine and the Spanish-American War.

This was, really, a remedial course for those men who wouldnever reach Newport and a preparatory taste of what was tocome for those who would. This impression was reinforced bythe assignation of coded numbers to each book: (1) for officersbelow the grade of lieutenant commander, (2) for those betweenlieutenant commander and commander, and (3) for grade ofcaptain and above. By this standard, Dennett's Americans inEast Asia and Hector Bywater's byline on contemporary navalpolicy, Navies and Nations, were considered beyond the grasp ofjunior officers; yet even these musings were no more thanfoundationary, if not simplistic.25

By implication, the War College felt that intellectualdevelopment of any depth could be denominated only within thecollegial environment of Newport. Pringle, in thismemorandum, was guarding a cherished monopoly ofindoctrination. Outside of the Order, acolytes were allowed onlyan extramural glimpse. To become a part of the Navy'sintellectual brotherhood, an officer, if denied a Newport billet,must begin with the Correspondence Course.

The reading at Newport, then, in expectation, required aballistic leap in sophistication. The breach is revealed incomparison with the "Prescribed Reading Course" for theSenior Class of 1935.

There were 72 books in the Reading Course, three times thelist prescribed by Pringle. Strategy clearly overruled tactics.There were no narratives of Jutland. Beyond Clausewitz and

Foch and Mahan the lens of strategic thought focused on thecutting edge of contemporary theory: Corbett's Principles ofMaritime Strategy and Richmond's thoughtful essay, NationalPolicy and Naval Strength. The War College produced the firstEnglish translations of the "Continental Strategists": Assman,Wegener and Roaul Castex. Allied and enemy accounts of theGreat War were given equal weight and European diplomatichistory was emphasized as much as American. There was anentire section devoted to Propaganda Techniques and thePsychology of War. Problems of Imperial Defense in BritishStrategy were highlighted, almost as a conscious model for thestructure of American security.

Unlike the basic bibliography handed out to the fleet, the WarCollege reading course contained a special section; its focus, theFar East. There were 24 separate titles, a neat third of the entirelist, dealing with Japan, or the specter of Japanese Imperialism:The Influence of Sea Power Upon the Political History of Japan,Japan, Mistress of the Pacific?... not to mention detailedstrategic analyses of Japanese defense lines in the Pacific. "TheNansei-Formosa Line," "The Guam-Bonin Line," "TheMarshall-Caroline Line"; there was no comparable concentra-tion on any other of the Earth's strategic areas. This was notsimply "higher education of the naval officer."26

It was a series of mental exercises in the preparation for war.

Not only do these reading lists remain, they are accompaniedby the typescript of student book reviews. The Advanced Class of1935, in addition to reading some 72 assigned titles, individuallyreviewed another 33. No less than one-third had "Japan" in thetitle. The next year the proportion was eight out of eleven; in1937, nine out of twelve.

The "List of Books Reviewed" by the Advanced Class of 1935contained another disturbing insight. One-third of the booksdealt with Japan; and a sixth with the "Control of RawMaterials." The remaining were works with Racial and SocialDarwinist themes. The titles, and publication dates, are redolentof the last century: Race Psychology, The Instincts of the Herd,Race and National Solidarity, The Rising Tide of Color, TheRacial History of Man, The Character of Races, Emotion as theBasis of Civilization, and, yes, Spengler's Decline of the West.All three Darwinian motifs were in place, seemingly intact, notyet discredited. The struggle for living space was inherited byThe Population Problem, or Population Theories', the strugglefor markets by The Control of Raw Materials, or Raw Materials

in the Policies of Nations; the struggle for racial supremacy by aplethora of "scientific" tracts. These, inalienably linked toJapan's Advance, Must We Fight in Asia, and The Menace ofJapan, bonded the theoretical to the experiential, the historicalto the expectational, in the Navy world view. The "List of BooksReviewed" in 1935 contained not one authentic history orethnography. Implicitly, in aggregate, they served but to advancethe legacy of Darwin.27

The reviews also reveal by implication. None of the "critical"officers atempted to write an approximation of an essay; theirresponses can be gleaned only from form and language. Spenglerwas reviewed by Rear Adm. W.S. Pye, later COMBATFOR andwartime president of the War College. He was awed bySpengler's density of thought: "there are probably not morethan a score of people in the world who could as they read thebook have a conscious opinion as to the correctness of hisassertions." Pye was fascinated by the compressed mass ofSpengler's thesis:

Spengler is the founder of a philosophy of history, fromwhich philosophy he derives the thesis that—Cultures riseand wane in a manner similar to the life of an individual;that each Culture passes through phases corresponding toyouth, maturity, old age, and death.28

Pye considered The Decline of the West a draught too rich evenfor the Advanced Class. So taken was he with its ideology that heinsisted on filling 20 pages of typescript with Spengler's fatteststatements. He could only conclude that "there are certain ideaswhich have a definite bearing upon future world-history and areof great importance to National Policies and NationalDefense."29

They were eager, open intellects, those officers who came toNewport in the years between the two great wars. Like Pye, theywere ready to reach out and, as Renaissance explorers, extendtheir horizons beyond the rim of the known world. Some ofthese men had spent decades at sea, exiled to a worldencompassed by decks of caulked yellow pine, steel-graybulkheads, and sky and sea a nameless gray no paint could match.

Their training was unmatched in professional art; but in otherdisciplines they were kept in poverty. In gazing back from theirfuture, one can only lament the meagerness of real guidance inhistory or the social sciences. For the Class of 1935 to have

missed the counsel of A. Whitney Griswold or Samuel FlaggBemis, then at Yale, or of Franz Boas, at Columbia, was apalpable loss. In their place, officers were treated to year afteryear of lesser historians, or to such pseudoscientists as Dr.Lathrop Stoddard and The Rising Tide of Color, or they wereencouraged to review Dixon's Racial History of Man, and typeout long nights cataloging the distinctions betweenDolichocephalic and Brachycephalic skulls.30

As a result, notional Social Darwinism still permeated theNavy world view; "race" substituted for "culture," and in history,slogans squeezed out substance. In this, both the Legacy ofDarwin and the Lessons of History subtly conspired to create asheen of inevitability: of war with Japan.

The Theses

Their writing revealed this trend. The interwar classes atNewport wrote four essays annually on the subjects ofCommand, Strategy, Tactics and Policy.31 For each essay, officerswere given sets of themes to choose from and checklist directivesof points to be made. In 1925, the thesis on Tactics permitted achoice between: Trafalgar, the Falkland Islands, Tsushima,Jutland, or a dissertation on the tactical employment of AirForces, Destroyers, or the "Big Gun" in a Fleet Action.32 On thesubject of Policy, officers were asked to "develop a NationalNaval Strategy," "delineate the interdependence of strategy andtactics," "cover the historical bases of American Naval Strategy,""investigate the concept of winning a victory with inferiorforce," and "produce original thoughts on the utilization offinancial power in war, and the use of the Merchant Marine inthe conduct of a war." These impossible demands could hardly besatisfied in a short essay. J.O. Richardson, future CINCUS, wasso frustrated as to exclaim:

The student is so confused by the multiplicity of tasks, and bythe realization that an industrious and gifted writer might,inadequately, cover the subject in a lifetime, that whatfollows can be nothing more than a few random ideas onAmerican Naval Strategy 33

That was, precisely, the result. The student theses of theinterwar era were poorly researched, unadvised, hastily writtenagglomerations of notional slogans and shibboleths; lifted from

a basic reading list and bracketed by quotation hatches. Sketchedto prescribed form, unchanged from war to war, these were notoriginal works of scholarship.

In all fairness, in counterpoint to revisionist contention, theywere not "canned."34 These essays, over 4,000 of them submittedbetween the wars, were sincere statements. Collectively, theyreflected and echoed the War College world view and itsinterpretation of the Navy mission. Individually, each expresseda subtle, yet distinct, variation of a higher corporate theme. Forevery "canned," mimetic piece there was a thoughtful, incisivecounterpart. A few even were passionate. Rereading them it ispossible to test the mettle of intellect of those men who wouldtake command in war.

As insight into the elusive ontology of mission, the NewportThesis, especially regarding Policy, is key evidence.

In the 1920s the thesis on Policy was, typically, a discussion of:

1. Policy and its Relation to War.

2. Foreign Policies of the United States in the Pacific withspecial reference to the Far East.35

By 1931 the thesis was entitled "The Inter-Relation in War ofNational Policy, Strategy, Tactics, and Command."36 After 1933,this was simplified to "The Relationship Between NationalPolicy and Strategy in War."37 These essays shared four commonthemes, appearing like leitmotiv throughout the era:

1. An orthodox and strict interpretation of Clausewitz as thefoundation of the Service world view of war and policy.

2. A rejection of "Altruism" as the basis of National Policy.

3. A casual emphasis on the tenets of Social Darwinism inthe struggle for economic markets, living space, and racialsupremacy.

4. A vision of American "Manifest Destiny" across thePacific and, within it, the paramountcy of an inevitable clashwith Japan.

Each imparted trace elements of the motifs of the Navy mission:Defender of the Faith, The Legacy of Darwin, Law and Warfare,and the World Island.

So imbued with his vision of War and Society had the Navybecome by 1919 that the Service world view could be called"Clausewitzian." Every interwar thesis on Policy and Strategychanted his concepts like a litany:

War and Policy

Strategy and Policy

Absolute War and Real War

Friction in War

The Offensive

The Engagement

The Theory (The Game)

The Spirit of the Age.

No student thesis failed to restate Clausewitz' basic dictum:"War is an act of policy, a continuation of political intercourse,with the addition of other means."38 No officer neglected toparaphrase what has by now become le grand cliche. Many didnot stop at incantation but followed Clausewitz to his morerecondite conclusions. Not only was war an extension of policy,it was the arbiter of diplomacy. Given the American strategicsitus, the Navy was the ricasso as well as the rapier point ofNational Policy. As Capt. T.C. Hart concluded in 1922:

Policy and War are most intimately connected, for War isthe final and ablest servant of policy. Diplomacy is anefficient servant only when supported by Preparedness forWar—which is really a part of war, and can win before thewar itself begins.39

By underscoring the political nature of war, the officers atNewport never hesitated to link "the statesman and thewarrior"; and the role of the Navy in policy formulation. In anemphasis on the intrinsic political function of naval force, theseofficers echoed something of the Hamiltonian vision of a navy asdefender of American (New World) neutrality, Americancommercial intercourse, and American honor. From Publius'squadron of "a few ships of the line" to the interwar battle fleet,the Navy was a political instrument: of deterrence as much as ofdecision.40

They were equally adamant about the role of strategy in theschema of policy. Although agreeing with Clausewitz "thatdespite the great variety and development of modern war itsmajor lines are still laid down by governments";41 War Collegeopinion disjoined political arbitration from operational actions.They adhered to Clausewitz' injunction that "the strategist mustmaintain control throughout." Cdr. C.W. Nimitz, Hart'sclassmate, advised that political "intermeddling with the control

of fleets can only result in disjointed action and possibledisaster."42 How similar to Clausewitz' warning, that it was an"unacceptable custom to settle strategy in the capital, and not inthe field."43

They looked to Clausewitz to define the intensity of a war. Inhis discussion of "Absolute War and Real War," Clausewitzadmitted:

War can be a matter of degree. Theory must concede this;but it has .the duty to give priority to the absolute form ofwar, so that he who wants to learn from theory becomesaccustomed to measuring all his hopes and fears by it, and toapproximating it WHEN HE CAN or WHEN HE MUST.44

This logic drove Navy war planning, and the potential allocationof war resources, what King called "Ways and Means."45 Theyaccepted Clausewitz' reservation that, "to discover how much ofour resources must be mobilized for war, we must first examineour own political aim."46 Yet in seeking the engagement, and thedecision, in war, no such fine calibration of a sufficiency ofvictory was possible. There was but one measurement of anobjective gained, one guarantee of victory:

This is unlimited war. Measures short of completedestruction of the enemy's power of resistance may besufficient, but they must not be allowed to confuse strategy.Our military preparations should always be directed towardthe complete destruction of the enemy.47

A.J. Hepburn's 1931 thesis reflected a collective feeling in theinterwar Navy. In calling for war preparation visibly capable oftrouncing the most powerful potential enemy, the War Collegeimplicitly inscribed the first American doctrine of strategicdeterrence. Going beyond both Clausewitz and Hamilton, theNavy defined itself as the mainspring of National Policy. Byextending American interests across the Pacific, the ideologuesof Newport projected the Navy's role far beyond the New WorldSphere. By claiming identity with the continuity of Policy inexchange for the periodicity of War, the Navy invertedClausewitz: policy was a form of war by other means, achievedthrough deterrence diplomacy.48

Those key concepts of Clausewitz—Friction in War, theOffensive, The Engagement, and the uses of Theory in planningfor war—concerned with the conduct of operations, appeared in

Policy essays. They were reiterated in full in the theses onTactics; and through the rounds of war gaming, the staff andstudent solutions, they were the predominant imagery of allaction.49 The inconography will appear again, at the ritual heartof the War College Course: The Game.

They looked to him, as students of war, as to the master,"whose philosophic insight into the nature of war istranscendent."50 They recognized his most sublime caution, themost constrictive limitation to the practice of theory:

We can only say that the aims we adopt, and the resourceswe employ, must be governed by the particularcharacteristics of our own position; but they will alsoconform to the spirit of the age —51

The American public mood between the wars was simplyopposed to the Navy's "Clausewitzian" construction of "TheRelationship Between National Policy and Strategy." The WarCollege was, in essence, a school of Realpolitik. Drawing fromthe model of the Kriegsakademie, Newport had, by the interwargeneration, outdistanced the Prussian system.52 No matter howsophisticated the War College Course, the postulates ofNewport's world view contradicted both the traditional, and thecontemporary, American "spirit."

They rejected "altruism" in their collective thesis on Policy;yet they cast off subtly, by inference more than accusation, inmuted tones. Cdr. R.A. Spruance remarked, almost wistfully,that "the foundation of American foreign policies in the pastwas always self-interest";53 now, as Capt. J.W. Greensladelamented, the "idea of war as part of the 'ordinary intercourse ofnations' and as 'inevitable as commercial struggles' has beentemporarily banned."54

For the peace was, for the Navy leadership groomed atNewport, no more than temporary. As Kimmel concluded, alsoin 1925, "the millenium is still a long way off."55 In the year ofLocarno, at the cresting of international optimism, when aninformal international legal order seemed the surest guarantorof peace, Kimmel and Greenslade each abjured the prevailingdesideratum: To Greenslade, "as long as there is Policy there isWar."56 Kimmel saw war as but a generation away:

History shows that it generally takes a nation a generationto get over "war weariness" and forget the lessons learned.

The    present    "spirit    of    Locarno"    is   due    to    "war

weariness

57

Nimitz threw out statistics to support his adamantine opinion.In 3,357 years of recorded history, he wrote in 1922, civilizationhad enjoyed 227 years of peace. In that span, 8,000 "eternal"treaties of peace and friendship had been broken. In sombervoice, he concluded

... that the time for the abolition of war has not yet arrived,

nor may we expect such a Utopian condition In the

community of nations there is no court of internationaljustice whose edicts can be enforced. We cannot therefore

neglect our preparations   Until war is abolished, FORCE

AND RIGHT WILL JOINTLY RULE THE WORLD.58

There was no shift in sentiment during the next decade. King,in 1933, accused "our peace policy, based of altruism supportedby sentimentalism (sometimes called polly-anna-ism)," of"depleting and weakening our own 'ways and means' ofupholding and enforcing our national policies and our vitalinterests."59 J.O. Richardson was even more bitter. In hisjudgment, from his 1934 thesis, a nation would "resort to warrather than renounce its vital interests." Given this postulate,the United States, alas, held no external interests as vital:

On this basis, the American people are concerned only withdomestic affairs, and have no desire to participate in WorldPolitics or World Affairs beyond expressing moralsentiments and altruistic aims which they like to talk aboutand wish for, but are unwilling to support by force.60

The correspondence of imagery reflected a unanimity in navalleadership. By the middle 1930s, the U.S. Navy was in rapidrelative decline. America's sole strategic weapon was rustinginto desuetude. Both King and Richardson agreed that, evenwere the "American people to demand war with Japan," the fleetwould be incapable of "western movement across the Pacific." Ifwar came the Navy would be impotent to bring it to a successfulend.61 This state of enervation was perceived at Newport andthroughout the Service as the direct product of "altruistic," blindfaith in international law and organization. In neglectingAmerica's strategic deterrent, the nation opened itself to "the

steady increase in global brutality, of terrorism and disregard forboth life and justice." This, thought Capt. R.L. Ghormley, was"an age of dissolution," brought on by "the failure of the Leagueof Nations": "is the characteristic of altruism as well respectednow as the characteristic 'might is right'?"62 Kimmel'sCassandra-like warning was to be borne out after all.

The Navy world view was not rooted in Clausewitz alone; themost primordial network of existential postulates was rooted inthe imagery of Social Darwinism. Interwar essays reveal casualas well as causal connection to Darwinian motifs. Greenslade,inattempting to trace the origin of national policies, compared thevital interests of modern nations to the elemental needs of theprimitive family: food and shelter:

As the social organization developed through stages, fromfamily to tribe to clan to nation and empire, so "shelter"might   shade   into   safety,   security,   independence,   and

political freedom, and so also might the term "food"successively change to substance, subsistence, livelihood,welfare, commerce, and world relations.63

This assumption of evolutionary determinism in human societywas echoed on a biological plane. A.J. Hepburn drew from thesocial behavior of wolves and dogs the logical notion that"Animals may be observed to apply all the 'Principles of War.'"64Without grounding in the emerging disciplines of Physical andCultural Anthropology, naval officers of that era were forced toretreat to 19th-century catchwords to explain the nature of Man.Within this schema, modern, complex societies were driven by"instincts" identical to primitive "tribes" on the social, andanimal "herds" or "packs" on the biological, plane. Their theoryof the structural dynamics of international politics was areductionist metaphor, linked to the assumed behavior ofancestral and animal groups. Capt. C.P. Snyder forged theconnecting ring between natural and metaphorical selection:

The law of life has always been the same from thebeginnings—ceaseless and inevitable selection and rejection,ceaseless and inevitable progress.65

These permeable notions encouraged a ready acceptance of a"Darwinian" theory of the "behavior" of modern states andadvanced cultures. From this point of departure it was easy, even

comforting, to translate the contemporary scene to conform toexistential postulates; on the nature of man and the structure ofreality. For the thesis on Policy, it became commonplace toenumerate "the conditions governing the formation of varyingnational policies" on the basis of social, economic, and racial"antagonisms." Several essays, including those of Reeves andNimitz, even listed the motifs of "Darwinian" struggle in thatorder.66

Geographic and climatic conditions were viewed as thedeterminants of national vigor and expectation. As Nimitzinsisted, "climatic conditions of temperature, humidity, seasonalchanges, prevailing winds, all have an important part to play indetermining the physical and mental vigor of a nation."67 Islandnations invariably "enforced strong international policies," tosate the "need for more land to accommodate increasingpopulations."68

Economic antagonisms centered around the struggle for the"control of natural resources and raw materials," of which "eachnation desires a monopoly."69 "The competition among thegreat commercial nations" to secure the markets of the worldwas "becoming keener every year."70 The Navy had not yetdiscarded the antique notions of Hobson and, ironically, ofLenin, when they resurrected "the need for foreign markets toabsorb excess foods, raw materials, and manufactured goods."71The specious image of a dangerous surplus among industrialnations, a glut of goods, lingered on, as ineradicable as it wasiniquitous.

"Racial features also have their effect on policy."72 A seriouseffect, judging from the prominence awarded this theme in thestandard interwar thesis. Snyder cautioned that, "in arriving atpolicies, statesmen should be careful to distinguish between raceas a biological fact and race as a state of mind!'11 As "biological"verite, the Navy's concept of race was predicated on twoconditional postulates: that some races, if not innately superiorto others, were measurably stronger; that mixed, or"conglomerate racial populations" were inherently weak. Thisratiocination produced two normative corollaries: that theJapanese—"a yellow race"—were "virile" and "expansionist,"and a danger to America; that "racial distinction" in Americawas approaching the "evil condition" of Austria-Hungary,toward a fatal erosion of national unity and national will.74 Intheir theses, officers reflected this sense of a shifting "racialbalance" between the United States and Japan and this nearly

subconscious notion promoted an expectation of a precariousultima ratio of race; and an uncertain future.

If Social Darwinisn equipped the Navy world view with thelanguage of behavioral determinism it was natural, then, todescribe Japanese/American relations in terms of historical,inevitable conflict. Geography and climate created a "virile"people "circumscribed by insular limitation."75 "Nationalpoverty of natural resources" forced the Japanese into "keeneconomic competition."76 As a race, the Japanese were a"warlike people," endowed with "an irrepressible martialtemperament," who gloried in "death on the battlefield."77

Overcrowding, poverty, and belligerence were perceived asthe basis of Japanese national policy as well as nationalcharacter. National behavior mirrored that of the individual:"Japan is frankly imperialistic and faces the future with theconfidence of an ambitious youth."78 The atavism of the Samuraiwas a familiar theme in the interwar thesis.79 Japaneseexpansion: societal, commercial, and martial, was inevitable.

"We will come into conflict with Japan if she pursues animperialistic policy."80 So Kimmel wrote in 1926, at the interwartrough in Japanese/American antagonism. Even then, thepolicies and interests of both cultures seemed tracked toinsoluble opposition. The United States could not surrender the"Open Door," the Philippine Base; nor could the FederalGovernment force California to recant on Asiatic exclusion. Noone expected of Japan more than a gesture of restraint in thedrive for East Asian domination. Accelerating through theinterwar era, a developing dogma in the War College preachedthe historical inevitability of war with Japan. This was taught,consciously, and the trend is revealed in the lectures and thereading and the theses. The evolution of the Japanese "enemy" isthe subsequent theme of this essay: an exploration into theimagery of perception, highlighted by the comment in Nimitz'1922 thesis:

It is small wonder that Japan should prepare feverishly herarmy and navy for the struggle that is certain to come themoment she finds herself strong enough to stop by force ourcontinual obstruction to her policies.81

Inevitable war with Japan was a corollary of inalienableinterest. "The present interest of the United States in the Pacificis great; in the coming years it will increase enormously."82 Thiswas Puleston's prophecy in his 1914 thesis. Between the wars

the United States stake in "The Orient" was treated at Newportas authentic national policy, genuine as the Monroe Doctrine.Commercial intercourse through the "Open Door" in China wasdefined as a "vital interest," as was the retention of a Philippinesforward base. Seaborne commerce was the foundation ofnational prosperity, and the Asian market was clearly traced asthe growth sector of America's economic future.83 From thisperception, the Policy thesis usually underscored the Navy's roleas guarantor of transpacific policy. Essays submitted during the1930s excoriated "isolationism" from this vantage: theTydings-McDuffie Act and acquiescence to Japanese assaults on Chinawould be disastrous, not only to American principles, but toAmerican prosperity.84 As Capt. C.C. Bloch despaired in 1931:"Isolation will destroy us—our culture will only persist through

commerce, commerce can only exist through Sea Power "85

There was a progressive pessimism in interwar essays. In1926 Capt. E.C. Kalbfus began his thesis with an exuberantpaean, in spirit consonant with Whitman's "Passage to India":

It is proposed to outline the history of our [national]growth, because of its direct bearing upon our "Manifest

Destiny" The spreading of our national domain has been

a natural evolution Reflection causes us to believe that

this nation has been favored by Divine Providence 86

Just 8 years later, J.O. Richardson's gloomy vision of acontracting American sphere drew an unwilling finish line toAmerica's westward movement. The Navy, he confessed, wouldnever again be wielded by national policy as the cutting edge oftransoceanic interest; never mind "destiny":

The Open Door policy is essentially a kind of interventionpolicy and since the American people are unalterablyopposed to entanglement in European affairs, they will not

support entanglement in Asiatic affairs The American

Government has made such intervention impossible An

American Naval Strategy that would be in keeping withpresent   public   opinion   would   be   a   purely   defensive

strategy The   Hawaiian   Islands  would be  a  defense

outpost rather than a stepping off place for our westwardmovement across the Pacific.87

In his bitter sarcasm, he goes on to call any future naval buildingunnecessary, for the United States already maintained an"adequate" coast defense force.

His was the only thesis to shade with such brutal chiaroscurothe contrast between the spirit of the Navy mission and the"spirit of the age." In their essays, the officer-students ofNewport shared and defended a common vision of America.More than an aggregate set of values and postulates, this visionwas a synthetic symbol of cultural passage through time: fromAmerica's history to America's future. Based on a complex cagemast of existential postulates, moral imperatives, and historicalcliches, the War College world view preserved more than asensation of naval role in American national life. The Coursespelled out an expectational plan, involving inalienable interestand inevitable war. The central role of the War College was toprepare the Navy for this war, to indoctrinate future leaderswith professional, as well as historical, readiness.

In the teaching of "The Doctrine," then, was the source for theconcept of, and readiness for, this predestined war.

The Doctrine

Doctrine was the catechism of Newport. Sonorously chantedthrough the interwar era, "The Estimate of the Situation" wasthe incanted actualization of Mission. War College doctrine wasthe lubricant between the theory and the reality of war; throughritual, the training set of the collective synapses of Command.

Let us learn to think in the same way about fundamentaltruths.88

So wrote Lt. Cdr. D.W. Knox, early in 1915. This was themotto of his revolutionary essay, "The Role of Doctrine in NavalWarfare," the ideological red banner of reform raised in thatcritical year. In that watershed spring of 1915, Congress createdthe Chief of Naval Operations, and the Naval Institute put topress "The Estimate of the Situation." The Manifesto, theCommand, and the Doctrine: a triple signal that the inert age ofleadership heterogeneity was passing. Knox was behind allthree. With Eiske, he forged an organization plan for the CNO'sOffice. With Knight, Schofield, and Vogelgesang, he hammeredthe framework of "The Estimate of the Situation."89 "The Roleof Doctrine" was the manifesto for both Command andDoctrine: it was the Idea. Knox must be acknowledged as ChiefIdeologue of the interwar Navy: in a single, short argument he

redefined ethos. The Service was not a corporation, anadministration, a set of ships and yards and docks and depots andbarracks and bureaus: the Navy was a society, whose only normalintercourse was war.

They must learn to imitate the choices of war in ordinarypatterns of thought: they must inculcate a methodology ofdecision. Collective thinking must become commonplace, so thatany problem would spark among officers a spontaneoussolution. War demands a unity of action, a common response tothe chain of decision inspiring command. A shared process ofdecision is rooted in something more than a shared profession; itmust evolve from a formal pattern of behavior: a militarydoctrine. Leadership in war flows from a common doctrine;"common doctrine gives birth to harmonized methods, rules,and actions."90 Common behavior means unified action, andthis, the essence of Command, the equation of victory.Command is dependent on doctrine, and "concrete doctrineflows from a conception of war."91

This was his argument. His thesis was the need forindoctrination; his premise was that military doctrine, a patternof behavior, was founded on a concept of war, an existentialpostulate. Command—a set of actions—is based on doctrine—abehavioral model. Doctrine, in turn, is predicated on a set ofshared premises—"a particular alloy of principles."92

The key innovation lay in the concept. Doctrine was not theset of applicable principles: it was the set of "teachings whichhave been reasoned from principles; doctrine flows fromprinciples as a source."93 This causal dynamic was establishedfrom principles—existential postulates—that described war as aprogression of choices, a process of decisionmaking. To Knox,"principles" did not imply a categorical list of maxims, thecliches of a successful campaign. War was not a formula. Theconcept of war was the unfolding process of exerting means toan end. If war was a process, a concatenation of choice, thendoctrine was the behavioral training for the making of decision,and Command simply the moment of application.

To translate idea into action, Command demands "commonunderstanding": the simultaneous, learned reflex to a situation,transcending the transmission and execution of orders. A fleet'sofficers "must be welded into a body" by a torch of "commonwill." Organization was simply a physical tool; like the veryships of a fleet, the concrete expression of a common esprit.94

Like Hobbes in De Corpore Politico, Knox sought in thehuman body metaphor what he called "the officer-body," thecentral symbol for his theme.

Organization cannot alone produce unity of action. It is littlemore than a bony skeleton which must be augmented byflesh and sinew and infused with spirit before it canaccomplish its mission.95

As ideal, the leadership of the Navy would act as a singleorganism, infused with a single spirit. Unity of action—mechanical harmony—derives from a "common conviction"—harmony of will—just as in the Renaissance metaphor of "thebody natural."96

Knox demarcated a metaphysical dimension to war. To aservice obsessed with a notion of war as a series of logisticaldisplacements, Knox created a metaphor for Operational Ethos.He seized the personality of the Corporate Ethos, the set ofbehaviors that regulated normal activity, peacetimeadministration, and made them subordinate to the Operational:the behavioral patterns of battle. By developing a mental ritual, abehavioral rehearsal for combat, Knox distilled identity.Indoctrination was no less than combat thinking. To define warpreeminently as a decisionmaking process, from which physicalaction is natural outgrowth, is to give not only war, butpreparation for war, a spiritual center.

The teaching of this doctrine became the nexal task of theWar College. Formalized as a set of behavioral instructions, thedoctrine was first published in June of 1915 as "The Estimate ofthe Situation." In translation from manifesto to official articles,the indoctrination lost the sense of esprit so enjoined by Knox.Operational Ethos as routine doctrine was transformed, like thebody metaphor in Leviathan; to mere mechanism: anEnlightenment engine stripped of its Renaissance soul.97

As structured by Knight during his presidential term, the"Estimate" was a concise 18-page essay delimiting the process ofCommand behavior into a recognition manual for theelimination of choices. He described a four-step progression:

1. The Mission;

2. The Enemy Forces: Their Strength, Disposition,and Probable Intentions;

3. Our Own Forces: Their Strength, Disposition,and the Courses of Action Open to Us;

4. The Decision.92,

By 1929 Knight's advisory sketch of basic concepts hadexperienced a metamorphosis. "The Estimate of the Situation"had been transmogrified into a rigid primer, including theformulation of plans and orders. The process of decision wasrefined to five steps: Own Mission, Relative Strength ofOpposing Forces, Enemy's Probable Intentions, Courses ofAction Open to You, and The Decision. The instruction ofdecision was starkly described:

Formulate your Decision as follows:

WHAT is to be done;

HOW (and, if necessary, WHEN and WHERE) it is to bedone; and

WHY it is to be done (that is, invariably, in order toaccomplish the Task of your Mission).99

What had begun as simple, essential structure of doctrine wasreduced to a set of rote procedures. Knight's essay was a practicalcorollary to Knox's manifesto. Linked to the generation ofOperation Order Forms, Battle Order Forms, and DespatchOrder Forms, the 1929 pamphlet imparted nothing of theessence of decision: Operational Ethos. By the middle years ofthe interwar era, "The Estimate of the Situation" could beexpressed by a "Diagram to show sequence of derivation."

There was little in this iconographic skeleton to inspire thespirit that must animate the framework of common doctrinewith the conviction of "common will." "The Estimate of theSituation" was in danger of vivisecting itself, exchanging ethosfor a corpselike formula:

I. Relationship of surface, Task and Course of Action.100

Mission.

Decision. Purpose.

Task.What to do. How to do it /

Specific Course of Action.

II. Selection of Specific Course of Action.

Task.

Alternative

a b              c              General Courses

Specific of Action

Courses  "What to do."

of Action

12 12 3 "How to

— _ do it."

This had been Knox's warning, implicit in 1915: OperationalEthos, or "Common Doctrine," was a process of sharedreasoning; it could not be described, much less applied, bydiagrams or flow charts.

The resurrection of Knox, and the synthesis of manifesto andof doctrine, was the achievement of Rear Adm. E.C. Kalbfus.During his first tenure as War College president, from 1934-1937, he reprinted "The Role of Doctrine in Naval Warfare,"and put the press run at the head of the reading list. For Kalbfus,the appearance of this essay marked a spiritual turning point forthe U.S. Navy. In establishing its debt to Knox, Kalbfus declaredin preface, the Service must grant that, in consequence of hisidea,

... there   is   now,   throughout   the   Service,   a   commonconception of the peacetime objective of the Navy readiness

for war from the standpoint of command as well as oflogistics. It remains for this generation and for those thatfollow to continue in his path 101

Kalbfus made possible this objective with the publication in1936 of Sound Military Decision. Combining the "Estimate ofthe Situation," the "Elements of Planning," and the"Formulation of Directives," the pamphlet stretched to 107pages, incorporated and expanded the concepts of Knox, and socompletely delineated the Operational Ethos that it soon earnedthe image of a scriptual text. Called for its cover the "GreenHornet" of Kalbfus, this verdure treatise was the testament of asociety: the prescriptive text of an ethos.102

If the members of the naval profession have a commonviewpoint, their reasoned beliefs may be expected morenearly to approach unanimity. Unity of effort is more likelyto ensue if the operations of all forces have their basis in acommon indoctrination whereby all individuals have beentrained to think on the same plane.103

As well as he could, Kalbfus in this single declarationapproached the essential definition of ethos. Sound MilitaryDecision did not encompass the broad behavioral spectrum ofthe full Navy ethos, in the sense of societal corporation orabstracted mission. This was but the directive for operationalbehavior, distilled from the world view of war. Mission, withinthe context of command decision, "is expressed as a task and apurpose," set by the "ultimate objective" of the war.104 This wasnot mission within the context of cultural definition, thetranscendental task and purpose demarcating a society'sultimate sense of identity.

Yet the Navy's abstracted identity flowed from a basicbehavioral source. By exposing this source as Operational, notsimply Corporate, Ethos, Knox and Kalbfus established theofficer corps as leaders of what was at the center a warrior, not abureaucratic, society. The role the Navy would play in Americannational society welled from the role of the Service in war.Combat mission in the defense of the State and its Policy createdthe behavioral point of departure for the extrapolation of a Navypolitical mission. Successful strategy in peace is predicated onthe process of strategic thinking for war.

The indoctrination of Operational Ethos was the pivotalfunction of the Newport Course between the wars. War College

training, even at the level of rote formula, was the hinge thatsaved the Navy from a regression to the 19th-century traditionof the Bureaucratic Ethos. Senior officers, like J.O. Richardson,who would lead the fleet on the eve of Pearl Harbor, reflectedthis decisive turn in their thesis-writing:

The Navy is primarily maintained for war purposes, butduring long periods of peace Administration, the lesscombatant function of Command, acquires a dominantposition. The Navy becomes material minded, and officers

become administrators rather than leaders The failure

to indoctrinate subordinates during peace may give us futureleaders who will fail under the trial of war. The only timeduring the past twenty years when I have been conscious ofany effort to so indoctrinate me has been at the Naval WarCollege.105

The Fraternity

The War College has been the central source from which wehave been getting our ideas about the Navy, as a whole, andthat War College has imbued the Navy with what we call a

certain indoctrination It is the kind of spirit that was

maintained among Nelson's captains. It is said they were aband of brothers.106

This was the fraternity of Command. Beyond the sense offellowship felt by all officers in the Service, those who went toNewport imbibed a draught of expectation. If, in someprecarious future, an American Grand Fleet sortied to give

battle, as had another on that bright and almost windlessautumn afternoon in 1805, its gray battleships would have themas captains. An American band of brothers, in associationbonded at the Naval War College, would lead Fleet, and Fortune:an inner circle of Command, trained to lead in concert, to thinkand act as one. This was the transcorporation of the Doctrine;from printed ideology to living membership.

So spoke Rear Adm. Bradley Fiske to the Senate in 1920. Hiswords are not taken from transcript. They are a reminder, aquotation from a letter to Fiske from Adm. W.S. Sims. Thistribute, from the president of the War College to a retired seniorand friend, is a signpost in the continuity of Commandfraternity. In the larger naval fraternity, the transmission of the

Corporate Ethos followed a traditional flow, formalized fromjunior to senior, from generation to generation. The fraternityof Command had nothing more than coincidental lines ofassociation. Each young Telemachus had to seek out his Mentor.

Sims sensed, in this primitive pattern for the inheritance ofOperational Ethos, the essential, ancestral backwardness ofAmerican naval training. If the Service were ever to evolvepotential war leadership, a Command fraternity must be formed,coexistent with the War College Course. Membership within aCommand Society would reinforce identity to the indoctrinationof mission. Sims sought so to instill the need for personalmembership in this Command fraternity, within the leadershiphierarchy, as to posit a new moral imperative to the Navy Ethos.An accelerating recognition of this need through the interwarera made of the War College the perceived passageway to highcommand. By 1941, 99 percent of all flag officers had so passedthrough Newport.107 Sims' advocacy had inspired a moralimperative as strong as any Departmental regulation: he had hisfraternity of Command, at least in framework. This was hisenduring achievement.

The social coordinates, to create continuity as well ascontiguity, demanded a fraternity membership plotted alongboth vertical and horizontal axes. A network of associationsmust be able to transmit, not simply maintain, shared values. Afraternity must preserve a historical as well as a contemporaryidentity; it must enshrine through living lineage the constantprocess of becoming:

It was my good fortune to be a member of the Naval WarCollege Senior Class that graduated in June of 1923. AdmiralSims was President, and Departments of Strategy andTactics were headed by Captain Reginald Belknap andJ.M.Reeves—both splendid leaders 108

So Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz could write to a new presidentat Newport, Adm. Charles Melson, in 1965. As he gave hiscounsel to the younger officer, did he cast back for a moment tothat first June morning in 1922, when as a junior commander hewaited intently for the words of the great Sims, just as Sims musthave, as a student in the summer of 1911, for the opening lectureof Mahan? So this, the "vertical axis" of generationalassociation, created an enduring process, which took strongestroot under Sims' presidency and remained ascendant. During

the early postwar years, 1919-1923, NcNamee, Pringle, Laning,held staff positions when Standley, Stark, Hart, Taussig, andNimitz were students. Pringle was president from 1927-1930and his student list reads like a battle report: Hewitt, McCain,Lee, Oldendorf, Kincaid, Fletcher. The Class of 1933, whenHarris Laning was President, included both King and Halsey,with Spruance as a staff member. In 1934, with Luke McNameeas President, Richardson, Carpenter, Zacharias, and WilsonBrown were all at Newport.109

This is one way of tracing the lineal descent of the associationsof the Command fraternity from generation to generation: thevertical axis. In just three instances—McNamee, Pringle,Laning—three proteges of Sims at Newport carried on hisvision to a later generation, as future presidents. Some of theleaders of the Second World War era—Nimitz, Standley, Stark,Hart, Taussig—were in Newport during the Sims' presidency.Others applied for membership from Sims' disciples. All ofthem, all those who would fight in future war, carried fromNewport to the fleet a small piece of Sims' vision modeled on theembryo of his own experience.

From this rollcall of names can be sensed the historicalrealization of Sims' fraternity of Command, shaped from 1919-1923. Pratt, Belknap, Laning, Yarnell, and Knox were each amember of Sims' informal "band of brothers" in the prewarAtlantic Torpedo Flotilla or on his wartime staff. After theGreat War, he brought them to Newport.110 They dominatedtheir staff positions and left their stamp: Knox in Command,Belknap in Strategy, Yarnell in War Plans. Pratt and Laningeach served as president. Sims took the personal fraternity hehad forged, through North Atlantic gale and wartimediplomacy, and made of it an institution.

Men who had worked closely with Sims, Pratt, Laning,McNamee, Pringle, or, in the case of Kalbfus, trained underPratt, controlled the War College presidency through theinterwar era. The inheritance of Sims was passed down almostuninterrupted from 1919-1941. As Belknap, in tribute, wrote toSims in 1923:

In any war within fifteen years our naval leadership wouldbe in the hands of those who served under you at the WarCollege....111

In retrospect, perhaps his predication should be recognized asprophecy.

Even in peace, the fibers of Sims' Command fraternity beganto penetrate the depth of Service administration. By the early1920s, War College men were already beginning to dominateboth the CNO's Office and the General Board, in anothertriumphant Belknap message to Sims:

Since [1920] the influence of War College trained men inthe Navy Department has steadily grown. In the War PlansDivision up to May last were six who received theirdiplomas from you. Admiral Rodgers, Pratt, Schofield, andthe President of the War College, on the General Board; theDirector of Naval Intelligence and the Attaches in Englandand France; the last two and the new Assistants to the Chiefof Naval Operations—all are War College Men.112

In the statistics of association is no convincing evidence ofcomaraderie, the unspoken measure of a fraternity. Thosepersonal allegiances, and private oaths, are not revealed by lists.

But there are some fragments of verse.

They were found in Sims' papers, a memory that "BlueRibbon" class, the War College Summer Conference of 1912.With W.L. Rodgers* as president; sims and Knox andSchofield** and Pratt, and Capt. E.H. Ellis of the Marines, theElijah-like prophet of the Pacific War, it was a class toremember, for their doctrine and their leadership would definethe course of interwar Newport. How high was their espritlWitness

There's a chap by the name of Schofield,With two sides to his logical shield.

This shield's a doctrine

That's made of tough skin.

It is all of one piece

And is slippery with grease.

If you punch either side

The blows slip off the hide.

You can hit it a crack

On the front or the back,But you can't make the cussed thing yield!

***

•Author of the portentous memorandum to the General Board, July 1915.••Chief of the London Planning Section, 1918; both predominant in Chapter IV, "Mission andEthos."

Why is Commander Pratt like a fleet of 50 vessels in a singlecolumn?

Because he has a very bad disposition for either attack ordefense.

*#*

There's a certain young chappie named Knox

Who is terribly heterodox.

There's no tactical rule

That he don't ridicule;He's got something loose in his box.

**#

There's a frisky marine they call EllisWhose ability makes some folks jealous

He's a soldier all right

But a tactical blight.

He can plot on the board

So your fleet's always gored.

He can hand you a whack

From a torpedo attack,And with gleeful elation he'll quell us.113

This collection of War College "verse," entitled, "War is aTerrible Thing," laughing at the idiosyncrasies of the"confreres," the absurdities of war gaming, the abstruseness ofdoctrine, an archival shard of humor, a forgotten document offun; this pastiche of limericks, parodies, and bad puns is acentral, significant evidence of esprit.

In laughing at themselves as well as their teachers andcourses, they reveal Newport as more than a "happy ship." Thisplayful "roasting" is the surest signal in any group of goodfellowship: of confidence in shared identity, of reveling in thesolidity of fraternal membership. Their humor was a symbolicexpression of common faith, con fidentia, in their unity ofmission, and in themselves. If anything, it was a kind ofcelebration:

What is the difference between an Estimate of the Situation,a Mission, a Decision and an Acceptable Solution?

An Estimate is what you think

A Mission is what you blink

A Decision is that from which you shrink

An Acceptable Situation is always punk.114

A generation later, in 1925, the jesting out of class still heldsway. "Slides Made By and Shown to Classes of 1925 U.S. NavalWar College" had more than a trace of the prankish spirit ofAnnapolis. If these slides were ever slipped into a regularlecture

Joint Course, NWC        45-min. Silent Lecture No. 2

Glossary of Synonymous Terms Used in This Lecture:

Estimate of the Situation

Conference

Staff Solution

The Orange War      ~^    ~ BULL

Joint Staff —-—-

Army and Navy Cooperation11

There is continuity here, too, and of humor, almost as thoughin the interweaving of the filaments of the education of mission:the lectures, the bibliography, the theses, the doctrine, thefraternity; they should at last be spliced in laughter, a starshellsign of success.

For Mission's spirit, and not its doctrine, drove these men.Almost unspoken, it left no files and no records; and its measureis yet beyond the storage capacity even of immortal archive.

PART IIITHE ENEMY

By all the canons of American policy and American tradition,there was no enemy. The United States was a peace-lovingnation; after 1919, by all declarations of the ascendant publicmood, victory had delivered a peace-loving world. In the dawn ofa new age, the very preservation of the concept of a nationalenemy was an act of atavistic hostility. Like the untouchableimage of "secret diplomacy," a war plan with a list of dramatispersonae was a Doric throwback to the Bronze Age behaviors ofthe prewar world: an ethos of arietation and inevitable war.Unlike the new Bolshevik regime, the United States after 1919would entertain no principles of realpolitik, no "primaryantagonist" to guide the formulation of foreign policy. But

To the Navy, the enemy was all. Before the creation of theWar Plans Division, Newport spent its summers in the draftingof potential war "situations." From the early years of thiscentury, America's oceanic antagonists were challenged andfought in chalk on the floors of the War College. Out ofconvenience and courtesy, the cast of characters was color-coded.The British Empire was RED, the German, BLACK, theJapanese, ORANGE. The United States was always BLUE.*

Between the World Wars, Newport no longer generated warplans. The gaming—the tactical and the strategic and thelogistical "problems" thrashed out in a hundred sessions in the"cockpit"—was still the testing of Washington's war plans. Inthose endless engagements, to the thundering guns imagined instill morning light, the War College still stretched the canvas forthe next war. As Belknap knew, the War Plans Division and theGeneral Board were run by Newport men.1 Pratt called the WarCollege "the home of thought."2 The Navy drew its sense ofMission and of Command from the War College, and warplanning reflected the higher ethos instilled there. On thefinished canvas, it reflected a sharp vision of the future.

*See Appendix I.

It reflected the face of battle, and the mask of the enemy.

The image of the enemy was fashioned at Newport. Not onlyin war games; it was etched in each of the components of theWar College Course. The image of the enemy was vital to theNavy: the oceanic enemy defined the Navy's role, its maskdefined the Navy's life. Between Versailles and Pearl Harbor,there were two enemies: RED and ORANGE.

RED was the color of tradition, and of common blood. REDwas the sentimental yardstick of the Navy's coming of age: tomeasure its growth against the wall marks left by an elder, rivalbrother. By all Navy allegiance of the heart, RED was like afamily antagonist: the clashes of Anglo-Saxon battle fleets offthe Grand Banks were rematches in fantasy from an oldcompetition, with all the gallantry of Hull and Dacres at thesurrender of Guerriere.

ORANGE was the pigment of Fate. As two destinies, tworacial comets whose orbits must inevitably, intersect so BLUEand ORANGE would one day do battle for command of thePacific. So many dry runs of this campaign, so many pitchedbattles in miniature, so many lectures and strategy sessions andCassandra pamphlets that this became an unstated Navy creed.The mask of the enemy as a general scale against which to assessAmerican strategic capability was lost. The mask of the enemywas lost to the thing behind the mask. Japan became the realenemy, in part creating, in part justifying, the Navy Mission:

Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects,man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in theliving act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown butstill reasoning thing puts forth the moulding of its featuresfrom behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strikethrough the mask!3

CHAPTER VIITHE CALLIMORPHOSIS OF THE ENEMY: RED

For the first American century, England was the incarnationof the oceanic enemy. In 1814, a British squadron had caused theCapitol to be burned. In two early wars, their wooden battleshipshad blockaded our coasts and reduced our marine. Duels ship toship with his Britannic Majesty's cruisers streaked the Navy'sfolkloric tradition with unforgettable glory. The Royal Navy wasthe only external force able to disturb directly the American"way of life." The British battle fleet and its bases was the 19thcentury's sole strategic weapon: it was the critical chink in themyth of American security.

The Navy looked forward to the prospect of war with Britainby looking backward. With 1812 as an enduring model,Americans thought of naval strategy through ancestral lenses,like a Roman of the late Republic contemplating a rerun of theSamnite wars. British battleships would blockade Americanports from snug harbors: Port Royal, St. George, and Halifax.Swift, powerful Yankee cruisers would sortie, broaching theAtlantic sealanes. This is what would have attended adeclaration of war in December 1861, when the Admiraltyassembled half the battle fleet to rush the northeast coast of theUnion.1 Throughout the century, the United States never onceattempted to follow Hamilton's strategic equation, to balancethe New World against the Old: to create a strategic lever, asquadron of battleships built to sail as a single unit. Americabuilt many capital ships in the 19th century; battleshipsoperating as cruisers. They never sailed together. There was nofleet doctrine, no training in squadron battle tactics. Strategy,unnamed, was unknown. For most of a century, Americapossessed in its handful of battleships the embryo of a strategicweapon and could not give it life.2

By 1815, the American shipbuilding industry with ease mighthave served as midwife to the birth of a strategic system. Duringthe Civil War, the Union laid down 56 ironclad warships. With

two exceptions, this monitor armada was little better than abattery of blockships drawn across a harbor mouth. They couldnot fight at sea. American industry might have launched a fleetto rival England's, and had the imagination but to apply steamand iron technology to the Jeffersonian vision, and a clutch ofglorified gunboats!3

America was unable to discard the ethos implied by theJeffersonian vision. For more than a century, the AmericanNavy was built and operated as though this nation was no morethan a fledgling continental polity, incapable of challenging themaritime powers. This was, after 1815, illusion. The stagnationof American thought on the strategic usage of a navy has animportant context in this thesis. Nineteenth-century stagnationseverely limited 20-century strategic thought. A primitiveparadigm of American naval strategy, entrenched in theexperience of 1812, stunted the growth of America's nascentstrategic system. Even when the appropriation sluices wereopened at the beginning of this century, the Navy was unable toemploy its flow effectively.

When American battleships finally, formally began operatingas a unit, in 1903, the Service passed the strategic watershed.Jeffersonian myopia was exchanged for Hamiltonian exotropia.4When the Atlantic Fleet was formed, in 1906, the New Worldhad its arbiter.

In the first two decades of the 20th century, the Navy'sstrategic vision was truly Hamiltonian. There were threecommon motifs between 18th and 20th-century battle murals.There was an identity of combat theaters. The American was thesecond fleet. The enemy was often the British Empire. War withBritain, as envisaged by the Naval War College in 1912, read likea passage out of MacCauley:

Twenty-two thousand troops are rushed to Canada, andarrive off Quebec on D plus 6. The Main Red Fleet, all 46battleships, anchors at Halifax on D plus 9. Control of thePacific is established by Red on D plus 31. A Redexpeditionary force of 80638 assaults New York on D plus26, and 79927 reinforcements embark on D plus 56. On Dplus 30, 37782 ANZACs assemble at Suva for an assault onthe unfinished Panama Canal. The Blue Fleet, inferior toRed by more than half, must avoid battle and blockade.5

Instinctively, the Navy accepted Hamilton's world along withhis world view, and grafted  18th-century grand strategy, as

though it were still living tissue, onto a world transformed,unrecognizable in its mutation. The scenario of the 1912 WarCollege drama suggests a rematch of the American Revolu-tionary and Seven Year's War combined. "Black Dick" Howeanchors off New York with a fleet of dreadnoughts, andBurgoyne marches down the Hudson Valley equipped withVickers machineguns and 18-pounders. The American Fleet,like Conflans racing to Quiberon Bay, flees before the BritishChannel Squadron. The curse of the Hamiltonian strategicequation was that it, too, was cast in antique images. Unlike theJeffersonian, it was an outward-facing vision, posited - onstrategic leverage, with a battle squadron as fulcrum. Yet it waspoured into a defensive mold; its final shape was confined to thehistorical parameters of a world that no longer existed.

This was the pernicious inheritance of arrested evolution.When America and its Navy elevated Mahan to the strategicpriesthood during the 1890s, one 18th-century model wasexchanged for another; for Mahan was, at heart, an 18th-centuryman. He exalted in the struggle for empire, he reveled in the ageof fighting sail. A naval generation was weaned at Newport onEnglish battles and English victories: Anson, Rodney, Nelson,Howe, Blake; these were the Command models. England wasthe only authentic seapower: Tridens quondam, tridens futurus.In all paradox, Mahan was of more use to the British than to hisown service. He created, within the American Navy, asubliminal sensation of maritime inferiority. At the end of the19th century, having forged in steel the world's first economy,America felt that ambitions beyond the world's second fleetwere historically undeserved.6

The first 20 years of this century marked the last resurgence ofBritish seapower. Mahanian anglophilia and astounding Britishbattleship programs linked historical and contemporary imagesof eternal English naval supremacy. Only irony can characterizethe process: as American naval officers admired the Royal Navy,so they to that measure lost confidence in themselves. So it waswith the Hochseeflotte, Britain's avowed rival. Both theAmerican and the Imperial German Fleets of the prewar worldwere haunted by unspoken feelings of inferiority. The image ofthe Royal Navy was invincible.

This is the essence of the callimorphosis of RED. Bytransforming the image of the Atlantic enemy into positiveform, from foe to rival, antagonist to competitor, the Navy wasable to keep faith in its own destiny. As long as the Royal Navy

remained supreme, the American Navy must aspire to the imageof an equal engagement. Britain's battle fleet became theabsolute scale. If the U.S. Navy could create strategic stalematein a campaign with even the greatest navy

Hamilton had offered such a vision: a deterrent force, adefensive disuasor in a clout of capital ships. Using America's"commanding position," such a force would with ease "inclinethe balance" in the New World. What Hamilton urged in 1787was fulfilled in 1895 and 1903. American battleships were thearbiters of the Hemisphere, "to dictate the terms of theconnection between the old and the new world!"7

This was their limit as well.

By adopting a Hamiltonian strategic vision, the Navydescribed a defensive operating theater. The "cockpit" lay in thesugar islands of the West Indies, as in the days of Rodney, Hood,and De Grasse. The "key to the continent," Halifax, was but aday's sail from the legendary fortress, Louisbourg. This strategicseascape stunted the development of transoceanic seapower.Tabletop battles with BLACK, the Imperial German Fleet,invariably ended in reruns of the Saintes, 1782. As Bradley Fiskeremarked, in 1915, transatlantic enemies "violating the MonroeDoctrine will come to us, and we will then have the strategicadvantage."8

Only Japan and the reaches of the Pacific could spur theimpetus to the offensive; and, before 1919, ORANGE was a palehue in the rainbow of potential foes.

This pattern of prewar evolution is crucial to anunderstanding of the interwar mutation of RED. As aconditional concept of the Atlantic enemy, RED between thewars was the strategic scale in the measured viability ofAmerican security. Two perceptual displacements wereresponsible: the callimorphosis of RED, and the accession of theHamiltonian strategic vision.

The process of callimorphosis, from 1895-1917, permittedthe U.S. Navy to discard the image of the Royal Navy as apotential enemy, while still retaining the context of a strategicbalance. As the world's strongest fleet postwar, the Royal Navywas a precise scale, a standard for measurement. By creating thepositive antagonism of a school or family rivalry, just enoughemotion was injected into the war gaming process to lend theexercise the patina of reality.

Hamilton's strategic vision, the yet unrecognized ricochet ofMahan,   demarcated   hemispheric   security   along   a   rigidly

defensive sea frontier. The concept of the Atlantic enemy,whether British or German, RED or BLACK, was rooted in an18th-century conceit: until the spring of 1940. A unilateralAtlantic offensive by America on a European or African axis laybeyond thought. A vigorous "forward defense," embracing theamphibious seizure of Iceland or the Azores, lay uncontemplatedthrough the interwar era.9

Through the callimorphosis of RED, the Navy was able towrestle with the challenging, if spectral form of a superiormaritime power in game, though amity reigned in reality. Theclassical tradition of an antique strategic vision was in part acorollary postulate to the image of a BLUE-RED war. The U.S.Navy, interwar, was incapable of placing the fantasy of a sea warwith Britain in the context of an Atlantic offensive. The sublimeemotional weight of historical imagery could not be shrugged:the Navy simply could not imagine American warships incombat off the coasts of Italy and France, or even in the storm-gray mid-Atlantic.

"The Strategy of the Atlantic," as it was christened at the WarCollege, became a ritual interwar abstract: of classical combatwith the British battle fleet, off Trinidad or the Georges Bank.Yet as a measure ot growing self-confidence, the continuingcallimorphosis of RED between the wars offered a series ofperceptual benchmarks. For the U.S. Navy, it was a graph ofgrowing strength.

Cdr. Holloway Frost was the interwar seer of "The Strategy ofthe Atlantic." His lectures at Newport on Jutland, and hisbriefings on the course of a BLUE-RED war, outlined theattitudes of his service toward a traditional foe. Beyond imagery,his analyses precursed the Navy Department's formal war planagainst the British Empire.

"The Strategy of the Atlantic" was his seminal lecture, firstdelivered before the General Staff College, in the capital, on 9September 1919. Frost's panorama was inspired by the firstpostwar suggestion of Anglo-American war drawn, ironically,by Americans in London. Knox, McNamee, and Schof ield, of theU.S. Naval Planning section, in Memorandum No. 67, werediscussing the causes of conflict between former allies just 10days after the Armistice.10

Memorandum No. 67 used the impostumate image of warwith one's ally, voiced in his capital, as a rhetorical means ofexpediting the American battleship building program, thenstagnant. Frost's motives were more dispassionate. Each essay

saw the surest source of conflict in "trade rivalry": "Successfultrade rivalry strikes at the very root of British prosperity, andthreatens even the existence of the British Empire."11 Frostechoed the judgment of the London Planning Section:

No nation, which bases its prosperity on trade can exist with

a  major  adverse trade balance A nation doomed to

commercial defeat will usually demand a military decision

before this commercial defeat is complete The British

may be forced into a war to maintain their commercialsupremacy, which is essential to the existence of the BritishEmpire. No one could blame them for starting such a war.12

This is less of a Darwinian smear of "survival of the fittest" thanit is an unconscious reimaging of the sugar and spice wars of the18th century. Frost, Knox, McNamee, Schofield, the emergingintellectual leadership, tended to follow the steepened prejudiceof the first Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. William S. Benson;as he, in turn, dimly mirrored the fears of the young Federalists.For 400 years, England had disposed a determined sequence ofmaritime rivals: Spain, Holland, France, Germany. WouldAmerica be next?13

Before the watershed of the Washington Conference, theofficers of the American Navy paid tribute to their own,unalloyed image of the Royal Navy. To them, in lineal descent,the Grand Fleet of 1918 was envisaged through the same glass bywhich another generation awaited the Grand Fleet of 1812. TheRoyal Navy was something big, heroic, even immortal. TheBritish Empire, flushed with victory, was a historical force. LikeFrost, they knew the British economy was exhausted, its financeswrecked; American officers recorded Empire unrest in Irelandand India, they watched Dominion allegiance recede.14

Still they looked for the resolution of Pitt, the temerity ofNelson, to emerge from the adversity of postwar Britain. SurelyBritannia would meet the challenge of Wilson's big battleships;if war ever came between England and America, surely theoffensive initiative would be seized by the Grand Fleet. This wasFrost's thesis: America could not openly oppose the Britishbattle fleet, clotted with dreadnoughts, 42 to a Yankee 15. InFrost's war plan, the United States must assault and seizeHalifax and Louisbourg in 6 days, Bermuda in 7, and Jamaica in17, if our hazardry was to have any hope of victory. Were theGrand Fleet to arrive in the New World before the leathernecks

had secured Halifax, then the campaign would be all but lost.Unless an amphibious blitz cut RED communications withCRIMSON (Canada), English shipping would soon pour afreshet of veteran divisions, hardened in the Great War, into theSt. Lawrence Valley, as they had in 1814, to bring stalemate onthe Canadian frontier.15

The canvas of this "modern" strategy should have beencommissioned for Benjamin West. In the capture of Louisbourg,he could have used the first assault, in 1745, as model, withWilliam Pepperall and his New Englanders. Jeffrey Amherst's1760 campaign down the St. Lawrence Valley could characterizethe Canadian campaign. How like the siege of Havana in 1762,was the image of American Marines assaulting the defenses ofKingston!16

So rooted was the 18th-century association of Anglo-American war with a classical combat theater, not even thespectral strategy of global war could tear up its tracery. As longas the British and Japanese Empires remained in transoceanicalliance, America was forced to plan for the gauzy contingency ofa two-front sea war. The occasion of the Navy's first crystal-gazing into global war was, again, a lecture by Frost, deliveredbefore the General Staff College late in 1920. "The NavalOperations of a Red-Orange Campaign," like "The Strategy ofthe Atlantic," was the conceptual text for the first WarPortfolios of the War Plans Division.17 Copies of both wererelayed to the War College from the War Plans Division.18

Nine months before the Imperial Conference informallyensured the dissolution of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Frostassumed that in a war with ORANGE, intervention by RED wasimprobable, for the same cause that would scuttle the alliance:the hostility of the White Dominions. In a war with RED, Frostcountered, "it seems practically certain that ORANGE wouldimmediately declare war on BLUE."19 Frost had grasped theconcept of a "Two-Ocean War." The context was fantastic; theproblem it posed, prophetic.

There was a chance, then, to test, with 20 years' grace, thetexture and the theory of simultaneous naval operations alongAmerica's sea frontiers. By defining Britain as the primaryopponent, the Navy confined its perception of the problem to apredicate of associations of the Atlantic enemy. This processlimited basic assumptions of the possible to a strategy ofhemispheric defense. Frost's RED-ORANGE campaign was areplay of "The Strategy of the Atlantic," with Japan thrown in as

a sideshow. Again, Halifax and Kingston must be assaulted, andTrinidad too, if there is time. The Asiatic Fleet is stranded tohold the Philippine fort, if it can, while the Pacific moiety of adivided U.S. Fleet struggles to hold Hawaii.20

Frost permitted an abject American defense. Although headmitted "that in the second year of the war the BLUE fleet inthe Atlantic will be superior to the RED fleet," Frost wasdisinclined to offer an oceanic offensive. This is a paradox, andthe essential historical recognition in the essay. Frost wasperhaps the single interwar officer in his service most imbuedwith the "offensive spirit":

I hope that I was able to emphasize the necessity of ourofficers being infused with the offensive spirit; it isnecessary that we develop what might be called "OffensiveMinds" in the service; and to instill in all the idea of thinkingabout what we can do to the enemy rather than what theenemy can do to us.21

This plea for a combat ethos, relayed to Sims from China in1923, seems to contradict the strategic spirit of his earlier essays.There is no contradiction. The truth is that, through the 1920s,the U.S. Navy was only slowly to cast off the hackles of hero-worship, and the still subliminal sensations of inferiority to theRoyal Navy. In 1920 there was every prospect of a renewal of theAnglo-Japanese alliance, in name if not in spirit. Britain's battlefleet equalled in number those of the next five powerscombined.22 His Majesty's Government had announced itsreadiness to lay down new capital ship keels to keep thatmargin.23 No Navy could match their combat experience, savethe squadrons of the vanquished scuttled at Scapa Flow.

This incredible, indefinable moral suasion, what Frost called"an imponderable moral ascendancy"; this measureless assetwas liquidated at Washington in 1922.24 American officers, likeKnox, who saw a vision of emerging New World navalsupremacy dismantled on the ways, railed bitterly at "TheEclipse of American Seapower."25 They failed, in their anger, tosee that something far greater had been given up by Britain.Having measured 4 years in blood to hold a historical primacy,they meekly surrendered with mere ink four centuries ofstrategic tradition. Ten years were needed for the U.S. Navy tofeel the full fact of this abdication.

This was the second stage of the callimorphosis of RED. Thefirst, from 1895-1917, transformed the Royal Navy from anenemy to a useful and instructive rival, a model to strive againstin game, not in combat. From 1919 to the mid-1950s, Americannaval perceptions of RED, the Atlantic rival, endured a deepermetamorphosis. Britain accepted the principle of parity withAmerica at Washington. During the 1920s, tactical games andstudies developed at Newport diagnosed from the principle ofparity, the promise of reality. In accepting the implications ofequality, the U.S. Navy impelled a metamorphosis of self.

The gestation was drawn out over a decade. At Washington,Britain was granted a dreadnought edge of 22: 18 over America: apolitical concession to save the Lion's face. To American navalofficers, this was a decisive edge; and Britannia had saved morethan pride by treaty. Capt. J.M. Reeves was Chief of theDepartment of Tactics at Newport in 1925. His analysis, "ATactical Study Based on the Fundamental Principles of War ofthe Employment of the Present BLUE Fleet in a Battle Showingthe Vital Modifications Demanded by Tactics," for all of itstendentiousness, was stark animadversion. The thesis wastroubling:

The foregoing study makes it evident that the BLUE Fleet asit exists today can not engage the RED Fleet in gun actionwith any prospect of victory. Every recent tactical exercise,or war game, at the War College has shown this in the mostemphatic manner. In the last tactical exercise four REDcapital ships were eliminated before the action began in aneffort to give the BLUE Fleet some slight chance of victory.The result, as usual, was decisive defeat for BLUE.26

There was no skirting this assessment. In all battlelineencounters between the RED and BLUE fleets on the gamefloor, between 1923 and 1925, BLUE lost. In Tactical ProblemIV (Tac. 94), fought by the Class of 1923—"The Battle of theEmerald Bank"—BLUE lost all 18 battleships to RED gunfire.RED Dread-casualties were less than 40 percent.26 The onlycombat victory over RED was achieved in 1924: TacticalProblem II (Tac.lO/Mod.9). RED lost eight capital ships in"The Battle of Sable Island," and BLUE but one. BLUE'sbattleline was spared by a successful, and sacrificial, sortie bymassed BLUE destroyer squadrons. A torpedo rush with suchluck was beyond Scheer's skill at Jutland, and BLUE could not

throw away dozens of destroyers in the hope of saving theirprecious battlewagons.28 BLUE must rely on its "primaryweapon" for victory.

The capital ship was the "primary weapon" and, in 1925, "it isevident the BLUE Commander cannot win victory by means ofhis primary weapon alone."29 This was Reeves' litany of BLUEinferiority:

RED Vital Factors of Materiel Superiority

1. Superior Fleet Speed 5.5%

2. Superior Numbers of Ships 22.2%

3. Superior Gun Power 15%-230%

4. Superior Effective Fire 35%-400%

5. Superior Types of Guns 40%

6. Superior Thickness of Deck Armor 15

7. Superior Ability to Penetrate Vitals 4l%-81

'%

RED  has superiority in every vital factor of materielstrength for a modern gun engagement.30

By Reeves' definition, the American Battle fleet was committedto an antique image of high seas combat, fought at short, stand-up, high noon ranges. Long before then, at long ranges, 24,000yards and more, the Yankee battlewagons would be sinking:

The BLUE Fleet can not, under such a handicap, enter thefatal zone to engage in a gun duel and hope to escape. Oncein the fatal zone the BLUE Fleet can not escape by means ofher speed, nor fight off the RED Fleet by means of herguns.31

There was but one solution. Plaster the decks with steel plate,crank up gun elevation, and learn to shoot and hit hard at 30,000yards. Between 1926 and 1934, New York, Texas, Nevada,Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Mississippi, Idaho, and NewMexico were brought up to standard.32 Shooting at long rangewas tested with West Virginia in 1925, using airplanes forspotting over the horizon.33 By 1937, Admiral Reeves, nowCINCUS, could report with pride to the Secretary of the Navythat the battle fleet could smother the enemy at 30,000 yards;and that this tremendous reach, the power to hit the enemy inthe "Outer Zone," was the "greatest advantage the United StatesNavy possessed."34

The balance was tilting. In London, 1930, Britain accepted15:15 in dreadnoughts, 50:50 in cruisers. Perhaps MacDonald, inWashington in the autumn of 1929, wished to set an earlyprecedence in appeasement. American officers sensed theimmutable shifting of forces. Through the 1930s their serviceshared materiel equality with the old rival. To this freshsensation was added then a gathering recognition of moralsuperiority.

America's battle fleet, rebuilt and reinvigorated, could nowoutrange the British bulwark by 10,000 yards, and sink thembefore they came within fighting reach. The reversal wascomplete. As Yarnell averred in 1930:

Personally I consider that the United States Battle Fleet issuperior to the British Battle Fleet. At least I would nottrade.35

This American Navy was losing its awe of legend. At the WarCollege, regular reruns of "The Battle of Sable Island" wererescheduled for 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1938. In OperationsProblem VI (Tactical), played by the Senior Class of 1938, BLUElost four big ships; RED limped away with twelve dreadnoughtsawash.36 The New World was testing its mettle. In themetronymy of naval supremacy, American officers werebeginning to see the substitution of the Old World by the Newan easy envisage.

From enemy to rival to ward: the callimorphosis wascomplete. At the end of the Great War, the American Navy wasstill wrestling with the figures of myth, celebrated by Mahan,that as Titans confronted a generation of Newport classes. Whatbetter emblem of assumed inferiority than the American changeof uniform, ordered in April 1918. In a despairing protest, RearAdm. Hugh Rodman, commanding Battleship Division Nine,operating with the Grand Fleet, accused the Navy Departmentof exchanging a "respected, distinctly American blouse" for aBritish "rig," "only to gratify the whims of those who want tocopy the English":

I can see no earthly reason for abandoning our own uniformand adopting one that cannot be told from the British andthus lose our identity as Americans 37

By aping the British "monkey jacket," we not only paid homage,we humbled ourselves, genuflecting before a false god. This was

Rodman's remonstrance, revealing, at the last crest of Britishvictory at sea, how fragile still was America's emerging navalidentity.

Even after Washington, the Royal Navy held moral sway inthe minds of American officers. At mid-decade, Britishbattleline predominance was the prevailing postulatethroughout the service. Not only at Newport, where Reeves wascollecting his damning data, but in Washington. As a body, theGeneral Board solemnly advised the Secretary of the Navy that"the British Fleet has approximately twice as effective fire as ourown at long ranges. We cannot assume a moral superiority. Themore the question is analyzed, the more nearly the answer

appears to be a certainty of defeat for us "38 If any innate

"moral superiority" was assumed by American officers, it wasassigned to RED. As the American Naval Attache in Londonwrote to Dudley Knox, at O.N.I., late in 1923:

The essence of the matter may be summed up that theBritish have never had any intention at any time of agreeing

to an equality in Sea Power with any other nation I have

no hesitancy in stating that the British Navy has never beenas efficient as it is today, and that the British Battle Fleet ismarkedly superior to that of the U.S.39

These passages shelter the latent, still strong, sense of moral andmateriel inferiority in the uncertain imaginations of Americannaval leadership.

Reeves' escape clause, and the steady modernization of thebattle fleet erased the materiel factor. MacDonald's submissionat London in 1930 marked a receding moral tide: from myth, tothe merely mortal. As Knox judged in March 1931:

The BLUE Fleet is now able to meet the RED Fleet on equalterms.40

Perceived equality was recognized at the interwar pivot. Fromthere, for Britain, it was to be a downhill slide. Flaccid foreignpolicy, and a fast eroding strategic balance at sea, were seen assure signs of decay. In 1933 King commented in his SeniorThesis that "our growth and our strength have virtually reduced

Great Britain to second place Truly, Great Britain must be

considered a potential enemy, not in questions of security, but asto matters involving our foreign trade, financial supremacy, and

Ill

our dominant position in world affairs."41 No longer a strategicthreat to America, Britain was of interest only in terms of theconflicts inevitably arising from the transfer of power, and thelegitimation of a new world leader.

American impressions did not improve as war tensionsstretched. At the preliminaries to the second London NavalConference in 1934, Adm. William H. Standley was shocked atthe permeation of "Pacifist influence" throughout the Britishleadership. American armament, not Japanese, seemed thecritical concentration of the English Camp: "It was evident fromthe beginning that the British were levelling their pacifist gunsat me."42 The burnt offerings of appeasement did not sit wellwith American naval officers. Adm. J.O. Richardson spoke forhis service:

The willingness of the British to appease the Italians and theGermans came as an unpleasant surprise to me. Theseactions ... led me to question whether Great Britain could berelied upon to fight, with arms, for a moral cause.43

As their government "lost markedly in moral stature," so inequal measure did their navy. Procrastinative rearmament, sovery ginger naval deployment in the Abyssinian Crisis, andnaked haste to deliver a renascent Hochseflotte through themidwifery of treaty, disturbed American officers. The templewas gutted; the gods had departed.

So unseemly was their collapse that American officers,instinctively, began to revise recent history. How, in a singlegeneration, could a people so willingly discard the navalinstrument of their tetrakosaria of greatness? Had the GrandFleet, in armistice ascendancy, carried within its bunkers theseeds of decay?

Holloway Frost's dissection of the last, whipping clash ofbattlelines—Jutland—appeared in 1936. His polemic, as in theGreek rrokefioo, or war, cruelly stripped the Royal Navy of itslast tatters of historical pride. The appearance of victory in theGreat War was a mask, hiding the shameful failure of the GrandFleet to achieve decision in battle. What the Royal Navysurrendered at Washington in 1922 was the physical shell,without virtus. That ineffable spirit had departed 6 years before,at Jutland:

... a "Trafalgar" on May 31, 1916, would have reestablishedBritish naval supremacy for a long time to come. Such

ascendency depends as much upon moral as upon materialfactors, and the British lost that imponderable moralascendency at Jutland. Never again would American orJapanese sailors be overawed by the powerful, evenoverwhelming force of British naval tradition. The sequelwas that in 1922 Great Britain conceded parity to the UnitedStates ....44

In the 1920s, Frost's judgment would have earned derision. TheNaval Institute would not have considered publishing hismassive essay. In the year of the Abyssinian Crisis and theAnglo-German Naval Agreement, Frost's big work was hailedby his service. He was historian, not heresiarch. He reflected the"spirit of the age"; the Royal Navy, and the empire it served, hadsold its soul in the present. For this, it was damned in the past.Suddenly, to the U.S. Navy, H.M.S. "had grown old."45This chronicle of callimorphosis suggests more than the sumof changing perceptions of RED. Callimorphosis implies achanging toward the good. As the American Navy shed itslayered store of historical imagery—of 18th-century provincialstrategy, of hero-worship, of instinctive inferiority—and lookedhard at modern Britain, it was set free.

Free to believe in itself: as the best, the most battleworthyfleet on the world ocean. Free to contemplate its own, incipientascendancy.

CHAPTER VIIITHE CACOMORPHOSIS OF THE ENEMY: ORANGE

In the No play of America and Japan, the second part, astradition decreed, was played in full armor, in martial masks.This, the tragic center of the trilogy, from 1906 to 1945, wasacted in naval battle dress. In the time of sailing ships, whenAmerica's only trans-Kurile connection lay with bluff-bowed,frigate-ported, whaling brigs, the navy of Biddle and Perryopened the doors of Japan to "amicable intercourse." With thecoming of coal and steel, and the forging of two Pacific battlefleets, the scenes, and the masks were changed.

The cacomorphosis of ORANGE evolved within twoperceptual spheres. In the world of professional behaviors theNavy responded to the slow estrangement of two cultures withthe preparation of war plans: the dispassionate duty of theNaval Establishment. Administrative bureaus within theCorporate Ethos attended to the task: scenarios andcontingencies ritually proferred to the policymakers on theCapitoline. This was the structural mission of the service, thevisible role of the peacetime Navy within the Federalframework, the domestic mask. This the Navy wore in theperformance of its assigned part, as it faced a potential enemy aswell enmasked, each playing its role in the pursuit of antebellumpolicy.

Beneath the mask of peacetime planning, of managerialmission; beneath the formal face of routine role were thestronger features of subcutaneous identity. Operational Ethosarticulated the abstracted imagery of meaning: the symbolicsense of self so central to the survival of the Navy Ethos. TheNavy was a warrior society; distilled to essence, it existed forcombat. Management was a means to war preparation, not anend. The Navy mission was not bureaucratic; it was Homeric. Inpeace this was easily forgotten, and this oblivion encouragedwithin the American political arena. To keep mission, andidentity, alive, the enemy was made real. Beneath the mask of

the enemy, and the Navy's public, dispassionate, persona, wasthe emotional characterization of combat. In the dualcacomorphosis of ORANGE, strategic planning was the coolmedium: the mask. The escalating ORANGE war portfolio,through this century, mirrored in memorandum-imagery thevisceral subcurrents of hostility, and the readiness to strikethrough the mask.

The Naval War College was the surgical instrument in thistransformation of service perception: Japan's evilmetamorphosis. Strategic planning for war with Japan began atNewport; through the interwar era it was the operating theaterof the War Plans Division. In war game and postmortemanalysis, Washington's plans against ORANGE were tested andmeasured, purified and recast. Newport was the laboratory.

War planning was the formal, superficies of this mutation.

It began, innocently, in 1897. A quick essay by Newport's"Board of Defenses"—"War with Spain and Japan"—wasprompted by the Hawaiian crisis, and the tense visit of thecruiser Naniwa to Honolulu. This was the dim, embryonic imageof the "Two Ocean War"; and a sorry tale. Japan's navy seizes theinitiative, striking across the Pacific to Juan de Fuca:

... it is admitted that the Japanese might take temporarypossession of Puget Sound for the purpose of coaling... itwould be necessary for us to abandon the Sandwich Islandstemporarily and with our fleet fall back to the support of SanFrancisco.1

Here is a world view worthy of a minor navy; the operationalethos of a Scandinavian coast defense force. Even the presidentof the War College, Capt. Caspar Goodrich, offered fewpropitiations to the Assistant Secretary, Theodore Roosevelt,eager to "smash up" the Japanese Fleet. "Our marked numericalinferiority" would preclude an offensive into Japanese homewaters, he confessed, and "the College regrets that facts seem toforbid a rapid, vigorous, successful war."2

This skirted simple strategic truth: in five decades ofcommercial and diplomatic intercourse, had relations betweenAmerica and Japan been breached, both powers would have beenphysically hard put to prosecute a war. Without battle fleets andforward bases, even the stakes of "interest" could not havecompelled a decision. Yet, ironically, this was the indivisiblekernel that would defy the theory of American transpacific

strategy, all the way to 1941. Japan would keep pace. Throughoutthe interwar era, the Battle Force and its Advanced Base nevermanaged to merit more than gamblers' odds.

In 1900 Japan was not yet enmasked. Lt. J.M. Ellicott producedanother fantasy scenario in the manner of the 1897 studies. Withthe American battle fleet gestating on the Atlantic, Ellicott toyedwith the specter of a Japanese invasion of California via SantaBarbara. These idle daydreams were an outgrowth of generalPacific insecurity. America in 1900 held little ironclad leveragein that ocean; Japan was a useful yardstick to measure Americanneeds.3

Before Port Arthur and Tsushima, Russia wore the mask ofthe Pacific enemy. Ellicott wrote a more serious memorandumin 1900 than his "Fall of Los Angeles" script. From Newport, headdressed the General Board on the prospect of a Russiandescent on the Philippines, and urged alliance with Japan.4 RearAdm. George Remey, Commander of the Asiatic Squadron, tookthe same stance in 1902 at the height of Russian-Americanrivalry in China.5 That summer after Remey's initiative, the WarCollege "Problem of 1902" fulfilled this spasm of prematureRussophobia with a complete "campaign." A "Triple Alliance"of America, Britain, and Japan face France and its Ursine ally.The war lacks zest, and Allied armies get stalemated in Koreaaround the 38th parallel, 50 years too soon.6

Mahan was the first to see the Pacific as the arena of naval andnational destiny. When the Navy reflexed in the Venezuelancrisis, and found a new enemy in the German Reich, Mahanmade instant exception. The Newport summer conference, the"Course of 1903," urged that the battle fleet be kept undivided inthe Atlantic.7 Mahan, like "stern Achilles, shaded by his sails, Onhoisted yards extended to the gales; Pensive he sat":

To remove our fleet—battle fleet—from the Pacific wouldbe a declaration of policy and a confession of weakness. Itwould mean a reversion to a policy narrowly American, and

essentially defensive, which  is  militarily vicious The

American question, the Monroe principle, is as nearlyestablished as is given to international questions to be. ThePacific and Eastern is not in that case, and is the greatcoming question.8

The War College was seduced by the mesmeric image ofTeutonic ironclads striking across the North Atlantic, ravishing

the Caribbean, violating the Monroe Doctrine. PrewarDarwinian imagery labeled a "virile" Germany as the new,emotional enemy. From 1903 to 1919, the Navy placed the Reichin the Hamiltonian strategic theater, RED's traditional harbor.Germany wore the mask, in the sinister code-color: BLACK.Monroe was still stronger than Mahan, and Atlanticiconography still held sway in Service world view.9

Diplomatic crisis with Japan led to rushed war planning atNewport; and the first Pacific War Portfolio, ORANGE, wascodified by 1911.10 This was important: before 1919, the AtlanticEnemy, calligenic (RED) and cacogenic (BLACK), waspredominant. Japan was still an exercise, not an enemy.

In sudden recognition, at the end of the Great War, the Navywas confronted with the operational specter of a Pacific war.What had been a contingency without seniority between 1907and 1917 became, even as they sprinkled sand on the VersaillesTreaty, the conditional priority of the next war. No longer in theprocess of becoming, Mahan's "question" had arrived.

In 1906 war postulates against ORANGE held a leisurelypace. Without the Panama Canal, the itinerary of war opposed avigorous timetable. The "Conference of 1906, Solution ofProblem" was the War College document that spawned theGeneral Board's advisory plan: cryptically entitled, "In Case ofStrained Relations with Japan."11 A curious prescriptive. Battlestrategy is reduced to three pages, listed in recitation like the"principles of war" from an academy text. The long journey ofthe BLUE battle fleet, to battle rendezvous off the Trojan shore,needs forty.12

Like Rojestvenskiy's fated fleet, the U.S. "Combined Fleet"was to steam bravely out of Chesapeake Bay, make for Morocco,then the Mediterranean, then the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, theIndian Ocean, the Java Sea, and, at last, the Macassar Straits andthe gateway to Mindanao. After 87.64 days and 220,994 tons ofcoal, a tired fleet, in narrow straits, making for a beleagueredbase, would face the fresh ironclads of ORANGE, confidentship-killers, cleared for action.13

Now that America had her own imperial jewels in theOrient—the Philippines—more than commercial interestscalled for transpacific suasion. An interservice "JointCommittee," incorporating officers from the Army GeneralStaff and the Naval War College, strove to solve the conundrumof a successful war. Their assessment of the "Special Situation"was bleak:

When the United States Force shall have arrived [in thePhilippines] it will have no home coal mines and no naval

base in those waters The Japanese should be able to

approximate equality in numbers "Command of the

Sea" will thus not be established the moment our Atlantic

Fleet reaches the Philippines Our situation will be well

nigh desperate 14

Sailing around the world to relieve the Philippines was anoperational exercise with a single virtue: it offered the promiseof a short war. Before 1919 Manila was not worth a long mass.All would be well, the Joint Committee concluded, were Americabut to carve a fortified base by Subic Bay, strong enough to holdout for 3 months, and the weary Atlantic Fleet. If only "Subic Baycan be defended to the last," the war could be quickly, painlessly,won.13 Mahan's single bitter reply:

That we should have a stronghold impregnable as PortArthur Absit omen!

The omen would not be heeded. A short-war illusion lingeredon into the interwar era. Even when ORANGE donned themask of the primary enemy, planning still echoed hopes forquick conflict. The vastness of the Pacific could not yet be tamedby Victorian technology. Manila was close to Japan; the MainAmerican fleet was in the gray Atlantic, half a world away. Acoal-stoking, triple expansion navy could not hope to rescue anembattled base on Luzon. This was the hard truth:

The BLUE Fleet, arriving at Manila via Suez... would beexpended. That would end the war. If we call the time threemonths, the route via Suez means a short war, totallyunsuccessful for BLUE.16

Through the 1930s many hardly relished the alternative.

A long, grimy war, island to island, across the Pacific. A nice,fastidious campaign, in image more a sortie than a siege; cappedby a sharp, climatic engagement: this was the desideratum ofdomestic politics. Those policymakers constitutionally chargedwith the defense of America's Pacific spoils prayed for an easydefense. A long war was an expensive fantasy. There were toomany unjustifiable preparations to protracted conflict.Spasmodic   scenarios   were   attractive,   and   cheap;   it   was

"sensible" security. In the narrative evolution of war planningand the cacomorphosis of ORANGE, such subtle pressureshaded the perceptions of American officers. In high command,there was never an absolute standard of war readiness, or innational security, as J.O. Richardson discovered on the eve ofPearl Harbor.17

When Cdr. J.H.  Oliver,  in a  short memorandum to the

president of the Naval War College, 20 April 1907, forecast thetrue axis of the future Pacific War, he offered no more than"blood, tears, toil, and sweat":

Upon the outbreak of war in our present state ofunpreparedness, we must regard our oversea Pacificpossessions as temporarily lost, and proceed resolutely totheir re-conquest... through advance across the Pacificupon a broad strategic front. The initial loss must not deflectour true course.18

Four years later, 15 March 1911, Rear Adm. R.P. Rodgers, thenpresident of the War College, adopted this approach in the firstfull, formal war plan for ORANGE. Newport's "Strategic Planof Campaign Against ORANGE" was simple, and remained allbut unchanged for 30 years:

—The Fleet would sortie from Hawaii, and anchor

at the end of the line: Okinawa.—The axis of advance would cut the Central

Pacific, and incur the island-hopping seizure

of the Marshalls and Carolines.—Manila would be re-captured.—The Fleet would hike out with its own, mobile,

advanced base.—Japan would be brought to its knees through

blockade: economic strangulation.19

There would be no short war; there was no certainty even of aclimatic, setpiece sea battle: aTrafalgar-like'decision. Drawn ona canvas of early dreadnought technology, sans radar, sans Zero,sans B-29; it was a remarkable picture of "the shape of things tocome." Rodgers even suggested, in clairvoyance of Nimitz, "thatBLUE forces should be employed in the capture of the Lu ChuIslands [Okinawa], and the reduction of the Pescadores[Formosa] than to begin extensive land operations for therecapture of Luzon."20

When, in 1919, Japan became the primary antagonist, thenotional components of a transpacific offensive and a prolongednaval war were set and solidified. The endless interwar analysisof the ORANGE Plan was file and brush work: a polish job. In1911 war with Japan was imaged on a realistic operationalprocedure. The reworking, step by step, over the succeeding 30years did not improve the basic plan. Conditions changed.Advancing battle technology was an incremental bonus; theWashington Treaty, a premature handicap a generation beforethe race. Continuity of concept was never broken. Through 30years, an entire society of officers passed through Newport andfaithfully memorized the vision of the ORANGE Plan. Modernrevisionists claim that this was not "creative."21 They scoff atNimitz' tribute to Newport's indoctrination of ORANGE:"... the courses were so thorough that after the start of WWIInothing that happened in the Pacific was strange orunexpected."22 They should read Rodgers' prophetic picture,one he never lived to see. Those others at Newport that year,who worked in the drafting of that first plan—Sims, Pratt,Oliver, Schofield, W.L. Rodgers, and Mahan—were also dead, ortoo old for command in that far future war. The strategy theyshaped, and the mission that drove them all, they transmitted,from Mahan's 19th-century premonition, from generation togeneration, to ultimate, startling reality.23

The permeation of the 1911 plan can be traced through timeand through the naval society.

Between 1914 and 1920, the Navy accepted the initial fall ofthe Philippines. As Bradley Fiske admonished Josephus Danielsin 1914, "we cannot prevent the Japs from taking thePhilippines."24 In 1920 Sims told Daniels that the War College"has long held that the retention of Manila Bay cannot becounted on and that any plans based on its retention are inerror."25

The concept of a complete, self-contained mobile base,capable of drydocking and fleet repair of capital ships, waspioneered by Knox and Furer at Newport in 1921.26 By the endof 1927, a "Synopsis of a Preliminary Technical Study—BasicOrange Plan, Advanced Base." This, the fabulous "WesternBase," was to encompass 17 floating docks, 3 miles of piers, three125-ton cranes, 500,000 tons of fuel oil, 4,000 hospital beds, and37,600 officers and men.27

Strangulation of the home islands was the agreed objective ofoperations by the 1930s. "The influence of ORANGE Economic

Factors on BLUE's Strategy in War" was developed by theORANGE Economic Committee at the War College in 1933. Inthis prescient memorandum, Okinawa is the key to the blockadeof Japan. To cut ORANGE trade by 80 percent, "Okinawa mustbe taken."28

Short war serendipity died hard. "Strategic Problem—Pacific" was drawn up late in 1916, at the request of SecretaryDaniels. After the passage of the 1916 Naval Building Program,and before the Washington Conference, it was easy to fantasizeof a powerfully fortified Philippine base and of an awesomeAmerican armada, 60 capital ships, 84 cruisers, 199 destroyers,steaming the breadth of the Pacific as a body, a juggernaut ofdreadnoughts.29 Treaty restrictions in 1922 stripped thisillusion. By the early 1920s, Sims, Fiske, Frost, and Yarnell werespeaking at Newport of a war of 2 to 4 years. Fiske thought itwould cost more in blood and treasure than the recent "GreatWar."30 Yarnell's vision of war hardly changed through 20 years.As CINCASIATIC, he wrote to CNO in 1938: "The war will be anaval one of long duration "31

By the mid-1930s, studies at Newport insistently confirmedthat, in a short, spasmodic war, with the BLUE battle fleetrushing to Manila, "success is not only uncertain but is actuallyunlikely." War with ORANGE required a massiveconcentration, and a deliberate offensive, like rolling thunder:

Success is practically certain provided the war effort ismaintained through the period of at least three years whichwould be required before the Fleet could reach the WesternPacific.32

History kept to this schedule. Marines landed at Leyte almost 3years to the day after Pearl Harbor.

In the heyday of "Navy Basic Plan ORANGE, WPL-8-16,"1929 to 1938, the pioneering postulates of 1911 were spun intoan 800-page operational code.33 The ORANGE Plan was theinstrumentality of ethos. If Operational Ethos extracted fromthe embracing Corporate Ethos of the Navy Society its sense ofabstracted mission, of ultimate identity, then the ORANGEPlan was the talmudic text of mission. WPL-8 and its successorscorporealized mission: from unstated, sensated vision of theNavy's role in the making of national policy to the dim imageryof national destiny, the massive, all-consuming, all-contingenttracery of directive made of the word, law:

NATIONAL MISSION: To impose the will of the UNITEDSTATES upon ORANGE by destroying ORANGE ArmedForces and by disrupting ORANGE economic life

MISSION FOR THE NAVY: To gain and to exercisecommand of the sea, and to operate offensively againstORANGE....34

WPL-8, the mask of the Japanese enemy, created a set ofenduring postulates that defined not only the context andtexture of the next war but that, in and of themselves, inspiredan encompassing expectation of future war with Japan. Morethan this, even, the ORANGE Plan generated, in the irrevocableweight of SECRET text and the ritual acting-out of a thousandwar games, an escalating imagery of tradition. Japan becameagent as well as enemy. The longer that Japan wore the mask,the more generational tiers within the Navy Societysimultaneously shared the essential postulation. From 1911 to1941, incremental layers of officer classes, from admiral toensign, held the world view of the ORANGE Plan. TheCommanders of '41 had spent their entire professional livespreparing to enact THE MISSION:

War with Japan. National Mission was then indivisible fromthe defeat of ORANGE. National Destiny, like the mask of theenemy, was an image transformed. The Atlantic enemy, theHamiltonian strategic theater, the defense of the New World;these had been the inseparable shibboleths of the U.S. Navy.They conscribed the traditional world. After 1919 the oldslogans were discarded. Over 30 years, the hallucinogenic swayof Pacific war planning conjured an expectational tradition. Sointense was the concentration on ORANGE, so hypnotic wasthe ritual rehearsal, repeated in unnumbered war games atNewport, that historical reality flowed naturally, effortlessly,necessarily.

CHAPTER IX

BEHIND THE MASK

Late in the year 1901 Rear Adm. Stephen B. Luce wrote to theMinister of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Vice Adm. YamamotoGombei. He, the Grand Old Man of the U.S. Navy, had enclosedtwo cracked and faded daguerrotypes, the substance of amemory: the first formal visitation of Americans to Japan. Theywere the images of the sailing battleship Columbus and thesloop-of-war Vincennes, commanded in 1846 by CommodoreJames Biddle:

Crude though they may be, they commemorate the initialstep in the series of international events which may have ledto the friendly relations now so happily existing between thetwo countries. As such, I trust they may be accepted from onewho had the honor of serving, as a midshipman, underCommodore Biddle, on that occasion; and who was thendeeply impressed with the high character and noble bearingof the Japanese.1

In 1900 a survey of Japan commissioned by the Naval WarCollege did not spare praise for the Japanese, who "possess thecharacteristics of courage, endurance, intelligence andpatriotism."2 Two years later the Newport summer conferenceeven encouraged the vision of a "Triple Alliance" of the UnitedStates with Great Britain and Japan.3

How far had the passage of mutual relations descended that,in early January 1939, Yarnell, As CINCASIATIC, would writeto the president of the War College, of another Japan:

Their mission is to impose their culture and domination onthe world. This is to be done by force. They worship thesword and rely on it to fulfill their destiny .... When thereare nations who believe only in the sword, peaceablyinclined nations must go to war to defend themselves, or accept

domination. I cannot see how we can escape being forced

into eventual war against Japan.4

Tentatively, in 1906, Newport and the Navy began to plan forwar with Japan. By the next year, war-planning memorandabegan to refer to the potential enemy as "Japs." From amity toenmity, the Navy's emotional imagery of Japan was harnessedto the war-planning process in tandem devolution. Like a teamof good draught horses, they worked well together. A stronglevel of professional preparation for war was sustained by asatisfying emotional subtext. Between the wars, as the Britannicenemy experienced its callimorphosis, both professional andemotional combat expectation focused on Japan. ORANGEalone became the object. By the end of the 1930s Japan hadbecome an inevitable enemy, an essential schema of the Navyworld view.

When Yarnell spoke of Japanese destiny he was, inimplication, linking two nations. Japanese destiny became theobjective agent of American destiny in the Pacific. The image ofORANGE, within the U.S. Navy, came to transcend theoscillations of American public and American policy. Notions ofracial antipathy and inevitable war, indoctrinated at the NavalWar College, created an intraservice continuum of value. Thiswas the spine of the Navy mission: the incorporeal sense ofcorporate purpose was endowed, in the objective of the Japaneseenemy, with osseous substance, a vertebral rallying point.

The emotional image of the enemy did not spring, full-blown,from the covers of the first ORANGE War Portfolio. Before theGreat War, Service opprobrium was reserved for the AtlanticEnemy, and especially for BLACK. In the heyday of SocialDarwinism, the German Reich seemed the supreme competitor.In spite of encroaching encirclement, American officers enjoyedthe image of a Teutonic threat to the New World, after themanner of Homer Lea, and the popular Day of the Saxon}Germany and America, with equal navies, and the world'sdominant industrial economies, were well-matched. Within thetraditional American strategic theater, an Anglo-Saxon boutconjured a satisfying scene.

Japan, in pre-1914 contrast, was less threatening and lesstractable. Before the Panama Canal passed its first ship, evenwar games against Japan played at Newport were a chore. Actualoperations from the Atlantic coast would have been so awkwardas to make a campaign inconceivable. The cruise of "The GreatWhite Fleet," as demonstrative support for Far East detente,

was the realistic limit of American battle fleet utility in theWestern Pacific.6 A war in the Caribbean, and battle with theHochseeflotte, would have been a comfortable campaign bycomparison.7

With the gathering of tensions before the European War,American officers began to draw invidious connections betweenGermany and Japan. Mahan, in 1910, indelicately linked the two"restless" states to ancient Sparta, and the source of the moderndefinition of "tyranny."8 Bradley Fiske, as Aide for Operations,wrote that "the Japanese really admire and like the Germansmore than any other people!"9 ORANGE, not yet even principalpotential enemy, was being drawn into the net, to be dressed inthe German mode.

This trimming was undertaken at Newport, with gusto.Archival evidence reveals a subtle displacement of emotionalimagery after 1913. Trace elements of the War College Courseremain, to highlight the making of the enemy: ORANGE. Thelectures, the reading, the theses: each worked in weaving thepattern.

The image of inevitable war was first voiced at the summerconference of 1913. Professor John H. Latani ended his lecture,"The Relation of the United States and Japan," with thiswarning:

... peace with Japan does not rest on traditional friendship,but on Japan's present inability to finance a war, and on ourinability to defend the Philippines. With either conditioneliminated, war would be the probable outcome.10

In 1914 and 1915—for the first time, almost in echo of thissibylline vision—O.N.I, reports "Re ORANGE Strategic Plan"appear in the Naval War College Archives. Their redolent titleswere capped by the imagery of "War Between Japan andAmerica: A Picture of the Future."11 O.N.I, claimed these asauthentic intelligence intercepts: the dialogues of war planningin the Imperial Naval General Staff. These formal rumors,avidly read, could only have embroidered the image of inevitablewar. Latani was right: America was not yet able, and Japan couldnot afford, to send their battle fleets into mortal West Pacificcombat. War was forecast for the future; the expectation had justbeen born.

1915 was the hinge, the turning point. Shortly after the newyear Lt. Cdr. L.A. Cotton returned from Tokyo where he had

served as naval attache. On 9 and 10 February, Cotton spoke toBradley Fiske, Aide for Operations, and Josephus Daniels,Secretary of the Navy. On 26 February he spoke at Newport. Hislecture, "Far Eastern Conditions from the Naval Point of View,"was to become the Navy's inclusive manual of culturalstereotype: its seminal ethnography of Japan.

In crisp analysis, Cotton succeeded in assembling in a singleessay all the commonly held, informally voiced racial notions ofJapan then etherous in the Navy. In characteristic list, he drew aportrait of the Japanese that American officers responded to asrevelation. As Fiske confided in private journal, Cotton "spokeso very interestingly and intelligently about Japan that I askedhim to go to SecNav, and tell him all."12

Cotton's racial primer isolated six primary identifiers inJapanese national character:

A WARRIOR ETHOS: "Militarism is developed to itshighest level in Japan... they are possessed by militaryspirit, which dominates their existence, and with it areadiness to undergo hardship, suffering, and death "13

NO INITIATIVE: "The Japanese people are most amenableto discipline .,. this attitude quickly develops into a blindobedience ... it results in almost entire absence of initiativeof the subordinate."14

NO ORIGINALITY: "A most pronounced characteristic is

the   absence   of   originality The  Japanese   are   very

progressive in their extreme readiness to adopt an idea, butare equally Oriental in their frequent failure to assimilate

it    15

DECEITFUL: "Secretiveness seems inborn to theJapanese... no other people in the world can preserve acollective secret to the degree of the Japanese."16

RUTHLESS: "A Japanese has no concept of abstract justice,and no idea of fair play. His conception of justice is met onlywhen he gets all he desires, and his idea of fair play is forevery factor to favor his side."17

ARROGANCE: "The Japanese is possessed by what canonly be characterized as colossal conceit. Their attitude is

that they do not have to prove their superiority—they freelyadmit it. The effect of this trait on military character is toproduce boldness "18

Cotton did not invent these shibbolethic images; they wereshared throughout the Service. Commodore Mathew GalbraithPerry was the first to call the Japanese "deceitful," recordedagain and again in his private journal.19 By creating a formalschema, a concrete set of catchwords, Cotton cast a cultural lensfor the Navy: a tinted glass through which to regard the enemy,darkly.

Between the wars, in the age of the ORANGE enemy, lecturesand memoranda on Japan offered at Newport instinctivelysought the cultural vocabulary of Cotton. Yarnell's 1919 address,"Strategy of the Pacific," included an indictment of Japaneseculture, called "Japanese Characteristics," that in identic articlesmirrored the Cotton precedent. Some imagery was exchanged—"warlike" for "militaristic," "dissimulation" for "deceit"—yetthe list was the same.20 In 1927 a report from O.N.I.,"Memorandum Regarding Japanese Psychology and Morale,"was circulated at Newport. Updated by a decade, it was no morethan a rewrite-facelift of Cotton's doctrine.21 In 1939, at the endof the era, another ex-naval attache offered his "Notes,Comparisons, Observations, and Conclusions" on Japan toNewport. There was no change. Then, at the end of his ramblingdiscourse, Capt. Edward Howe Watson revealed the key tocontinuity.

As long ago as 1915, while taking a course at the Naval WarCollege, I had the privilege of hearing the late CaptainLyman Cotton lecture here on his return from Japan.

He estimated the situation correctly, and furnished thisinformation 24 years ago, to Washington. But even he,foresighted as he was, would have been astounded andappalled at the growth of Japanese ambition, and at thehardihood and success with which she pursues it.22

Full Circle. Cotton described the vocabulary of the emotionalsubtext of the ORANGE enemy. He did something more; hestruck a remembered prophecy. He said, in 1915:

The future ambition of Japan favors expansion to thesouthward through the many islands situated there, andwhere rice grows so bountifully and a supposedly lower raceof men live and can be made to work for their rulers. Thisidea leads to America as the future enemy —23

Cultural and racial deprecation of the enemy worked likestrongback shoring to support the bulkhead of Navy mission:against the sea pressure of inevitable war. The U.S. Navy,between 1915 and 1921, came to face the vision of ultimate warwith Japan, a vision that would not recede with the transfer ofthe battle fleet to the Pacific that year. Emotional acceptance ofwar, even in a fighting service, must be earned. The "Mission" ofthe ORANGE Plan was an operational end-run: the final,physical product of a more penetrating preparation. Newporthad instilled the service with a vision of the Navy role on a vaststage, in a triumphal American drama. The Navy was the cuttingedge of American policy, and it was more. American policy was,ultimately, an extension of a larger historical force.

In hypothetical war with Japan, rerun at repeat performancesfor 30 years, the Navy Mission was not simply "To gain andexercise command of the sea," as National Mission was not "Toimpose the will of the United States on ORANGE." War withJapan was cast as crusade. Racial metaphors were the subliminalprops; they enrobed the image of the ORANGE enemy in evilcloth, and BLUE in stainless raiment: a surcoat of purest white.The year the fleet crossed the Canal, and the proscenium ofPacific destiny, Professor J.O. Dealey addressed the officers ofthis armada, at Newport:

If Japan is allowed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, it meansultimately a war of races, the struggle of the Yellows and theBrowns against the Whites, under the leadership of aPrussianized Japan.24

The racial context codified by Cotton, directed against Japanin specific vocabulary, was supported by the general language ofbehavioral determinism. Working from the embracingexpectational postulates of Social Darwinism, the Navy simplytransposed theoretical concepts to perceived realities. Cotton'slecture provided the glossary of terms with which to define thecontemporary "struggle of races."

A generation before its outbreak, those who would be caughtin its blast had accepted the inevitability of war. Cdr. Chester W.Nimitz wrote of "the struggle that is certain to come."25 Capt.Thomas C. Hart thought it "likely" that Japanese-Americanpolicies "will conflict so seriously that mutual adherence willlead to War."26 Cdr. Husband E. Kimmel said, simply, "We will

come into conflict with Japan "27 Social Darwinism created

an expectation of struggle. Racial imagery, in defining absolutebiological barriers between peoples, made that struggle seemirresolvable.

"There is a great deal of value regarding Racial Factors."28 Sobegan one student's review, in 1935, of Roland Dixon's RacialHistory of Man. By breaking the relations of the United Statesand Japan into a clash of biological forces, the Navy injected thewill of natural selection into the war-planning process. Byplacing racial distinction on a scale of good and evil, the Navyadded a pinch of crusading spice to the prospect of "an inevitablestruggle."29

By the middle years of the 1930s, Japanese atrocities in Chinaserved to intensify the racial metaphor of good and evil, BLUEand ORANGE. Where Cotton, in 1915, described a set ofpejorative traits, his imagery had, in 20 years, evolved into whatAhab called "an inscrutable malice." As Cdr. Ellis MarkZacharias wrote, in his Newport thesis, 1934:

The various cruel and vicious acts committed in the name ofpatriotism appear only as a revolting reversion to barbarismstill in the Japanese Race. The plain truth is that Japancannot be regarded other than as an Oriental race, and apolicy that does not keep this in view is committing an errorfraught with grave consequences 30

As examination of the components of the War College Courserevealed in this essay, Newport was the source indoctrination ofantipathy and inevitability. From 1915 the lectures, the reading,the theses placed increasing emphasis on Japan, "thatinscrutable thing" behind the mask.

Both Yarnell and Puleston, as young officers, heard Cottonspeak of the Japanese on that February morning in 1915.Puleston's thesis, submitted in June, offers a clue to the influenceof nascent, racial imagery, on the suggestive imagination of theyoung lieutenant. He ended his essay, "Blue Strategy in thePacific," with a warning to America:

... And we would ask these teachers of eternal peace not tomake the task of the military in this country too hard withtheir false teaching. Lest in the future some Yellow historianrecall the present day exploits of the Japanese like we recallthose Germanic tribes that overran Rome. Lest theseteachers be called with their mental calisthenics to whileaway the leisure of the warlike Jap. Lest they be forced withsupple finger to preserve in bronze the bullet-headedconqueror. Or with deft strokes of the brush produce hisyellow face on canvas, while with ingenious but speciousthought they invent a new philosophy to solace their fellowcitizens whose ancestors perhaps were not so highlycivilized but who did know how to wield a sword.31

When his popular commentary, The Armed forces of thePacific, was published by Yale 26 years later, ripe imagery andrhetorical indignation had been long excised from his writing.His perception of Japan was unchanged. His summary ofJapanese character listed the shibboleths of Cotton's lecture ininstinctive reiteration. His descriptive modifiers: "fecund,""virile," "acquisitive," "zealous," "chauvinistic" with which hehad, like Tacitus in Germania endowed the barbarian samurai ofhis youth, remained.32

Like his friend, Puleston, Yarnell's codewords of racialperception kept continuity, from War College lecture toCINCASIATIC correspondence, 1919 to 1939.33 Letters theyexchanged later in their careers highlight a synonymity in theirvision of Japan.34 This link is underscored by Yarnell's preface toThe Armed forces of the Pacific.

The Personal Nexus is crucial to the transmission of worldview. In the unerring response of Yarnell, Puleston, andWatson, 20 years after, to the remembered imagery of youthfulindoctrination, is a diagrammatic cro: jction of themechanism of culture. In this instance, the postulates passeddown were central to the definition of the Navy mission.

They defined the enemy: not on the articulate level of policyand operational planning, but on the subconscious tiers ofemotional expectation. As has been argued here: this process,though but dimly understood, was a cultural necessity; necessaryto sustain the authenticity of war planning in a peacetime world,necessary to justify service sacrifice in the event of war. Theenemy, the real enemy, the opponent that "puts forth themoulding of its features from behind the unreasoning mask";

this was the mirror of the Navy's own identity. At last, themanager's role, the professional mask, was not enough toinspire even corporate, let alone operational, ethos.

Behind the mask was a worthy foe: equal and opposite. In itsundoubted strength, courage, and cunning, the ORANGE Fleetwas a bracing challenge. In its evil incarnation, cruel, ambitious,and proud, the ORANGE Fleet defined BLUE in stark contrast,good arrayed against evil, and so imparted a sensation ofrighteous strength.

If, from the soft Scandinavian armchair of a more modernworld view, we are tempted to sneer at their backward vision,remember this. The mirror they made of the enemy at Newport,from 1915 to 1941, reflected only another mirror. At the KaigunDae Gakko, at Tsukiji, Tokyo, officers in the Imperial JapaneseNavy had created, over the span of a contemporary generation,their own "inscrutable malice": The American Enemy. In theshimmering irony of dual cultural reflection, they erected anidentical set of racial imagery on which to posit an assurance ofinevitable war.35

PART IVTHE GAME

While their country was at peace, they played at war.

Autochthonous to the American Navy, and the granite Globeof Newport, "The Strategic Naval War Game" was theElizabethan instrumentality of the Service: "The brightestheaven of invention." Through "mysterious dispensations," amost marvelous suspension of disbelief, a mere lieutenant mightcommand a mighty battle fleet; the tiled floor be as the bluewaters of the Pacific, the gray swell of the Atlantic; and galleriedgameroom encompass the destinies of nations at war. WhenCapt. William McCarty Little, like the conjuring Chorus, said:

The

William McCarty Little, like the conjuring Chorus, said:game offers the player the whole world as a theatre . . -1

he called for an "imaginary puissance," as in ancestral voice, toask:

... Can this cockpit holdThe vasty fields of France? Or may we cramWithin this wooden O the very casquesThat did affright the air at Agincourt?2

In their ever empty sea theater, where on each tile "eightinches is equal to 2,000 yards and a sea mile,"3 officers rehearsedthe parts they would play in future, combat performance. Thesemen, the actors of a yet unwritten war, prepared their scenes ona blank stage, with only colored chalk and cast lead tokens asprops. "Prologue-like," they prepared, and made "imaginaryforces work," to ready themselves for a harsher testing.

As ritual, the Newport war game was not a game at all:

In the game of war, the stake is life itself, nay, infinitelygreater, it may be the life of the nation; it certainly is itshonor. We are its champions 4

What McCarty Little revealed, in chivalric imagery, was the wargame as behavioral preparation, the ritual of role: "What thejousting field was to the knight, the War Game is to the modern

strategist "5 More than simple stage direction, the game was

the audition for combat, the runthrough for Operational Ethos.

Ritual, and Oracle. The annual casts of young commanderswere not celebrating, in remembered verse, old victories, likeVirgil over Actium. In each of 300 volumes, the "History of theCampaign" was the hopeful, incremental submission to theSibylline Canon: the script of future war. As each gameunraveled, move by move, to prophetic die-cast, with umpires asvates, it was almost as if the lines had been spoken at Cumae.

For some, there was true portent. Willis A. Lee and JesseOldendorf were the last American admirals to bringbattlewagons into action against the dreadnought species of theenemy: 14 November 1942, and 25 October 1944. On 11 July1928, at Newport, both men received an invitation regarding thecombat maneuvering of a battleship division. How could theyknow, maneuvering paper BatDivs on a summer's day, that theywould bring the big ships, "BLUE Fleet," into the last thunder ofthe guns:

SENIOR CLASS OF 1929

Department of Operations

TACTICS

Period 19 July-24 July (incl.)

First Day. Assemble in East Game Room at 0930.Bring:

Pad

Pencil

Drawing Instruments

Maneuver Rules

Chart and Board Maneuver

BLUE Fleet6

Let the Game begin!

CHAPTER X

THE GAME AS RITUAL: EXPEDE HERCULEM

The Latin phrase Expede Herculem fully expresses the idea:from the foot of Hercules can be constructed the entire body:from a part of a thing we may infer the whole. On the tacticalboard, opposing fleets may be maneuvered at will—inminiature.1

So spoke the Navy's Nestor, Rear Adm. Stephen Bleecker Luce,at Newport, in 1909. To command The Decision: simply, "tolearn what to do with a fleet in battle," the fledgling admiralmust first learn to master "the tactical board." Combat commandmust first be demonstrated with ships of lead, before essayingsame in steel incarnation. To Luce, Tsushima was first fought,and won, "on the tactical board, long in advance of the Russo-Japanese War."2

Ten years later Sims echoed Luce and set the place of theGame in interwar ritual:

The principles of the war game constitute the backbone ofour profession. All other kinds of nautical knowledge andexperience will avail us nothing when it comes to war if wehave not learned the game, that is, if we do not know how tohandle naval forces.

The game can be learned only by playing it.3

Play it they did: through the duration of each annual course, dayafter day, in pursuit of what Sims called "the practice of war."4 Inthe Archives at Newport, 318 recorded game histories remain,brittle and dust-filmed, for the entire interwar era, 1919-1941(See Appendix II). The gaming of the Senior Class of 1932 canbe taken as typical. Placed midway between the wars, that yearwas the first to achieve a standard game schedule. Three speciesof war game were played, in finalized evolution: the Operations

| 6

311 | Days |
|--------|------|
| 17     | //   |
| 110    | //   |
| 124    | //   |
| 17     | //   |
| 8      | //   |
| 7      | "5   |

134

Problem, the Tactical Problem, and the clutch of Quick DecisionProblems. From 2 July to 20 May, 304 out of 326 days weredevoted to the Game. This was how that time was spent, thoseendless forenoon sessions:

Tactical Presentations

Search Problem

Demonstrative Tactical Exercise

Demonstrative Strategical Exercise

Tactical Problems   I-VI

Operations Problems   I-V

Critiques

The Battle of Jutland (Board Maneuver)

Quick Decision Problems (A,C,E)

The first month was simply instructive. Tacticalpresentations on essential fleet components—Battle LineTactics, Light Forces, Submarines, Aircraft—served "to refreshstudents' knowledge." Scouting procedures were reviewed in theSearch Problem, those esoteric applications now forgotten: the"In-and-Out Method," "Relative Movement Method 'A'," the"Sector Method," the "Radial Double-Bank Method," the"Limited Ellipse."6 The Demonstrative Exercises were pureBible study: instruction in both Chart and Board Maneuver,Order Writing, and the Maneuver Rules, chapter and verse.7

Operations Problems were conducted as a "Chart Maneuver, asubstitute for actual Strategic Maneuvers of the Fleet."8 Thesemarked the mutual fleet movements of a simulated oceaniccampaign. All took place on paper. From move to move, eachfleet "staff" plotted the moment-to-moment tracking ofmultitudinous, three-dimensioned armadas: ships, aircraft, andsubmarines. Umpires kept an omniscient "Master Plot" asimagined fleets, ponderous and inexorable, crept in colored lineson tracing "flimsies" toward awaited clash of battle fleets. Thecampaign choices facing rival commanders echoed the catechismof doctrine: the pas de deux of battle fleets followed, in each step,the choreography of "The Estimate of the Situation":

—Statement of the Problem

—Section I   "The Mission"

—Section II   "Survey of Opposing Forces"

—Section III "Enemy Courses of Action"

—Section IV "Commander's Own Courses of Action"

—Section V   "Determination of Commander's Best Course

of Action"—Section VI "The Decision"—Determination of the Details of the Directive9

War's rituals were played out in suspended authenticity: only thesea and sky and open bridge were missing. Orders were written,directives issued, commands dispatched. Separated only byscreens, rival commanders called their critical choices andgroped toward battle, jockeying their battlelines for position.The Contact Officers watched for the clash. When fleets'tracings intersected, "when contact becomes general, the chartmaneuver terminates, and the final situation may now be used asthe basis for a tactical maneuver."10 The battle had begun.

With mortal combat, the Board Maneuver begins:

Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,In motion of no less celerityThan that of thought.

Tactical problems were the visceral distillation of battle,"simulating the realities of War."11 With the materiel of thePen, the War College sought to recreate the experience of theSword; and in the rarefaction, to measure its essence: to know it,to reap its bitter truth. Even in that precomputer age, thecomplexity to which their model strove is revealed, in this list,"Material of the Board Maneuver":

1. Maneuver Board.

2. Chalk or crayon for plotting.

3. Model ships.

4. Strips for forming groups of ships.

5. Turning cards.

6. Torpedo Fire cards.

7. Protractors.

8. Range wands.

9. Plotting table, tracing paper, drawing instruments.

10. Screens.

11. Ditto machine. (Dispatch Blanks, S-5).

12. Fire Effect tables and diagrams.

13. Message blanks (F-5).

14. Aircraft Flight form (S-10, Mod. 1).

15. Umpire's Communication Record (S-12)(Blueprint).

16. Fire sheet ("Instructions for Scoring Gun Fire").

17. Fire Distribution and Move Date (T-4).

18. Umpire's Damage sheets (T-6(a) to T-(l)).

19. Torpedo Fire blanks (T-7).

20. Mine Laying blanks (T-8).

21. Information blank (T-10, Mod. 1).

22. Submarine Information blank (T-10, Mod. 2).   .

23. Damage Reports (Minor and Capital Ships (T-ll)).

24. Bombing sheets (T-12).

25. Umpire's Torpedo Fire Record (T-13).

26. Expenditure Record (Torp., Mine and Depth

Charge (T-14)).\

27. Ammunition Expenditure (T-15)(Blueprint).

28. Aircraft Casualty forms (T-16).

29. Tactical Plotting sheets.

30. Plane Service forms (Form S-ll).

31. Fire Distribution sheet (Form T-2).12

Complexity, and naivete. In defining battle according to formula,no matter how intricate, how empiric, reality became a mirror ofritual. By necessity, life came to reflect art. Chance, and evenluck, came to operate within the limits of the language ofimagination. Having imagined a measured vision of future war,mock war was forced to play according to the rules.

The rules were a formidable codex: for a mere game. At theirhighest evolutionary stage, the "Maneuver Rules," the historicallabor of the War College Department of Operations, ran to 160pages. There, 310 coded articles, or rules, each backed by acoalition of sections and subsections. Space and emphasis revealnot only the ritual weight attached to the components of combat,their proportions hint at the intractable nature of a physicalmetaphor of war:

| Conduct of the Maneuver | 6.8%   |
|-------------------------|--------|
| Speed and Fuel          | 9.4%   |
| Visibility, Audibility, |        |
| and Smoke Screens       | 16.3%  |
| Communications          | 17.5%  |
| Gunfire                 | 8.8%   |
| Torpedo Fire            | 4.3%   |
| Mines                   | 5.6%   |
| Submarines              | 3.1%   |
| Aircraft                | 25.0%  |
| Chemical Warfare        | 3.2%13 |

"Speed and Fuel" ruled on questions of the effect of seaconditions on speed, on fuel consumption, refueling at sea, andthe effects of damage on speed. In an age innocent of radar,nature and artifice yielded cloaks of concealment to stalking andfleeing fleet alike. So the concatenation of regulations for fogand smoke, twilight and dawn, flare and starshell andsearchlight. "Communications" strove to recreate the frustra-tions of ship-to-ship transmission in a still hall whose acousticswould echo a whisper. "Gunfire," the emotional climax,delivered by the decisive weapon at the decisive moment at thedecisive battle of the war, was given double the game weight ofthe subsidiary systems: destroyer and submarine-launchedtorpedoes and mines. The emphasis on aircraft is unusual. Canthe revisionists, who cliam a hide-bound Navy where innovationwas inadmissible, explain this anomaly?

Yes, the battleline, en puissant, was yet the premiere weapon.By the 1935 edition of "Maneuver Rules," the role of aircraft inbattle was envisaged in a special context. Such crucial supporthad seaborne air come to provide the battle fleet that, like thebarbarian cavalry of the Late Empire, it was the essential auxilia.No legion could take the field, at last, without equestrian mask.So with the battleline, aircraft were the critical factors inscouting, photoreconnaissance, fighter cover, artillery spotting,smoke screening, and antisubmarine patrol. The bomb andtorpedo striking power of the aircraft carrier was fullyrecognized in the "Maneuver Rules."14 These rules encouragedthe concentration of force in battle; and en masse, by allstandards of that age, the battleline was still the supremeinstrument of seapower. Technology had not yet enthroned thecarrier. This truth the game reflectd, as its vision of war echoedthe spirit of the age.

The Game was the central ritual of Newport, and the interwarNavy.

But what was it like to play?

There were two teams: two fleets: two Commanders in Chief.Strict secrecy, and team segregation, were sworn: "Radiatorcontacts" were taboo.15 "Preliminary to a maneuver," the"Special Situation" was issued: the assignment of mission, andthe last, prewar intelligence intercepts from the enemy. Finalpositions were outlined, plans and orders run off by ditto.16

The masters of Maneuver Staff were the Olympian overseers;they ruled the movements of mortal fleets as did the gods overIlium. Like the gods, they even found time to quarrel. The

Assistant Director, Poseidon game shaker, held sway over timeand tide: "the length of moves and weather conditions."17 TheAssistant for History was the verseless bard, his chronicles todayunread. The Assistant for Plotting "supervised the master plot,"the reality, preserved in elegant blueprint, of fleets' onrush andcollision.18 The Move Umpire, like Hermes, the go-between,transmitted "flimsies" from man to god. "Flimsies" weregridded sheets of tracing paper, printed by the HydrographicOffice, showing the track of every ship, move by move. As eacharmada moved in independent pattern, their combined trackswere correlated by plotting draftsmen. When contact wasrevealed on the Master Plot, the Contact Officers advised theopposing teams of the impending imbroglio. When contactbecame general, as fleets approached the visual horizon, thescene shifted from chart to board, from Master Plot to tiled floor.The Director of the Maneuver Staff called the battle. Like Zeus,he was the final arbiter.19

White chalklines traced the battlefield grid. "The tracks of theBLUE force are drawn in blue; those of the opposing force aredrawn in red."20 Model ships followed this color cue. They werecast in three sizes, and were too small in scale to representspecimen ships. For the Mark III Game Outfit, even battleshipsmeasured less than an inch.21 To form line of battle, these leadtotems were fitted to metal strips, "jointed to permit a closeapproximation to the tracks of the ships."22

In the great galleried hall of the game room, the little leadsquadrons approached, snaking across the waxed tiles, eachleaving like Theseus a colored trail behind, searching ahead fortheir foe. Each move marked 3 minutes of game time, and the seadistance a fleet could cover at varying speed.23

When visual contact was made between rival battle fleets, thewooden screens, the instrumentality of the unknown, wereabruptly withdrawn. The face of battle was unmasked.24

Now, to the flash of gunfire and the white wake of torpedotrack, the shock of decision drew near: in a single 3-minutemove, the course of battle could make irrevocable change. Thegame took on an imagined intensity, ferocious action suspendedin time as teams and umpires frantically measured speed andrange, and bargained for better visibility. In the blueprintchronicles of combat, the plates of battle describe an insane shiftfrom the tracks of orderly approach to the boiling welter ofinvariable melee. Those battles, had history given them life, andthe  ocean  a  watery  grave,  would  be  remembered  now  in

immortal image: for carnage, intrepidity, and cran. In the limboof game time, 3 minutes could attenuate into an hour. Rivalcommanders in game possessed a leisure impermissible inbattle. They used their bonus well and crammed heroic intensityinto a short, and savage, mock arena.

Game complexity allowed no more realistic alternative.Instrumental simulation could be achieved, sans microcircuitry,in slow motion only. Simultaneity and "real-time" combat couldnot be modeled. With turning card templates, model ships couldbe moved quickly. The infliction and assessment of battledamage, in contrast, was laborious, a painstaking process ofcalculation and arbitration.

"The Fire Action of the Battleline" was the most intractable,interminable calculation of all. If the gun was the decisiveweapon, its fire was also the most difficult to deliver. Bombs andtorpedoes were, essentially, pointed in the right direction andreleased. Battleship heavy artillery, to place an armor-piercingshell in an opponent's innards at 25,000 yards with any prayer ofsuccess, enslaved the compressed energy of a full ship'scompany. So it was with the war game. A set of torpedo fire cardsand fire blanks could launch a successful spread, and a simplebombing sheet could press home an aerial assault.25

In a 3-minute move, "the delivery of fire effect" involved 45distinct and incremental calculations, derived from 15 penaltytables and 200 pages of "Fire Effect Tables." To assess stayingpower—resistance to battle damage—combatant "life value"was measured on a scale of equivalent 14" hits. A battleship wasexpected to be able to absorb 15-20 hits before sinking. Cruiserswere rated from three to five hits. A destroyer would be lucky tosurvive one. Both fire effect and life value were converted to astandard scale.26

As forenoon slipped away, hieroglyphic battlelines blazedaway in soundless fury, separated by the tiled expanse of inches.Range wands and protractors drawn, teams bent over theirsquadrons as colossi, fretted in concentration:

How many ships are firing? How many guns?

Broadside or end-on?

What method of fire control: Direct, indirect, barrage?

Likewise the lay of the guns:

Pointer, Director, Stable Zenith Director?

What spotting: Top Spot, Plane Spot, or Local Control?

Had the target a new bearing?

Old range, or new? Was it fixed?Quick, the target angle!

Find the fire effect tables: Down the series rows of .000's!Now, the first correction, gun damage from the last move.The first multiplier, and this move's normal fire effect.To continue:

Are we under effective fire, or less than normal fire?Is our fire masked? Is there surprise?Are we under fire concentration from the enemy?Have ships changed course, are our guns out of train?What is the spray,the smoke,

the roll and pitch and yaw?Night battle interference? Now a second correction:The second multiplier, depreciated in tenths,Our remaining normal fire effect.Now what is left?Sun's glare and silhouette,Course changes during play, and speed; is there a change

of range?At last, the third correction factored in,The third multiplier, and normal fire effect nowFire effect delivered, fire effect inflicted.Three minutes of battleship battering must be assessed.27

"The Fire Action of the Battle Line" was the EleusinianMystery of the Game, as the game was the central ritual of ethos.Sims called the game "the backbone of our profession"; he alsosaid:

Of course, you know that the usefulness of the War Collegedepends chiefly upon keeping the game up to date,particularly in reference to gunfire 28

To the interwar Navy, the concentrated fire effect of the dozenbattlewagons of the BatDivs, BatFor, was the very fulcrum ofAmerican seapower. This was clear at Newport as early as 1909,when Luce addressed the class:

The Fleet—by which is meant the fleet of sixteenbattleships recently brought home—the Fleet, I say, standsfor the Sea Power of the United States.29

The cultural programming of every officer-student adjured aclassical clash of capital ships, an American Trafalgar. In thegame play, every unstated subliminal urge echoed the doctrine ofoperational ethos: the ritual incarnation of the offensive, ofdecisive battle. Through interminable weeks of board play,arguments with umpires, and chalk-stained hands, the linkbetween quiet hall and splinter-naked bridge—the spasmicintensity of combat leadership—must have come close tosnapping. As Luce apologized, "the tactical board does notdevelop nerve, it is true; but no one has ever claimed that it

should "30 To some, the game seemed "theoretical," as if

theory was the opposite of reality, and so ineffably inculcatedattitudes inimical to combat. Even Frost fell into the snare of thislogic, and wrote Sims, in his worry that theoretical trainingmight promote a "defensive attitude."31

The bloody theater of the game preserved in megahistoria aneloquent rebutment. Of those 318 surviving chronicles, there iscombat action enough for a score of great wars. In the unfoldingof campaign and battle, and in the usage of the decisive weapon,the charted chronicles describe not only the Navy's vision offuture war; but belief, bordering on obsession, with theoffensive. As the ritual investment of operational ethos—thedoctrine—within the (\>ikori\±ia* of each man who played it,the game seved this Navy well. To cultural instrumentality, thesuperficial imagery of the next war was irrelevant. A fightingservice in peace cannot afford to choose between bickeringCassandras: no man can forecast future war. In peace, it isenough to keep alive the <$>CkoTi\iia of combat; through carefulrehearsal, to maintain the behavioral patterns of strategicthought. In waiting for war, as in all endeavor: "The readiness isall."

This readiness was an ultimate function of learned instinct.The game, in the image of Expede Herculum, instilled the</>iAori/Lua of war within the subconscious. As Clausewitz, theseer of Service world view, wrote of theory and of the game:

...it can give the mind insight into the great mass ofphenomena and of their relationships, then leave it free torise into the higher realms of action. There the mind can use

*In Modern Greek, sense of honor, self-respect, self-esteem.

its innate talents to capacity, combining them all so as toseize on what is RIGHT and TRUE as though this were asingle idea ... a response to the immediate challenge ratherthan the product of thought.32

This was the teaching of the game.

CHAPTER XITHE GAME AS ORACLE: THE CAMPAIGN

Of course, the game-board presents only a picture But

the more it is used, the more accurate the picture willbecome, and the more accurately we shall learn to read it.1

To Rear Adm. Bradley Fiske, the game was a clouded crystal, adark glass with which to steal a glimpse of the future. As thevates of the next war, the game integrated Clausewitzianpostulates of operational ethos with an evolving test ofoperational limitation. Idealized behaviors, both in the heat ofcombat and the ether of strategy, were constantly tested on thegame floor.

The ideal, the objective, was the reduction of Japaneseseapower. Of 136 strategic games, or chart maneuvers, extant,127 made this the mission. ORANGE was the enemy in 127imagined marches; 127 times the battle fleet crossed the Pacific,to free the Philippines, and to do battle with the Japanese fleet.This ocean was the obsessive cockpit of future war.

To grasp the objective, to make the mission, BLUE game playmust reconcile two estranged states within the schema ofClausewitz' theory: the offensive, and friction in war. Betweenthe wars, campaign action on the Newport game floor mirroredan escalating struggle between strategic impetus and strategicentropy.

... defense has a passive purpose: PRESERVATION; and

attack a positive one: CONQUEST But we must say that

the DEFENSIVE FORM OF WARFARE ISINTRINSICALLY STRONGER THAN THEOFFENSIVE. This is the point... .2

So Clausewitz underscored the conundrum faced by the BLUEstrategist, in universal postulate. With the Philippines hostage

to Japan, America and the BLUE Fleet were committed totrans-pacific offensive. Enter friction:

Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing isdifficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producingthe kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one hasexperienced war.... Friction is the only conceptthat... distinguishes real war from war on paper.3

For the U.S. Navy, friction was the stretch of 4,767 nauticalmiles separating Honolulu and Manila. Each sea mile was a stepinto an agonistic trail of attrition: submarine sniping, nightdestroyer rushes, dawn bombing runs. At the end of the odyssey,with Corregidor, an Ithaca invested, there would be no hospice;no haven safe from storm to dress the wounds of listingbattleship or bomb-blackened cruiser.

Never was there a war game so ungreased. As codified in "TheConduct of Maneuvers," the game encouraged the action offriction. In Tac. 96, in 1923, the BLUE Battle fleet anchored atDumanquilas in Mindanao, with 15 capital units still active.4 InOP. IV, 1928, just 10 BLUE battleships "were afloat in SouthernPhilippines at end" of game.5 By OP. IV, 1933, only 7battlewagons survived the Pacific run unscathed.

OP. IV was the critical game, the turning point. Two massive,full-force ORANGE night torpedo attacks pressed home intothe heart of the BLUE Battle fleet and erupted into melee sotitanic that the night Battle of Guadalcanal seems but skirmishby comparison.6

As a battered BLUE armada limped toward Mindanaoanchorage, the ORANGE battleline, uncommitted and sounmarked by combat, waited, rested and ready, for thepropitious moment of descent. This was an unendurable image.In their post mortems, many players balked at the continuingsetup of the "short war" sortie. A rush to the Philippines by themassed American Fleet was pure fantasy, "unfeasible": "it couldnot be done."7

So by the grace of the game was the Navy's "short war"illusion at last interred. By OP. Ill, in 1935, BLUE was advancingby hop, skip, and jump through the Mandates, and building anadvanced base at Truk.8 For OP. V, 1938, the itinerary had beenestablished: Eniwetok to Ponape to Truk.9 OP. VII, 1938,continued the advance to Yap and Peleliu (Palau), and then on toJolo, just South of Mindanao.10

Scenarios began to branch out from bilateral BLUE-ORANGE war. Both OP. VII, 1938, and 1939, posited BROWN(Netherlands) as an ally of America.11 The 1939 strategic canvasdid not even begin at the beginning. The game begins in thethird year of war between ORANGE and BLUE. Forcing its way,atoll by atoll, across the Central Blue, the "Main Fleet" ofAmerica is anchored off northern New Guinea, not far from theBiak strategic springboard of 1944. Over three millionAmericans are under arms; 400,000 are in cantonments in Java,awaiting the final, amphibious assault on the Philippines.12

So many interwar rehearsals prepared an assuredperformance. OP. IV, 1929, was a "Joint Army and NavyOperations Problem with Forced Landing." The script, 463pages, contained the most minute stage directions for asimultaneous four-division amphibious assault on the beaches ofBalayan, Batangas, and Tabayas Bays, four score miles south ofManila. "The Estimate of the Situation and Decision,""...involves placing about 450,000 men, and about 1,750,000

tons of Army supplies in the PHILIPPINES by 1 November "

Fifteen years early, a game would call for an October amphibiouslanding in that jeweled archipelago.13

Amphibious techniques pioneered, in charted imagination,patterns familiar to 1944, on familiar beaches. In OP. IV, 1929,landings were given distant cover by more modern capital ships,with direct bombardment support delegated to older armoredships. Escort Carrier Groups—yes—were focused on a singletask: close air support over the beachhead.14 Twelve years beforethe first Higgins lighters began to roll off the production line,armored, motorized landing craft designs were blueprinted atNewport, for the great assault on Luzon, October 1929.15

Logistics were not shrugged; they alone could atlas the burdenof the offensive. To keep the BLUE BatFor in WestPac, OP. IV,1929, chartered the service schedules of 470 train auxiliaries.16The Pacific War was always, for BLUE, the main event,demanding the maximum effort. OP. IV, 1929, called for no lessthan 137 fleet oilers (AO and XAO); by 1933, OP. IV critiquesurged refueling major combatants at sea, as routine procedure, 6years before operational tests were authorized.17

All the pieces of future war were deployed on the interwargame board. From gambit to checkmate, the spectrum ofcampaign symbiosis with ORANGE was imprinted on ageneration of service leadership. Incessant scene-building ofBLUE-ORANGE    campaigns   created   a   visceral   ease   of

expectation. "Island-hopping" across the central Pacific,multidivision amphibious assaults on Luzon and Okinawa,blockade of the Japanese home islands: an aggregation ofgaming created familiar doctrine and familiar geography forgestant war. Newport developed a rehearsal program, throughthe game, that reconciled the offensive necessity of transpacificwar with the friction inevitable in an oceanic campaign.

By 1941, the Navy was primed for Pacific passage. This argosywas expected to end well before the beaches of Kyushu.

No war game of that era ever broached the image of aninvasion of Japan. Objective mission ended with the seizure ofthe Ryukyus and economic blockade. Even in the U.S. Navy, stillimbued with archaic notions of civilized warfare, there was agrowing interwar awareness of the tyranny of modern fashion.Total war, in 1914-1918, had returned after a long leave ofabsence. By the time the "spirit of Locarno" was quite dead, theNavy was beginning, at Newport, to enlarge its expectations.War with ORANGE was certain to drag into a 4-year campaign.After 1932, with Japan comfortably ensconced on the Asianmainland, war might not end after a fleet battle, nor afterretaking Luzon, nor after the fall of Okinawa, nor after drawingthe noose of blockade. More might be needed. In December 1933a discussion held after the bitter finish of OP. IV, drew aprophetic scene:

It was said that in a war with ORANGE we were holding onto the old idea of economic strangulation of ORANGE in thecrossing of the PACIFIC, and urged thought on ways of

conducting a more successful war with ORANGE It was

brought out that ORANGE is very much worried about airattacks on her cities . . . . 18

Only a fleet could seize those islands, to carve out airstrips —

CHAPTER XIITHE GAME AS ORACLE: THE BATTLE

Battle is the catharsis of war.

The battle, as played at Newport, was the denouement of thegame. In game metaphor, the image of decisive combat—TheBig Battle—coexisted on parallel planes: professional andspiritual.

The battle as professional denouement was the climacticproof-test of the theory of war: of the inculcated teachings ofClausewitz. Within his Hegelian vision of war,

... the concept of the engagement lies at the root of allstrategic action, since strategy is the use of force, the heart ofwhich, in turn, is the engagement. So in the field of strategywe can reduce all military activity to the unitary concept ofthe single engagement... all threads of military activity leadto the engagement; if we control the engagement, wecomprehend them all.1

The key scriptural texts of The Battle were "The Fire Action ofthe Battle Line," "Cruisers and Destroyers in the GeneralAction," and "The Naval Battle." This triteuch described indiagrammatic detail the structure of a decisive encounter at sea,"the supreme effort of men and material."2 The central conceptwas simple:

The primary objective is the breaking up of the enemy battleline... and to turn the advantage gained into a decisivevictory.3

Echoing Clausewitz, War College president Harris Laning wroteof the objective imperative of all command at sea:

Those to whom the handling of forces in war is entrusted arein duty bound to so handle them that those forces will exert

their maximum power in the battle that is the campaign'scrucial and decisive point.4

In theory, war was resolved in a decisive encounter, "the singleengagement," that would itself hinge on "the decisive point ofthe engagement": the clash of battlelines.5 Recent history, atTsushima and at Jutland, offered ambiguous confirmation ofwisdom's convention. Tradition, codified by Mahan, was a litanyof precedence: Quiberon Bay, The Saintes, The Nile, Trafalgar.The American Navy, above all, dreamed of extending the list."Decisive victory" was more than a professional objective: itwas the moment of grace as much as the moment of truth. As"the supreme effort of men," so the battle was the supreme test.Each of the texts of the battle stressed the spiritual nature ofbattle, and of victory:

The moral factor in battle is predominant.6

Such must be the will to win that nothing short of completevictory will be accepted.7

The moral factors to our benefit lay in the spiritual reactionwith the enemy.8

As the decisive moment of the decisive action of a war, the battlecreated an aura of historical gravity.

By historical implication, the battle fleet came to be perceived,at Newport and throughout the Service, as the physicalinstrument of American victory in future war: the agent ofnational destiny. As national champion in a decisive arena,operational ethos, in the course of the interwar era, was refinedinto a sublime rarefaction of perceived national ethos. Thegaming of the battle provided an expressive ritual for futurecommanders, to intensify their commitment to victory, so thattheir "will to win" might mirror the full force of national will:

Our country's largest and most vital team is its naval battleteam—the most nearly perfect team of its kind in theworld.9

We officers have a tremendous work before us to prepareourselves and our fleet team to be always invincible inbattle.10

In physical structure, the battle "plan approximates the generalplan and ideas followed by both fleets at Jutland."11 As spiritualsymbol within the span of America's history, the battle was anearly transcendent test of naval and national character. Victoryin so profound a contest would be a sign of historical grace. Forthis inheritance, the Navy looked not to the soiled image ofJutland but to the shining shibboleth of Trafalgar. In the battle,Nelson is evoked again and again. In "The Fire Action of theBattle Line," the first diagrams are of Trafalgar and of the Nile,to illustrate the existential postulates of decisive victory.12

The pursuit of the battle on the game floor of Newportbetween the wars was the spiritual quest of the U.S. Navy for anAmerican Trafalgar. For Great Britain, Trafalgar was thephysical and moral agent of 19th-century supremacy. More thanany modern battle, Trafalgar forged the spiritual strength of theBritish Empire. At Newport, this navy cherished that singlerecognition. As the climax of Mahan's thesis, Trafalgar was theinfluence of seapower upon history: this truth indoctrinated atthe War College had become part of the Navy world view.

The battle, as played at Newport, was an attempt to lay thespiritual foundations of an American Trafalgar in the next war.The Board Maneuver Chronicles support this sensation.

Of 106 pure tactical games, 49 were fought against ORANGE,5 against a BLACK-SILVER coalition in 1940-1941, and 52against RED. In contrast to the record of strategic gaming,where 93 percent of all problems were framed in BLUE-ORANGE colors, RED was the enemy in 49 percent of alltactical situations. Not all of these situations involved generalactions; only 71 tactical games involved a clash of battlelines.From this sum of 71 battleline board maneuvers, fully 48 calledfor decisive action against the RED battle fleet. The proportionof BLUE-RED potential Trafalgars rises to 68 percent.

There were two motivations behind this board maneuverobsession with the Royal Navy, when all strategic expectationfavored war with Japan. Britain's battleline was the force to beat;the toughest challenge, the class opponent, the match game.Then, as the service descendants of Nelson, the officers of themodern Royal Navy wore the moral mantle of victory. To becapable, even in game, of meeting and besting an opponentphysically equal and morally superior would mark a turningpoint. This was the importance of the games highlighted in thecallimorphosis of RED. America fought 50 Jutlands against theBritish Battle fleet: 50 battles played to the rules of Jutland, with

the texture of that North Sea fight. There the resemblanceended. Spiritually, the U.S. Navy did not "refight the battle ofJutland" on the game floor of the War College, as some haveclaimed.13 These were reruns of Trafalgar, fought with modernweapons: the youthful challenger against the aging champion:

Personally, we believe that the whole attitude of the BritishNavy had changed since the days of Drake, Hawke, Jervis,

and Nelson. Then it was young; now it had grown old Its

national policy was defensive, rather than offensive. Thataffected its naval strategy and turned the British Navy tothoughts of defense, rather than offense.14

So the judgment of Commander Holloway Frost, writing onJutland, in 1936. The causal and inseparable link between navaland national character is clear: the invidious comparison, ofNelson with Jellicoe, of Trafalgar with Jutland, of triumph withdespair. Even in the 1920s, before the epoch of appeasement, thecommentary of American naval officers was harsh. In his thesison tactics, 1923, Cdr. H.R. Stark said simply that, at Jutland, theGrand Fleet "lacked the fighting edge, the offensive spirit, thewill to win."15 These phrases, by contrast, were the fightingcommandments of the War College Course, and made up theconcept of the battle:

There is only one successful way of going for the objective in

battle, and that is the offensive way Let us not forget that

though defensive tactics sometimes prevent defeat, only byoffensive tactics can a decisive victory be gained.16

Trafalgar and Jutland became the symbolic moral examples ofgreatness and of decline.

The battle was the epiphany of the ritual of the game. Like thecombat of two champions who fight in place of whole armies,the big battle was a metaphoric enactment of the full activity of awar. As a dramatic encounter in which the moral qualities ofeach opponent cry for open evaluation, the very image of adecisive battle implies an exhibition of spiritual strength.

If realistic tactical simulation were required, it was injectedinto combat modeling in the Pacific theater. There, in a war withORANGE, no one forecast a classic clash of battlelines. Newportanticipated a messy, awkward war of attrition. The majority oftactical games played against ORANGE involved detachments:

groups of battleships, cruisers, or destroyers tangling at night orin narrow waters; on shipping raids or convoy defense orscreening operations. The art of the engagement was a processof daily combat, not a single showcase. Sharp, bloody, andconfused, the ORANGE tactical problems often seem to mirror,in grimy reality, the coming war.

Those epic contests, given titles like "The Battle of theEmerald Bank," and "The Battle of Sable Island," fought off thefog banks of Nova Scotia as if in an ersatz North Sea, served aspecial purpose. They taught the future commanders of theAmerican Navy, as Laning adjured, "to be always invincible inbattle."

The game was, in the guise of the battle, the oracle of Victory.

CHAPTER XIIITHE GAME AS ORACLE: THE WEAPON

The battleship is the backbone of seapower.1

Battleship, Battlewagon, Ship of the Line,

Dreadnought, Ironclad,

The Big Ships, the Heavy Ships,called, after the Washington Conference, through the interwarera, the Capital Ship.2 From the embryonic Naos of Vasco daGama, Europa embarking as Os Lusiadas, to conquer the Indies,the concept of the capital ship had evolved into the firstindependent strategic system, encoded into legal language,enshrined by international treaty.

By 1922, law legitimized in limitation the triumphantcreation of Victorian technology: the dreadnought battleship.The capital ship concept was that of an ark, a vessel transformedinto the ultimate instrumentality of power achieved in theinterwar era. As such standard, the 20th-century battleshipembodied an operational potential that transcended allcontemporary weapons systems:

THE greatest deliverable weapons payload, both in terms ofdestructive power and of accuracy, over time, of anycontemporary weapons system.

THE greatest endurance, in terms of time on station in thepursuit of operational objectives, of any contemporaryweapons system.

THE greatest staying power, in terms of defensive,protective, and damage-control systems, of anycontemporary weapons system.

THE greatest strategic mobility, in terms of the most directdeployment, at the highest initial state of readiness, of themost concentrated form of applied military power, of anycontemporary weapons system.3

The battleship was the key to American global power.Between the wars, limited by treaty to 18, and then to 15, capitalunits, the U.S. Navy still posited transpacific fleet movement onthe battleship backbone. As "the rallying point of all forces inthe fleet," the solid rock foundation of offensive planning, theAmerican battleship was both the instrument and the symbol ofnational will.4

All battleships, in the design process, were constrained by hullsize. At Washington, size was limited to 35,000 tons standarddisplacement. Within this margin, a balance must be struckbetween the four core components of operational capability—weapons payload, endurance, staying power, and strategicmobility—and calibrated to national strategic needs. The greatgray ships of the American battleline, between the wars,emblemized American strategic goals.

They were built for transoceanic combat. Tough, belted and"buttoned up" against mine and torpedo, strong-armed with

hollow engines long and roundThick-rammed, at the other bore with touch of fireDilated and infuriate, shall send forthFrom far, with thundering noise, among our foes,Such implements of mischief, as shall dashTo pieces, and o'erwhelm whatever stands...

the American battleship inspired confidence. The gun was thedecisive weapon, and 16 inches, in the Navy, was the decisivecaliber. As H.R. Stark exclaimed, in 1937, as ChBuOrd:

AT LAST we have the decision on the gun caliber for thecapital ships and thank the Lord it is 16".5

With such "devilish enginery," American battlewagons mightknock at the gates of Heaven. In earthly pride, crossing thePacific unscathed would prove to be task enough.

The American capital ship of the interwar era traded tacticalfor strategic mobility. This was the crucial design compromise.Topped off with 4,570 tons of oil, the New World dreadnoughtcould range halfway 'round the globe at 12 knots; 2 months'steaming before her tanks ran dry.6 This comfortable oceanicreach prompted the image publicized by Puleston, of theoffensive, on the eve of war:

The American Fleet would cross the Pacific at about thespeed of translation of a cyclone—between 10 and 15 knots.It would resemble the cyclone in a more important phase,leveling everything in its path except a stronger fleet—and astronger fleet does not at present exist.7

In private game post mortems at Newport, the vision was lesscertain. After OP. IV, 1933, Capt. R.B. Coffey admitted, in hiscritique:

BLUE, in this advance across the Pacific, has undertaken oneof the most difficult operations of war. His success rests,above all else, on the maintenance of the battle line instrength superior to ORANGE.8

Both images, confident and questioning, rooted the reality of anAmerican transoceanic offensive on the battleship backbone.Only through the capital ship concept, embodied by thebattleship, could the interwar Navy hope to operate offensivelyin the Western Pacific. Only the battleship could venturesustained operations, accept sustained punishment, and offersustained "impetuous fury" in return. In the mortal combat ofthat age, only a battleship could overthrow a battleship.

If the American Battle Force were the source of strategicthinking, the agent of transoceanic national will, the battlelinewas in aggregate as well the "decisive weapon" of the "decisivepoint" of the "decisive battle" of a war:

The modern sea battle is still centered around the main gunaction.9

The fire action of the Battle Line, by reason of its power,dominates.10

The dominating phase in battle is the gun fight betweenheavy ships.11

The foundation around which the battle play of any fleet isbuilt is its heavy battle line 12

This evocative thunder, the "devilish enginery" of Paradise Lost,permeates the subconscious of the vision of future war versifiedat Newport. In the symbolic Big Battle, the hopes and fortunes

of two nations, two peoples, would be weighed in the single,spasmodic clash of battlelines. If national destiny could bereduced to the outcome of a single battle; battle distilled to aclimactic shock of battlelines; and the American line held by less

than a score of heavy ships

A dozen battlewagons were the Shield of the Republic.Advancing across the Pacific, a dozen dreadnoughts forged theoffensive blade of American foreign policy: The BLUE Sword. Inthe "Maneuver Rules," the text of the game, and in the triteuchof the battle, the 12 champions of the battle force, girded inadamantine armor, armed with "Hollow engines... in triplemounted row," were the ultimate arbiters of war. If, on meetingthe battleline of the enemy, the American BatDivs

.. .can hit that line a blow at the earliest possible momentand keep hitting it with its full sxrength as long as the lineexists... then the enemy's battle line will be broken anddestroyed, and his whole fighting structure willcrumble 13

As an autopsy of the future, the game judged the fate of nationson "The Fire Action of the Battle Line"; on a bloody instant ofbattle that might, on a clear day, last only 21 to 84 minutes.14

Strategic systems, the instrumentality of ultimate decision inwar, tend to promote the expectation of immediate decision. Intheoretical circumstance it was possible to annihilate thebattleline of an enemy in single battle; a la Trafalgar, it waspossible to "lose the war in an afternoon." Similar imageryreigns today; it is all the fashion to blithely proclaim the tenureof nuclear war in minutes... perhaps 21 to 84?

These shared assumptions give strength to deterrent theoryin time of peace. An instrument of decision seems moreformidable if the threat of its employment promises immediateresult. In the shock of war, strategic systems cannot besquandered: reality is not so ready as the dramatic fantasy ofdeterrence imagery. As the "backbone" of theater pressure, thephysical prop of campaign strategy, strategic systems, in war,tend to be judiciously used.

In the BatDivs of the BatFor, the U.S. Navy developedAmerica's first strategic system. As the "backbone" of Americanseapower, these dozen battlewagons were critical to the rigorouscampaign modeling at Newport, in strategic problems playedagainst ORANGE. As the champions of the battle, the band of

American battleships became the emotional symbols of theNavy's perceived role in national destiny. With only 12 in theBatFor, and on the game floor, each ship was invested with ananimus. Named after states of the Union, each ship became aregional microcosm of America: as in ancient epic, a rollcall ofchampions, of heroes, would summon men from every islandand every polis:

Maryland, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, California, WestVirginia, Tennessee, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania,Oklahoma, Arizona

Full fifty ships beneath Achilles' care,The Achaians, Myrmidons, Hellenians bear;Thessalians all, though various in their name;The same their nation, and their chief the same.15

AFTERWORD

When war came, the Navy was ready to realize, insynchronous realities, the remembered ritual of combat leader-ship. The prophecy of the Game had come to pass. The battlefleet, the proud instrumentality of expectant destiny, laywrecked in the fires of Pearl; but it rose again, as steel-cladphoenix, to finish the job. A new fleet of fast carriers and sleek,AA-bristled battleships wrested the Pacific from the TeiheyoKaigun, forcing their battered big ships back to the nakedharbors of the Japanese homeland.

The campaign in the Pacific lacked none of the components ofthe great Board Maneuver, save one: The Battle, the AmericanTrafalgar. Midway was enshrined, but as a terrific, defensiveturning point in the fortunes of war. The Japanese Fleet escaped.In the emotional search for a decisive battle, the big fleet battlesof 1944 missed. Philippine Sea and Leyte were, at last,disappointments. Twice, the battlewagons of the CombinedFleet squirmed away from the eager denouement fantasized bythree generations of American officers. How hard we tried tomake of Leyte the stuff of legend! When Samuel Eliot Morisonbrought to history the specter of missed opportunity, the chanceto bring the "Jap Fleet" to battle, the judgment, even in 1958,was almost too much for poor Bill Halsey to bear:»•

Ham Dow came in to see me last Friday and we discussed a

son-of-a-bitch named Morison.1

This, the beginning of a tirade to Adm. Robert B. Carney,ex-CNO. Carney, attempting to placate the old seadog, agreedthat "the battle's outcome was favorable and completely decisivefrom the strategic viewpoint—and the effectiveness of Japan'ssea power was ended . . . . "2

So it had been with Jutland: and the unstated comparisoncarried little comfort. The fighting had been magnificent, butHalsey had thrown in "Ching" Lee's battleships too late: thepromise of the enacted ritual of the game, and the making of

Nelsonic myth, was lost. The victorious American Navy was leftwith a nagging frustration, and the historical usage only ofimages like "effectiveness" and "favorable": a qualification ofthe anatomy of glory.

If, in that last clash of arms, the Navy missed a certain ritualcatharsis, the Service realized, through the experience of thePacific War, the full geas of the Newport mission, and theindoctrination of Sims and of Knox and of Kalbfus. In doing so,they achieved not only the narrower objective of war, but theunstated sense of destiny implicit in the Navy ethos. The Navycollected its ships, and pushed the perimeter of this nation—itsinvisible oceanic frontier—as though it were a palpable thing,across the Pacific. The vision of Benton and Gilpin andWhitman, like an ineradicable American verse, was planted onthe littoral margins of Eurasia. There it has remained.

As agent, the Navy achieved this tectonic displacementthrough the instrumentality of the capital ship: not the oldBatFor, shattered at Pearl, but the sleek "task forces" of carrierand fast battleship. Today, the imperial alliances and clientstates of the American oikoumene are guaranteed by theenduring emblem of the battleline: no longer the dreadnoughtsof the BatFor, but the carrier "battle groups" of the world island.Forward deployed in Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, andIndian waters, these 12 Brobdingnagian arks, three times thebulk of a basket-masted battlewagon, remain the oceanic sinewof the association of kindred states—this globe-spanning DelianLeague—that we call The West.3

Yet there was something more, something almost instinctual,something in the very mortar of the War College. The abidingpurpose of the War College was—and is—to teach the "art ofwar." Not simply the usage of war's instrumentalities, but themeaning of its operational art. The college was created toinculcate 0iAori/zta, the philotema of combat. Through theritual of the game, Newport taught generation after generationthe behavioral spirit of operational ethos. "The readiness isall "

In the decade following our self-inflicted Asian debacle, theAmerican military services have, unthinking, turned away fromthe philotema of combat, and the training of operational ethos,as though it were a barbaric atavism, a primitive ancestralthrowback to another, harsher age. As Richard Gabriel and PaulSavage lamented, in their soul-searching autopsy, Crisis inCommand:

. . . the British sense of "the military way" and the Frenchsense of "elan" are qualities that escape definition ... asimilar "sense of the legion" is lacking in the Americanmilitary in general and the officer corps in particular .... Itis this quality, the discovering of a sense of community, asense of honor, a sense of the "way of the legion," which wemust attain.4

The manager came, almost consciously, to eclipse the warrior;for the philotema of the warrior—his operational ethos—andthe fraternity of his service—his corporate ethos—have beenforged in current argot to the evil image of an imperial mission,and the "shameful" memory of Vietnam.

For the Navy, and its "home of thought," this judgment hascreated a decade of dismantlement. The Estimate of theSituation was abjured, and tours at the college became redolentof "ticket-punching," a racking-up of career points. Manage-ment courses became dominant fashion: costing methodologytriumphed over battle tactics. A swarm of petty assignmentsgreeted the middle-managing students of the new navy, readyand armed to do battle in the grade-point melee.

Somehow the old doctrine evaded extinction, and may yetprevail. Vice Adm. James Stockdale, as president, hammeredhome a single theme, over all others, to his students:

Wars cannot be fought the same way bureaucrats haggleover apportionments. The toll in human life in battle doesnot lend itself to cost/benefit analysis .... As we followthe peacetime horde down the prescribed track, let us notadopt a false sense of security .... Have you thought itthrough? When the whistle blows, are you ready to step outof your business suit with both the philosophy and the bellyfor a fight?5

Like Luce, in 1911, crying in the wilderness, Stockdale saw thecentral meaning of his service, and the object of all endeavor:

Your profession is the art of war, and nature will be avengedif you violate one of its laws in undertaking to make a partgreater than the whole. You give two years to marineengineering and but seventy-eight days to the study of theart you pretend to profess. This is a total eclipse of themental vision. You cannot even see the grim humor of it!6

In the voices of these two men the lineage of mission at the WarCollege holds unbroken.

And there remains the game.  As Stockdale writes:

We've made a conscious shift to war gaming in the NavalOperations course, and our students participate to an evergreater extent in major CINC-level games during theyear .... The reputation of the Naval War College wasbuilt largely on the tremendous impact gaming had onWorld War II.7

Like an iron thread of continuity, the game goes on. At theCenter for War Gaming, SACLANT/CINCLANTFLT stillholds quarterly games: called now "Tactical Command Readi-ness War Games." Begun in 1976 by Adm. Isaac Kidd, they sharekinship with the 1921 convocations of the Atlantic Fleet atNewport. There, far from the politicking of the Capital, theNavy, under Sims' tutelage, thought hard about battle. Now,instead of the BatFor in the Philippine Sea, they play carrier"battle groups" in the waters north of Iceland, extendingAmerican seapower to the lair of "the enemy." When Kiddwould address his officers, in the pristine new gameroom inSims Hall, clotted with state-of-the-art electronics, his messagemight have echoed in the galleried chamber of another age:

I don't want anyone here who isn't prepared to bleed for hiscountry .... When war starts, we're going to have to go towork .... I don't want to go into the Norwegian Sea, butwe might have to ... . We've got to be prepared forstaggering losses . . . but we've got to go north where thebattle is .... I don't know what's going to happen whenwar begins . . . that's what we're here for, to prepare forwar . . . . 8

In such men, the old ethos lives. They talk of mission, andthere is fire in their eyes. And then the game begins, as it has forsomething like a finished century, by the waters of the grayAtlantic; and the trappings of this age cannot obscureineluctable tradition. Though the fleets move on electronicboard, the squadrons of the enemy glow ORANGE. TheAmerican battle groups move north of Iceland, as Kidd insiststhey must, burning BLUE, like a sword in that computer fantasy.

In such men, the line of descent is clear. The young men, thejunior officers who exalt the shallow spirit of their age, mustdiscern the imprint of this ancestry. Now they mirror, morethan any earlier naval generation, the spirit of contemporarysociety: an American society in search of mission. They mustseek within themselves the esprit, the "way of the legion," thephilotema of those who came before, those who fought for theirunyielding vision of America. For the Navy, and its youngofficers, this means no less than a rediscovery of self. They mustbe able to come to Newport and search out, once again, theirsense of higher mission in American life, and in this nation'suncertain future.

APPENDIX I

THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW

| BLUE    | U.S.A.                        |
|---------|-------------------------------|
| BLACK   | Germany                       |
| ORANGE  | Japan                         |
| RED     | Great Britain                 |
| CRIMSON | Canada                        |
| SCARLET | Australia                     |
| GARNET  | New Zealand                   |
| RUBY    | Indian Empire                 |
| GOLD    | France                        |
| SILVER  | Italy                         |
| OLIVE   | Spain                         |
| GREEN   | Mexico                        |
| BROWN   | Netherlands East Indies       |
| PURPLE  | U.S.S.R.                      |
| LEMON   | Portugal                      |
| CITRON  | Brazil                        |
| YELLOW  | China                         |
| INDIGO  | Iceland                       |
| EMERALD | Eire                          |
| GRAY    | Azores                        |
| TAN     | Cuba                          |
| VIOLET  | China Intervention            |
| WHITE   | U.S.A. (Domestic Contingency) |

APPENDIX II

ABBREVIATED TITLES

Title

Commander in Chief, U.S. FleetCommander Battle Force

Battle ForceCommander Scouting Force

Scouting ForceCommander Submarine Force

Submarine ForceCommander Base Force

Base ForceCommander Battleships, U.S. Fleet

Battleships, U.S. FleetCommander Battleships, Battle Force

Battleships, Battle ForceCommander Battleship Division

Battleship DivisionCommander Cruisers, U.S. Fleet

Cruisers, U.S. FleetCommander Cruisers, Scouting Force

Cruisers, Scouting ForceCommander Cruisers, Battle Force

Cruisers, Battle ForceCommander Cruiser Division

Cruiser DivisionCommander Destroyers, U.S. Fleet

Destroyers, U.S. FleetCommander Destroyers, Battle Force

Destroyers, Battle ForceCommander Destroyers, Scouting Force

Destroyers, Scouting Force

Destroyer FlotillaCommander Destroyer Division

Destroyer DivisionCommander Aircraft, U.S. Fleet

Aircraft, U.S. FleetCommander Aircraft, Battle Force

Aircraft, Battle ForceCommander Aircraft, Scouting Force

Aircraft, Scouting Force

Written

CinCUS

ComBatFor

BatFor

ComScoFor

ScoFor

ComSubFor

SubFor

ComBaseFor

BaseFor

ComBatsUS

BatsUS

ComBatShips

BatShips

ComBatDiv

BatDiv

ComCrusUS

CrusUS

ComCruScoFor

CruScoFor

ComCruBatFor

CruBatFor

ComCruDiv

CruDiv

ComDesUS

DesUS

ComDesBatFor

DesBatFor

ComDeScoFor

DeScoFor

DesFlot

ComDesDiv

DesDiv

ComAirUS

AirUS

ComAirBatFor

AirBatFor

ComAirScoFor

AirScoFor

Commander Carrier Division

Carrier DivisionCommander Minecraft, U.S. Fleet

Minecraft, U.S. FleetCommander Minecraft, Battle Force

Minecraft, Battle ForceCommander Mine Squadron

Mine SquadronCommander Mine Division

Mine DivisionCommander Training Squadron

Training SquadronCommander Submarine, U.S. Fleet

Submarines, U.S. FleetCommander Submarine Squadron

Submarine SquadronCommander Submarine Division

Submarine DivisionCommander Train Squadron

Train SquadronCommander in Chief, Asiatic FleetCommander Yangtze Patrol

Yangtze PatrolCommander South China Patrol

South China Patrol

ComCarDiv

CarDiv

CoMinUS

MinUS

CoMinBatFor

MinBatFor

CoMinRon

MinRon

CoMinDiv

MinDiv

ComDrillRon

DrillRon

ComSubUS

SubUS

ComSubRon

SubRon

ComSubDiv

SubDiv

ComTrainRon

TrainRon

CinCAsiatic

ComYangPat

YangPat

SoPatCom

SoPat

APPENDIX IIIWAR GAMES CONDUCTED AT

THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE, 1919-1941 KEY(Drawn From Descriptions Used in Game Histories)

|     | Situation Key                              |
|-----|--------------------------------------------|
| BO  | BLUE/ORANGE                                |
| RB  | RED/BLUE                                   |
| RCB | RED-CRIMSON/BLUE                           |
| BB  | BLUE/BLACK                                 |
|     | Game Motive Key                            |
| CM  | Chart Maneuver                             |
| DA  | Daylight Action                            |
| NA  | Night Action                               |
| TA  | Torpedo Action                             |
| SP  | Scouting Problem                           |
| CP  | Convoy Problem (Fleet Train/Advanced B< |
|     | Transports)                                |
| ss  | Scouting and Screening Problem             |
| RI  | Raider Interception                        |
| CON | Concentration of Forces                    |
| COM | Battle Communications                      |
| DAA | Defense Against Aircraft                   |
| EST | Estimate of the Situation                  |
| SP  | Strategy of the Pacific                    |
|     | N    Northern Route                        |
|     | H-P    Hawaii/Panama Defense               |
|     | W    WesPac through Carolines Base         |
| SA  | Strategy of the Atlantic                   |
|     | C    Caribbean                             |
| ow  | Order Writing                              |
| BP  | Battle Plans                               |
| MPA | Maneuvering for a Position of Advantage    |
| QD  | Quick Decision Problem                     |
| A   | Approach and Deployment for Battle         |
| E   | Engagement Problem                         |

NM Night Maneuver Problem

LOG Logistics Problem

LOC Operations Against Lines of Communication

LO Landing Operations

BL Battleline/Fleet Action

CS Cruiser Screen/Scouting Operations

DS Destroyer Screen Operations

FS Fleet Submarines in the Engagement

SO Screening Operations in the Engagement

AO Aircraft Operations in the Engagement

G Gun Tactical Employment in the Engagement

T Torpedo Tactical Employment in the Engagement

M Mine Tactical Employment in the Engagement

FO Fleet Organization

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 6/19  | T.75       | XI    | BO/BL                   | DA/TA/COR      |
|-------|------------|-------|-------------------------|----------------|
| 6/19  | T.74       | X     | BO/BL                   | DA/DAA/COR     |
| 6/19  | S.56       | VIII  | BO                      | SP/OW/EST      |
| 6/19  | T.49       | IX    | RB/BL                   | EST/FS/COR     |
| 6/19  | S.40       | V     | BO                      | EST/OW/SP      |
| 22    | S.57       | VII   | BO                      | EST/OW/SP      |
| 6/19  | T.21       | VII   | RB/BL                   | QD/MPA         |
| 6/19  | T.7        | V     | RB/BL                   | G/T/M          |
| 6/19  | T.7        | VI    | RB/BL                   | DA/SS/COR      |
| 6/19  | T.2        | III   | RB/BL                   | MPA/EST        |
| 6/19  | T.2        | I     | RB/BL                   | BP/EST/MPA     |
| 22    | S.57/T.91  | VII-X | BO/BL                   |                |
| 22    | S.66       | V     | BO                      | OW/EST/SO      |
| 22    | S.67       | VI    | BO                      | SP-N           |
| 6/19  | Tac.2      | IV    | RB/BL                   | EST/BP/SS      |
| 6/19  | S&S.20 | IV    | o

BO/C-D-F-80

SBO/C-D | CP/OW/EST      |
| 6/19  | S&S.5  | II    | CP/SO                   |
| 6/19  | S&S.9  | III   | BO/C-D                  | CP/SO          |
| 6/19  | T.53       | VIII  | RB/BL                   | EST/COR/DS-110 |
| 6/19  | S&S.la | I     | BO                      | CP/SO          |
| 6/19  | T.76       | XII   | RB/BL                   | A/NM           |
| 6/19  | T.77       | XIII  | RB/BL                   | QD/MPA         |
| 12/19 | S&S.l  | I     | BO                      | SO/CP          |
| 12/19 | S.57       | IX    | BO                      | EST/OW/SP      |
| 12/19 | S.58       | VII   | BO/BL                   | EST/SP-W       |
| 12/19 | S.40       | VI    | BO                      | EST/SP         |
| 12/19 | S.36       | V     | BO                      | EST/SP-H-P     |
| 6/20  | S&S.9  | III   | BO                      | CP/SO          |
| 6/20  | S&S.5  | II    | BO                      | CP/SO          |
| 6/20  | S&S.l  | I     | BO                      | CP/SO          |
| 6/20  | S.57       | IX    | BO                      | EST/CP/SP      |
| 6/20  | S.56       | VIII  | BO                      | EST/OW/SP      |
| 6/20  | S.40       | VI    | BO                      | EST/OW/SP      |
| 6/20  | S.49       | IV    | BO                      | LOG            |
| 6/20  | S.43       | I     | BO                      | EST/CP/SP-H    |
| 6/20  | S.35       | III   | BO                      | EST/SP         |
| 12/19 | S&S.20 | IV    | BO                      | CP             |
| 6/20  | T.77       | XIII  | RB/BL                   | QD             |
| 6/20  | T.78       | VII   | RB/BL                   | EST/FS/DS      |
| 6/20  | T.27       | VI    | RB/BL                   | COR/SS/AO      |
| 6/20  | T.26       | V     | RB/BL                   | M/COR/EST      |
| 6/20  | Tac.12     | IV    | OB/BL                   | BP/DS/EST      |
| 6/20  | T.10       | I     | RB/BL                   | MPA/EST        |
| 6/20  | T.49       | IX    | RB/BL                   | BP/OW/EST      |
| 6/20  | T.81       | X     | BO/BL                   | CP             |
| 12/19 | S.43       | I     | BO                      | EST/CP         |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 12/19 | T.27       | VI        | RB/BL    | COR/DA/SS/DS                         |
|-------|------------|-----------|----------|--------------------------------------|
| 12/19 | T.26       | V         | RB/BL    | G-T-M                                |
| 12/19 | T74        | X         | BO/BL    | COR/DA/EST/BP                        |
| 12/19 | T.79       | XI        | RB/BL    | EST/M/CON                            |
| 12/19 | T.71       | VII       | RB/BL    | QD/MPA                               |
| 12/19 | T.81       | XIV       | OB       | SO/CP                                |
| 12/20 | S&S.l  | I         | BO       | SO/CP                                |
| 12/19 | T.10       | I         | RB/BL    | EST/MPA/BP                           |
| 12/20 | S&S.21 | IV        | RB/CS-FS | EST/LOC                              |
| 12/20 | S&S.9  | III       | BO       | EST/OW/CP                            |
| 12/19 | T.13       | III       | RB/BL    | MPA/EST                              |
| 12/19 | T.14       | II        | RB/BL    | EST/Red Superior Skill               |
| 12/20 | T.10       | I         | RB/BL    | EST/MA                               |
| 12/20 | S.63       | VI        | RB       | SA/EST/OW                            |
| 12/20 | S.62       | V         | RB       | EST/CP/LO                            |
| 12/20 | T.14       | II        | RB/BL    | EST/Red Superior Skill               |
| 12/20 | T.26       | IV        | RB/BL    | EST/COR/BP                           |
| 12/21 | T.27       | V         | RB/BL    | SS/COR-D-B                           |
| 12/20 | T.78       | VI        | RB/BL    | EST/DS/ASN                           |
| 12/20 | T.77       | VII       | RB/BL    | QD                                   |
| 12/20 | S.35       | III       | RB       | SA/EST                               |
| 12/20 | S.44       | II        | RB       | ow                                   |
| 12/20 | S.43       | I         | BO       | EST/SP-H/CP                          |
| 6/20  | T.82       | XV        | RB/SP    | SO/AO/D-C-S                          |
| 21    | T.49       | VIII      | RB/BL    | EST/A                                |
| 22    | S.68/T.88  | V-VII     | BO/BL    |                                      |
| 22    | S.57/T.91  | VII-X     | BO/BL    | LO                                   |
| 21    | S.64/T83   | BO        | SP       |                                      |
| 22    | T.86       | V         | BO       | CP/D-C-S                             |
| 6/19  | S.49       | VII       | BO/LOG   | LOC/CP/Fuel                          |
| 22    | S&S.5  | II        | BO/CP    | LOC/C-S                              |
| 22    | T.86       | V         | BO/SP/CP | D-C-A-S                              |
| 12/19 | S.49       | IV        | BO/LOG   | LOC/CP/Fuel                          |
| 22    | T.87       | VI        | RB/BL    | QD-Based on Jutland                  |
| 22    | T.85       | IV        | BO/FO    | FS/A                                 |
| 6/19  | III        | S&S.9 | BO/CP    | C-D-F-S                              |
| 22    | S&S.l  | I         | BO/SO    | CP/C-D-S                             |
| 22    | T.84       | III       | BO/BL    | Fleet Standing OrderMPA/BP/COR-C/D/B |
| 22    | T.89       | VIII      | BO/FO    | QD/A-M-S/Treaty Navy                 |
| 22    | T.90       | IX        | BO/CP    | SO/D-A-C-S                           |
| 22    | S.65       | III       | BO/      | EST/COR-Army SP-P                    |
| 22    | S.44       | II        | BO/      | OW                                   |
| 22    | S.49       | IV        | BO/LOG   | Trains Ops                           |
| 23    | T.96       | V         | BP/CP-BL | SO

"Battle of the Marianas"         |
| 21    | S.35       | VII       | BO/      | EST/SP                               |
| 21    | S&S.5  | II        | BO/SO    | CP                                   |
| 21    | S.35       | VII       | BO/      | pcnr/.SP                             |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 12/20                     | S.49                                  | IV                                            | BO/LOG             |                                       |
|---------------------------|---------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|--------------------|---------------------------------------|
| 23                        | S.71                                  | I                                             | BO                 | SP/BP-A                               |
| 23                        | S.70                                  | B                                             | BO                 | EST/OW/SP                             |
| 23                        | S.72                                  | II                                            | BO/SO              | A-C-D-S                               |
| 23                        | S.74                                  | III                                           | BO                 | SP/BP-A                               |
| 23                        | S.75                                  | IV                                            | BO                 | SP-Formosa                            |
| 23                        | S.76                                  | V-A                                           | BO                 | SP/BP-A                               |
| 23                        | S.76                                  | V-B                                           | BO/LOG             | Fleet Supply Schedule                 |
| 23                        | T.92                                  | II                                            | RB/BL              | EST/BP-A-D-E                          |
| 23                        | T.93                                  | III                                           | RB                 | EST/FS & BL                       |
| 23                        | T.96                                  | V                                             | BO/BL &Train   | EST                                   |
| 23                        | T.94                                  | IV                                            | RB/BL              | Battle of the EmeraldBank             |
| (w. essentially same nos. | as Sable Is.                          | , Blue lost ALL BBs in action, and Red had 11 |
| BBs and 1 CC at end.)     |                                       |                                               |                    |
| 24                        | S.79combined                          | VI                                            | BO                 | SP-14 day prep,from H                 |
| 24                        | T.79                                  | IV                                            | BO                 | SP-G-M-T-A                            |
| 24                        | S.75                                  | V                                             | BO                 | SP-NJaps inPetropavlovskLO Avacha Bay |
| 24                        | 8.74

A&B games                   | IV                                            | BO                 |                                       |
| 24                        | S&S.5                             | III                                           | BO/CP              | Base Screening & SO forCP         |
| 24                        | S.72                                  | II                                            | BO/SearchOps.      |                                       |
| 24                        | S.77                                  | "B"                                           | BO                 | EST/OW/SPLow visibility               |
| 24                        | T.10/Mod.8                            | I                                             | RB/BL              | EST/A/MPA/COM                         |
| 24                        | T.10/Mod.9"The Battle ofSable Island" | II                                            | RCB/BL             | BP/A-D/DS-CS                          |
| 24                        | T.96

"The Battle of

Siargao"        | III                                           | BO/CP-SO           | DS-CS/FS-M-AO                         |
| 25                        | T.96                                  | III                                           | B-O ConvoyExercise | CP/SO                                 |
| 25                        | T.98                                  | II                                            | RB/BL              | C (Trinidad)                          |
| 25                        | S.80/T.101                            | J/P.I                                         | BO                 |                                       |
| 25                        | S.74/Mod.l                            | V                                             | BO                 | (Anti-Landing Phil.)                  |
| 25                        | S.76/Mod.2                            | IV                                            | BO/LOG             | Fuel Sup. Schedule                    |
| 25                        | S&S.5/Mod.7                       | V                                             | BO/CP              | Base SO & SO for CP               |
| 25                        | S.77                                  | "B"                                           | BO                 | EST/OW/SP                             |
| 25                        | S.72/Mod.2                            | II                                            | BO/SO              | Jap. Home Waters                      |
| 26                        | S.72/Mod.3                            | II                                            | BO/SO              |                                       |
| 26                        | S.69/Mod.2                            | "A"                                           | B-B/SA             |                                       |
| 26                        | S.77.Mod.2                            | "B"                                           | BO/SP              | EST/OW                                |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 26     | S&S.1.2                     | I      | BO/CP                            | SO/CS-DS                |
|--------|---------------------------------|--------|----------------------------------|-------------------------|
| 26     | S&S.5.8                     | III    | BO/CP                            | Base SO & SO for CP |
| 26     | S.74.2                          | BO/SP  |                                  |                         |
| 26 JP  | Ops. 1.2                        | I      | BO/SP                            | Los Visibility          |
| 26     | T.10.8                          | I      | RB/BL                            | EST/A.MPA/COM           |
| 26     | T.101                           | III    | BO                               | EST/Convoy attack/CS-DS |
| 26     | T.102                           | IV     | BO/BL                            | BP/M-AO                 |
| 27     | S.72.4                          | I      | BO/SO                            |                         |
| 27     | S.77.3                          | "B"    | BO/SP                            | EST/OW                  |
| 27     |                                 | "C"    | BO/CP                            | EST/OW/SP-H             |
| 27     | Ops.I

(ex-S&S 5.9)         |        | BO/CP                            | SO (Base & CP)      |
| 27     | Ops. II                         |        | BO/SP                            |                         |
| 2727   | T.104

Chart Man.l(S&S 1.3) | I      | BOBO                             | EST                     |
| 29 Sr. | QD Problems:                    |        |                                  |                         |
| //     | II                              |        | OB/BL                            |                         |
| //     | III                             |        | OB/BL                            |                         |
| //     | IV                              |        | OB/BL                            |                         |
| //     | V                               |        | RB/BL                            |                         |
| ft     | VI                              |        | OB/BL: Offenj                    | >ive screen 3CC/3BB  |
| 30 Sr. | QD Problems:                    |        |                                  |                         |
| //     | "B"                             |        | RB/BL: Part 3 Blue BBs/5 Red BBs |
| //     | "A"                             |        | OB/BL: Van forces 4-3BBs         |
| //     | "D"                             |        | OB/BL: melee                     |                         |
| //     | "C"                             |        | OB/BL                            |                         |
| 31 Sr. | QD Problems:                    |        |                                  |                         |
| //     | "A"                             |        | OB/van/3/3                       |                         |
| //     | "B"                             |        | RB/van/3/5                       |                         |
| //     | "D"                             |        | OB/BL                            |                         |
| 28     | Ops. 3                          | III    | Sp.Sit.BLACK                     | LO (Newport,N.Bedford)  |
| 28     | SearchProblem                   |        | BO/SO                            | DS-CS                   |
| 28     | S&S 1.4                     | C.M.I. | BO/CP                            | SO                      |
| 28     | Ops 2 Sr.                       | II     | BO/CP                            | SO-Base & CP        |
| 28 Sr. | Ops. 5                          | V      | BO/SP                            |                         |
| 28 Sr. | Ops. 4                          | IV     | BO/SP                            | (Trans Pac: S & T)  |
| 28 Sr. | T. 104.1                        | I      | BO/BL                            | EST                     |
| 28 Jr. |                                 | II     |                                  |                         |
| 29 Sr. | Ops. 3                          | III    | BO/Blue LOC/SO/Orange Bases      |
|        | (S.II, T.IV)                    |        |                                  | flanking                |
| 29 Sr. | Ops. 2                          | II     | BO/SO/CP                         | EST/OW                  |
| 29 Sr. | Ops. 4

(S.IV/T.VI)             | IV     | BO/Phil.def.                     | Joint A-N COR           |
| 29 Sr. | Ops. 5                          | V      | BO/Initial Phase:                |
|        | (S.V/T.VII)                     |        | Bases for TransPac Advance       |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 29 Sr.   | Ops. 6

(NWC/AWC)            | VI  | BO/LO-forced, Phil./M-AO                                    |
|----------|------------------------------|-----|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| 29 Sr.   | T.104.1                      | I   | BO/                   EST/Chart & BoardManeuver of TE 1 |
| 29 Sr.   | T.2                          | II  | BO/QD                                                       |
| 29 Sr.   | T.4                          | IV  | BO/BL                                                       |
| 29 Sr.   | T.5                          | V   | RB/BL                                                       |
| 29 Sr.   | S.7                          | VII | RB                                                          |
| 30 Sr.   | Ops. 4                       | IV  | RB/-C & Panama Transit for BL                           |
| 30 Sr.   | Ops. 3                       | III | BO/-Phil. battle O-North/B-South                            |
| (w.Jr. i | ifter one mo. play)          |     |                                                             |
| 30 Sr.   | T.l                          | I   | BO/CP B leaving Truk                                        |
| 30 Sr.   | Ops. II                      |     | RB                                                          |
| 30 Sr.   | Ops. I                       |     | OB/Asiatic Fl.-Phil. Def.                                   |
| 30 Sr.   | Tac. I                       |     | OB/BL              EST/BP & battle                      |
| 30 Sr.   | QD:                          |     |                                                             |
|          | "A" Tac.2                    |     | OB/5                                                        |
| //       | "B" Tac.3                    |     | RB                                                          |
| n        | "C Tac.4                     |     | OB                                                          |
| 31 Sr.   | Tac. I                       |     | OB/BL              EST/BP & battle                      |
| 30 Sr.   | Sect. V                      |     | OB/SP                                                       |
| 30 Sr.   | Ops. VI                      |     | OB/LO-Support Group                                         |
| 31 Sr.   | Ops. IV                      |     | OB/SP                                                       |
| 31 Sr.   | Ops. Ill                     |     | RB/SA                                                       |
| 31 Sr.   | Ops. I                       |     | OB/SP                                                       |
| 31 Sr.   | Ops. II                      |     | OB/SP              S. Phil. CP                              |
| 31 Sr.   | Ops. Ill                     |     | RB/SA                                                       |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. I                       |     | OB/CP                                                       |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. II                      |     | OB                                                          |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. Ill                     |     | OB                                                          |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. IV                      |     | RB/B superiority 3:2 BL                                     |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. V                       |     | RB/BL                                                       |
|          | "The Battle of Sable Island" |
| 32 Sr.   | Tac. VI                      |     | OB                                                          |
| 32 Sr.   | Ops. I                       |     | OB/Asiatic Fl.LOC/Phil.Def.                                 |
| 32 Sr.   | Ops. II                      |     | OB/Suez LOC                                                 |
| 32 Sr.   | Ops. Ill                     |     | RB/R-SLOC in Indian S.Atl./SA/Planchanges in course of play |
| 32 Sr.   | Ops. IV                      |     | OB                                                          |
| 32 Sr.   | Ops. V                       |     | Revision of IV Movement Trans-Pac                           |
| 32 Sr.   | QD:                          |     |                                                             |
|          | "A"                          |     | OB/3 Blue BBs/5 Orange BBs                                  |
| //       | "C"                          |     | OB/4 Blue BBs/6 Orange BBs                                  |
| rt       | "E"                          |     | RB/6 Blue BBs/4 Red BBs                                     |
| 33 Sr.   | Ops. I                       |     | BO/Trans-Pac                                                |
| 33 Sr.   | Ops. II                      |     | BO/S.Phil.def. Area control/LOC/LOG                         |
| 33 Sr.   | Ops.IV/Tac.V                 |     | BO                                                          |
| 34 Sr.   | Ops. V                       |     | BO/Trans-Pac 1 yr. after host.                              |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

| 34 Sr.      | Ops.IV/Tac.IV     | RB-2nd phase                                         | -EastLant                                      |
|-------------|-------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
| 34 Sr.      | Ops. II           | OB/Asiatic Fit                                       | :. EST/Ops.Plan                                |
| 34 Sr.      | Ops. Ill          | OB/2nd stage-convoys LOC                             | ■BF awaiting Ind.O.                            |
| 34J.&S. | Ops. I            | OB                                                   |                                                |
| 34 Sr.      | Tac. I            | OB                                                   |                                                |
| 34 Sr.      | QD:               |                                                      |                                                |
|             | "A"               | OB/3 Blue BBs/3 Orange BBs                           |
| //          | "C"               | OB/7 Blue BBs/9 Orange BBs                           |
| //          | "E"               | RB/11 Blue BBs/9 Red BBs                             |
| 34 Sr.      | Tac. VI           | OB/U.S. & U.S.S.R. vs. Japan(Java Sea/Kamchatka) |
| 34 Sr.      | Tac. V            | RB/WestLant                                          | , Sable Is.(BL)                                |
| 34 Sr.      | Tac. Ill(Ops.III) | OB                                                   |                                                |
| 34 Sr.      | Tac. II           | OB                                                   | CP 4 Blue BBs/5 OrangeBBs Detachment N. ofTruk |
| 33 Sr.      | Ops. Ill          | RB                                                   | SLOC attack on Red(Azores)                     |
| 33 Sr.      | Tac. I            | OB                                                   | BL-0-CCs(3)B-BBs(3)                            |
| 33 Sr.      | Tac. II           | OB                                                   | BL/EST/BP-0(7)

-B(5)                          |
| 33 Sr.      | Tac. Ill          | RB                                                   | BL(MainBodies:12-12)                           |
| 33 Sr.      | Tac. IV           | RB                                                   | BL/Full MB: 15-15                              |
|             | "Battle of        |                                                      | N.Atl.springtime                               |
|             | Sable Is."        |                                                      | condition                                      |
| 35 Sr.      | Tac. II           | OB                                                   | BP/EST (Truk, B base)Blue-5BB;Orange;4 BBs     |
| 35 Sr.      | Tac. Ill          | RB                                                   | EST/OW/BL (Halifax15-15)                       |
| 35 Sr.      | Strat. II         | OB                                                   | CINCAF prob./EST                               |
| 35 Sr.      | Tac. I            | OB                                                   | Relief of Phil. (Manila)                       |
|             | linked to Strat.I |                                                      | BL detachments(3 Orange CCs;3 Blue BBs)        |
| 35 Sr.      | QD:               |                                                      | Blue      Orange                               |
| &Jr.    | "A"               | OB                                                   | 3 BBs      5BBs                                |
| //          | "B"               | OB                                                   | 6 BBs      9 BBs                               |
| /•          | "C"               | OB                                                   | 6 BBs      6 BBs                               |
| t?          | "D"               | OB                                                   | 4 BBs     6 BBs                                |
| //          | "E"               | OB                                                   | 4 BBs      6 BBs                               |
| //          | »F»               | OB                                                   | 6 BBs      6 BBs                               |
| //          | "G"               | OB                                                   | Night Raid                                     |
| 35 Sr.      | Ops. I            | OB                                                   | SP/CP/begins afteradvanced base inDumanquilas  |

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

35 Sr.35 Sr.

36 Sr.36 Sr.

36 Sr.

36 Sr.36 Sr.

36 Sr.

36S&J

36 Sr.36 Sr.

36 Sr.36 Sr.36 Sr.36 Sr.36 Sr.

37S&J37 Sr.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

Ops. IIOps. Ill

Tac. IV

Strat. IITac. I

RBOB

OB

RBOB

Tac. II

Tac. IllTac. V

QD:

"A""C""D""G"

OB

RBOB

OB

OB

Blue vs. Blue

OB

(Night Light Force/Orange attack)

T

RB

Raid on U.S. Coast

"K"

Night Light Force attack

on BLUE MB & Train

"L"

Ops. I

1 mo.Ops.by Blue against Orange

commence in Brown area & SE Asia

Ops. II OB

RB

OBOB

Ops. Ill

OB

Ops. IV OB

(Blue MB as Dumanquilas; 3 convoys to

Suez; Orange to intercept)

Strat. I OB

Strat. II RB

Crimson Neutral/Red

Carib. Off.

TransPac/EST/OW/

Strat. Areas/Fleet

Composition

Blue MB from Truk to

Phil.

Cruiser action (SanBernardino Str.) escortforce for convoy toManila/3 Blue BBs/3 Orange BBsCP (5 Blue BBs, 9 OrangeCAs) near TrukEST/OW/BL Fleet BattleU.S. Fleet divided,Orange Off. TransPacbefore Blue can reunitenear CZBlue      Orange3 BBs      5 BBs

7 BBs      6 BBs

8 BBs      8 BBs

12 BBs      6 LCs & 12DesDivs./49 DDs

CA/DD scouting forces

Blue Red

13 DDs      3 CAs/3 BBs

Blue        Orange

9 BBs      3 CLs/35 DDsWest Pac: Flt.comp.EST/OW/Strat.areas

AB in East or SouthChina Seas/cut OrangeSLOCS

Same as Ops. I & IIBattle off "Pellew" asBlue MB nears Phil.Same as Ops I/II/IIIarrive from U.S. via

Same as 1936 Ops.Blue raiding of IndianOcean SLOCs weakensFlt;Red assumesoffensive

175CLASS    PROBLEM     NO. SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

37 Sr.       Tac. II B-White (a hypothetical Fit. like

Orange to Blue, butlarger)

37 Sr.       Tac. Ill OB CP N. of Truk/Orange

(Orange Superior: 7:5 BBs) force Truk to

Dumanquilas

37 Sr.       Tac. IV RB Red MB on offensive to

keep Blue from takingHalifax

37 Sr.       Ops. I OB Same as 1936 Ops. Blue

CA raiding OrangeSLOCs in S. China Seas

37 Sr.       Ops. II OB Same as Ops.I; advance of

Blue MB on Truk

37 Sr.       Ops. Ill OB Purple called pot. ally of

Blue/Blue MB from Trukto Phil.

37 Sr.       Ops. IV OB Blue MB convoy prot.

Dumanquilas to Suezroute

37 Sr.       QD:

"A" OB Orange 5 BBs/Blue 3 BBs

plus fort.

37 Sr.       "B" OB Orange 9 BBs/Blue 7 BBs

scattered by fog"C" OB Orange 6 BBs/Blue 6 BBs

scattered by fog"D" Indigo 8 BBs/Pink 8 BBs

(all Blue 48 type BB)"J" RB Blue 5 CAs/Red 7 CAs,

3CCs"M" OB Orange 6 CCs, 39 DDs/

Blue 12 BBs, Night Torp.

action"P" OB Orange 4 CLs, 36 DDs/

Blue 10 BBs"N" RB Blue 6 CAs, Red 2 CCs

convoy, raiding force

38 Sr.       Ops.I(Tac) OB Aleutians; 3 BBs each38 Sr.       Ops.II(Strat)                      RB                     SA Caribbean

BP defensive campaign38 Sr.       Ops.III(Strat) OB SP Indian Ocean/

S.China Sea/EST/Ops.Plan38 Sr.       Ops.IV(Tac) OB BP Truk area familiariza-

tion, safeguarding ofOahu-Dumanquilas route

CLASS    PROBLEM     NO.

SITUATION  GAME MOTIVE

38 Sr.       Ops.V(Strat.) OB

-sub-problem: Defense of AtollAdvanced BasesPonape    -sub-problem: Attack on Isalnd

Advanced Base38 Sr.       Ops. VI (Tac.) RB

38 Sr.       Ops. VII

OB

SP Central & West PacControl of West PacUS to capture (1)Eniwetok (2) Ponape(3) Truk

Battle off Sable Is.4 Blue BBs over 60%

damage12 Red BBs over 60%

damageSP/control of Phil./China Sea

(Silver & Black aiding Orange)sub-problem: defense of an Island Group(Yap)/when Blue Fit. passes meridian134°E., Brown ally of Blue

| 38 Sr. | Op.VIII (Tac.)  | OB | Blue: 6 BBs, 8 CAs

covering

AB: Staring Bay in

Celebes

Orange: 9 BBs, 7 CAs

seeking decisive action |
|--------|-----------------|----|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 38 Sr. | QD:             |    |                                                                                                          |
|        | "A"             | OB | 4 Blue BBs, 6 Orange BBsBlue coastal fort.                                                               |
| //     | "B"             | OB | 8 Blue BBs, 9 Orange BBs                                                                                 |
| //     | T               | RB | 5 Red CAs, 5 Blue BBs inWestLant                                                                         |
| ^/     | "€"             | OB | 6 Blue BBs, 6 Orange BBs                                                                                 |
| rr     | "M"             | OB | Blue BatFor, 6 CLs,

39DDs

Orange convoy 12 BBs

SP/Night Torp. attack                                  |
| 38 Sr. | Strat.QD        | RB | U.S. assualt on Trinidad,                                                                                |
|        | Problem S-l     |    | Br. attempted simul.reliefeach 3 BBs, 4 CAs, 2-3CVs in covering & escortforces                       |
| 38 Sr. | Strat.QD        | OB | Relief of Wake by U.S.,                                                                                  |
|        | Problem S-2     |    | appr.complete MBs bothFits                                                                               |
| 39 Sr. | Ops. I (Tac.)   | OB | SP Aleutian (D.H.)Unalaska Base CP                                                                       |
| 39 Sr. | Ops. II(Strat.) | RB | SA-Carib.control of                                                                                      |
| 39 Sr. | Ops.III(Strat.) | OB | Raid on Orange SLOCsBlue CAs & 1 CVIndian Ocean, China Seas                                          |
| 39 Sr. | Ops. IV (Tac.)  | OB | BP/Truk                                                                                                  |

| CLASS     | PROBLEM                           |
|-----------|-----------------------------------|
| 39 Sr.    | Ops. V(Strat.)                    |
| 39 Sr.    | Ops. VI (Tac.)                    |
| 39S&J | OPS. VII                          |
| 39 Sr.    | QD

"A"                           |
| rr        | "B"

"N-1" low

visibility

"S-1" |

NO. SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

OB SP-Cent.&W.-control of.

Orange holds atolls-MB

at Saipan;Blue MB at

PearlRB EST/SCS/To familiarize

w/N.Atlantic AreaOB/Have been at war 2 yrs.Blue-Brown Secret Alliance

OB

OBOB

RB

British w/20,000 troops in 4 fast(25 kt.) liners, 3 CCs, 2 CVs, 4 CAsattempting to reinforce Trinidad,which already has 7,000 troops

| 40 Sr.       | Ops. I (Tac.)                  | OB                |
|--------------|--------------------------------|-------------------|
| 40 Sr.40 Sr. | Ops. II(Strat.)Ops.III(Strat.) | RBOB              |
| 40 Sr.       | Ops. IV (Tac.)                 | OB                |
| 41S&J    | Ops. I (Tac.)                  | OB                |
| 41 Sr.       | Ops. II(Strat.)                | Blue/Black-Silver |
| 41 Sr.       | Ops. Ill

(Strat.)(one-sided)  | OB                |
| 41S&J    | Ops. IV (Tac.)                 | OB                |

Orange 5 BBs, Blue 3 BBsand fort, port6 BBs each

Blue 9 BBs, Orange 4 LCs39DDs

Amphib.assault onTrinidad: 2 CVs, 3 BBscovering force/4CAs support attack forceof 10 XAPs w/20,000troops.

CP/Unalaska, DutchHarbor EST-AleutiansEST/Carib Control ofRaid on Orange SLOCsEST/WestPac, China Sea5 Blue BBs, 6 Orange BBsEST/Truk/BPEST-Aleutians/CPUnalaska, D.H.3 BBs/Orange Interception3 BBs

Black in N.Atl.,Narvik,Iceland; Silver-Gold inMed. to sortie to S.Amer.;Gold bases in Cairb.Monopoly of S.A. TradeSP-minus new Atl. Fit.Orange threateningAleutian-Wake-Samoaline/Blue must takeEniwetok (C & M)

SP-EST-Mid-Pacific

Defense of Truk/Commitments in Atlantic-Brazilprevent Blue offensive/Blue losses high, Japaneselow/Jap.attack w/BBs, 2 Blue BBs

CLASS    PROBLEM

NO.

SITUATION   GAME MOTIVE

41 S&J     Ops. V(Strat.)

41S&J

Com-mandClassAug/Dec 41

OB EST/WestPac, China Sea

Raid on Orange SLOCsBlue fully committed in Atl., unable to force decisionin Pac. Red neutral. Blue has Truk to hold line to Aus./4 CAs,1 CV from Truk to Java SeaOps. VI (Tac) Black-      Raider Warfare/CP

Silver

Blue-RedBlack holds Eire, has "High Seas Fleet" of 5 BBs1 CV at Trondheim/Blue has 3 BBs in Atl.Ops.II (Strat.) Blue-Red/against a

Black-Silver-Gold Coalition

Black monopoly of Argentina/Uruguay/Brazil tradeBlue 3 BBs, 1 CV in So. Atl. "Brazilian Focal Area"Black-Silver-Gold coalition 3 BBs, 1 CC, 2 CVs

41 CC      Ops. II (Tac.)

OB Truk defense against

Orange 4 BBs, 2 CV, 9CAs/Blue 2 No. CarolinaClass BBs, 4 CAs, 1 CV,27 DD, 6 SS41 CC      Ops.III(Strat.) OB Raid on Orange SLOCs

Rendezvous 19 June, Coral Sea: destination, 1 July,50 mi. SE of Singapore/Blue 4 CAs, 1 CV in Java Sea41 CC      Ops. IV (Tac.) Blue-Red/Balck No. Atlantic/CP

Blue-Red convoy, 40 ships, 5 BB cover/Black 5 BB, 1 CV

Night search & attack

Blue 9 BB/Orange 4 CA,

32 DD (low visibility off

Truk)

Blue 3 BBs, 4 CAs, 1 CV

| Com-mand & | QD

"N-l"         | OB                   |
|----------------|-------------------|----------------------|
| Prep.Staff     |                   |                      |
| Class          |                   |                      |
|                | "S-l"continued in | Blue/Silver-         |
|                | "S-2"             | GoldBlue/Silver-Gold |

"Deny Axis bases inE. Carib." Silver, 1 BB,6 CA/Gold 1 CC, 1 CV

179NOTES

PART I—ETHOS

1. Carroll N. Brown, Greek-English Dictionary (New York: Enossis Publishing, 1924).

CHAPTER I-THE NATURE OF ETHOS

1. E. Adamson Hoebal, The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains (New York: Holt,Rinehart and Winston, I960), p.87.

2. R. Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformations (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1953), p.86.

3. E. Adamson Hoebal, Anthropology: The Study of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958),p. 542.

4. Clyde Kluckhohn, "The Philosophy of the Navaho Indians," F.S.C. Northrop, ed.,Ideological Differences and World Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), p. 359.

5. Hoebal, The Cheyennes, p. 87.

6. John A. Hostetler and Gertrude Enders Huntington, The Hutterites in North America(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), p. 6.

7. Clyde Kluckhohn and William H. Kelly, "The Concept of Culture," Alan Dundes, ed.,Every Man His Way: Readings in Cultural Anthropology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1968), p. 205.

8. Florence Rockwood Kluckhohn, "Dominant and Variant Value Orientations,"Kluckhohn, et al., eds., Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture (New York: Knopf, 1953);Kluckhohn and Kelly, "The Concept of Culture."

9. Hoebal, The Cheyennes, pp. 95-104; Kluckhohn, et al., eds., Personality in Nature,Society, and Culture, pp. 3-71.

CHAPTER II-THE NATIONAL ETHOS

1. J.H. Elliott, The Old World and the New, 1492-1650 (Cambridge, Eng.: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1972), p. 104.

2. Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought: Vol. I, The ColonialMind, 1620-1800 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927), p. ix.

3. Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), pp. 23-25.

4. C. Vann Woodward, "The Age of Reinterpretation," The American Historical Review,October I960, pp. 1-19; Hofstadter, pp. 326-328.

5. Henry Nash Smith, The Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 12.

6. Alexander Hamilton, "The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations anda Navy," The federalist, or The New Constitution (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1945), p. 70.

7. Ibid., p. 69.

8. Felix Gilbert, To the farewell Address: The Beginnings of American foreign Policy(New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 114.

9. William Gilpin, Mission of the North American People, Social, Geographical, Political(Philadelphia: 1874), p. 130. Quoted in Smith, p. 37.

10. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1937), pp. 225-226.

11. Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: The Folio Society,1974), pp. 54-55.

12. James Fenimore Cooper to Commodore William Bradford Shubrick, 30 April 1847;Cooper to Shubrick, 25 September 1847. Quoted in James Franklin Beard, ed., The Letters andJournals of James Fenimore Cooper (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of HarvardUniversity Press, 1968), v. V, pp. 206-207, 236-237.

13- A.T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper andBrothers, 1907), p.„197.

14. Oscar Wilde, "The Canterville Ghost," The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde (Avon, Conn.:Heritage Press, 1968), p. 144.

15. Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," inEverett E. Edwards, ed., The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1938).

CHAPTER III-THE CORPORATE ETHOS

1. Adm. Albert Gleaves, "Background," Autobiographical Manuscript (Unpublished),Gleaves Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF), p. 1.

2. A.T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper andBrothers, 1907), p. 69.

3. Ibid., p. 65.

4. Ibid., p. 66.

5. Rear Adm. Julius Augustus Furer to Capt. Philip F. Wakeman, 22 April 1961, FurerPapers, NHF.

6. Mahan, p. 74.

7. A.B. Anderson to Capt. Dudley W. Knox, 28 September 1935, Knox Papers, NHF.

8. Gleaves, "Background," Gleaves Papers, NHF, p. 2.

9. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1937), p. 508.

10. Furer to Theodore E. Stevenson, 13 March 1959, Furer Papers, NHF.

11. Adm. William Sowden Sims, Journal, June to August 1877, Sims Papers, NHF.

12. Mahan, p. 105.

13. Ibid., p. 48.

14. Capt. J.K. Taussig, "The Old Navy," Navy Day Annual, 1937 (Seattle: Master MechanicsAssociation, 1937), Record Group II, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection (hereafterNHC).

15. Miscellany, Gleaves Papers; Miscellany, Taylor Papers, NHF.

16. Furer to Stevenson, 13 March 1959, Furer Papers, NHF.

17. Mahan, p. 101.

18. Herman Melville, Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press,1935), p. 3.

19. Adm. Albert Gleaves, "On the Road to China," Autobiographical Manuscript(Unpublished), Gleaves Papers, NHF, p. 14; Melville, p. 256.

20. James O. Richardson and George C. Dyer, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor(Washington: Dept. of the Navy, Naval History Division, 1973).

21. Adm. Harry E. Yarnell, "Sons of Gunboats," Yarnell Papers, NHF.

22. Ibid., pp. 4-8; Marcus Goodrich, Delilah (New York: Popular Library, 1978, originallypublished in 1941).

23. Martin Swanson to Adm. Harry E. Yarnell, 3 June 1942, Yarnell Papers, NHF.

24. Yarnell to Swanson, 8 June 1942, Yarnell Papers, NHF.

25. Clifford Calfinch to Adm. Ernest J. King, 22 January 1941, King Papers, NHF.

26. King to Calfinch, 16 February 1941, King Papers, NHF.

27. Gleaves, "Background," Gleaves Papers, NHF.

28. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of GreatBritain (Boston: Little, Brown, 1897), p. 343.

29. Holloway H. Frost, The Battle of Jutland (Annapolis: The Naval Press, 1936), pp. 375,514, 516, and others. See author's "The Fishing Off the Jutland Bank: The Search for a Symbol ofVictory," Unpublished Senior Essay, History Department, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.:1973.

30. Mahan, The Life of Nelson, pp. 354, 396-400.

31. Mahan, From Sail to Steam, p. 124.

32. Furer Papers, King Papers, Bloch Papers, Yarnell Papers, NHF.

33- "Five and Fifty Years (Sam Wygant's Saga)," 24 March 1956, Furer Papers, NHF.

34. "Destroyer Men," Sims Papers, NHF.

35. "Spanish Ladies," Luce Papers, NHF.

36. J.V. Babcock to Dudley W. Knox, 16 December 1933, Knox Papers, NHF.

CHAPTER IV-MISSION AND ETHOS

1. Kenneth Bourne, "British Preparations for War with the North, 1861-1862," TheEnglish Historical Review, October 1961, pp. 600-632.

2. George Washington, Fifth Annual Address to Congress, 8 December 1793, in John C.Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1931-1944), v. XXXIII, pp. 165-169.

3. Seward W. Livermore, "American Naval Development, 1898-1914," UnpublishedDissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.: 1944.

4. Craig Symonds, "The Antinavalists, the Opponents of Naval Expansion in the EarlyNational Period," The American Neptune, January 1979, pp. 22-27'.

5. Howard I. Chapelle, American Neptune, The History of the American Sailing Navy(New York: Norton, 1949), pp. 179-242.

6. Alexander Hamilton, "The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations anda Navy," The Federalist, or the New Constitution (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1945), p. 64.

7. Ibid., p. 68.

8. Ibid., p. 65.

9. Ibid., p. 66.

10. Ibid., p. 70.

11. Charles A. Beard, "The National Interest,"  8 January   1935, Knox Papers, NavalHistorical Foundation, Library of Congress, (hereafter NHF), p. 10.

12. Ibid., p. 9.

13. Ibid., p. 6.

14. Ibid., p. 8.

15. The products of Knox's pen included:

Annual State Convention of the American Legion, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, 17 August1931 (Jahncke)

Recommissioning of the Constitution, June 1931 (Jahncke)

Chicago, 14 November 1931 (Adams)

Radio Address, Christmas Eve, 1931 (Adams)

Pennsylvania Military College, 7 June 1932 (Adams)

Navy Day, Washington Bicentennial, 29 September 1932 (Adams)

"George Washington as a Naval Strategist," Sons of the American Revolution, Lowell,Massachusetts, 8 March 1932 (Jahncke)

Naval War College Graduation Speech, Newport, June 1932 (Adams)

Remarks on Decoration Day 1933 (Swanson)

Radio Address, CBS, May 1933 (Swanson)

Navy Day Radio Address, NBC, Chicago, 27 October 1933 (Standley)

"Building Up to Treaty Strength," 27 December 1933 (Standley)

Farewell to Byrd, October 1933 (Assistant Secretary Col. Roosevelt)

Remarks Before Aztec Club, November 1933 (Col. Roosevelt)

Radio Address, 19 September 1933 (Col. Roosevelt)

Address, Washington Cathedral, May 1934

Welcome Address for Italian Air Minister Balbo, Radio, July 1933 (Standley)

Radio Address, Los Angeles, September 1933 (Swanson)

Newsreel Interview, 12 July 1933 (Swanson)

Keynote Speech at Balbo Dinner, Washington, 30 July 1933 (Swanson)

Article for Hearst Papers, 23 July 1933

Newsreel Interview, Navy Day, 27 October 1933 (Standley)

Address, San Diego, October 1933 (Swanson)

Address, Seattle, October 1933 (Swanson)

Address, San Francisco, October 1933 (Swanson)

Address, Honolulu, October 1933 (Swanson)

"The United States Navy," Radio Address, 20 August 1933 (Standley)

Women's Patriotic Conference, January 1934 (Standley)

Radio Broadcast, June 1934 (Standley)

Navy Day Speech, 27 October 1934 (Rear Adm. J.K. Taussig)

Peary Anniversary, 6 April 1934 (Col. Roosevelt)

Women's Patriotic Conference on National Defense, Washington, 26 January 1934 (Adm.Clark H. Woodward)

Women's Patriotic Conference on National Defense, Washington, (Rear Adm. E.J. King)

American Legion Speech, 23 July 1935 (Rear Admiral Stark)

Women's Patriotic Conference on National Defense, January 1935 (Rear Adm. J.K.Taussig)

Armistice Day Speech, 11 November 1938 (Admiral Stark)

Farewell Luncheon to Leahy, July 1939 (Stark)

"Philippine Independence and Naval Bases," Policy Memorandum, August 1939 (Stark)

Chamber of Commerce Convention, 29 April 1940 (Stark)

Keynote Address, Navy Day Dinner, Chicago, 27 October 1940 (Stark)

Address, Washington Press Club, 10 April 1922 (Assistant Secretary Theodore Roosevelt)

District of Columbia Commandry of the American Legion, 12 February 1923 (Rear Adm.Hugh Rodman)

Naval Academy Graduation Speech, Annapolis, June 1930 (Adams)

Address, Milwaukee, August 1931 (Jahncke)

Address on the Anniversary of Yorktown, 12 October 1931 (Adams)

Naval Academy Graduation Speech, Annapolis, June 1941 (Stark); Knox Papers, NHF.

16. Furer to Knox, 23 September 1927; Knox to Emmet, 29 September 1922; Babcock toKnox, 17 October 1931; Moffet to Knox, 28 February 1933; Knox to Standley, 29 April 1935;Stark to Knox, April 1940; Knox to Stark, Secret Memorandum October 1940, Knox Papers,NHF.

17. "Memorandum Prepared for the President at His Direction," 13 January 1938, KnoxPapers, NHF.

18. Ibid., p. 11.

19. "Association with Franklin D. Roosevelt of Dudley W. Knox," Prepared by Knox for theFranklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Foundation, Knox Papers, NHF.

20. Radio Broadcast, Cleveland, Ohio, 27 October 1939, Standley Papers, NHF.

21. "Our Navy and Other Factors of Sea Power," Radio Broadcast, Springfield, Mass., 27October 1922, Gleaves Papers, NHF.

22. Hamilton, p. 66.

23. Dudley W. Knox, "Naval Power as a Preserver of Neutrality and Peace," Manuscript ofarticle for U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1937, Knox Papers, NHF.

24. Quoted in "Memorandum Prepared for the President at His Direction," Knox Papers,NHF.

25. "Naval Power as a Preserver of Neutrality and Peace," Knox Papers, NHF.26 Hamilton, p. 66.

27. Ibtd., p. 64.

28. "Seapower—What Is It?" Navy Day Address, 27 October 1936, Knox Papers, NHF, pp.2-3.

29. Radio Address, CBS, 10 August 1940, Standley Papers, NHF.

30. Radio Address, Pittsburgh, 27 October 1927, Furer Papers, NHF.

31. Quoted in "Memorandum Prepared for the President at His Direction," Knox Papers,NHF.

32. "Our Navy and Other Factors of Sea Power," Gleaves Papers, NHF, p. 13.

33. Radio Address, CBS, 10 August 1940, Standley Papers, NHF.

34. Hamilton, p. 67.

35. Radio Address, CBS, 10 August 1940, Standley Papers, NHF.

36. Hamilton, p. 67.

37. "Our Navy and Other Factors of Sea Power," Gleaves Papers, NHF, p. 9.

38. Dudley W. Knox, The Eclipse of American Sea Power (New York: Army and NavyJournal, 1922).

39. "The Price of Peace," Manuscript of article for Atlantic Monthly, April 1938, KnoxPapers, NHF.

40. "Our Navy and Other Factors of Sea Power," Gleaves Papers, NHF, p. 8.

41. "The Price of Peace," Knox Papers, NHF.

42. Radio Address, Navy Day 1927, Furer Papers, NHF.

43. Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (New York: VintageBooks, 1966), pp. 228-260.

44. "Personality and Influence," Draft of speech delivered at the Royal Naval College,Dartmouth, England, Mahan Papers, NHF.

45. Adm. Harry E. Yarnell, "Sons of Gunboats," Yarnell Papers, NHF.

46. For example, Marcus Goodrich, Delilah (New York: Popular Library, 1978); Vernon L.Kellogg, Beyond War, A Chapter in the Natural History of Man (New York: Holt, 1912); GeorgeNasmyth, Social Progress and Darwinian Theory (New York: Putnam, 1916); John HayesHolmes, New Wars for Old (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1916); Walter E. Weyl, The End of theWar (New York: Macmillan, 1918); Morris Jastrow, The War and the Coming Peace: The MoralIssue (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1918), for the paradigm transition during the second decade ofthis country.

47. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power (Boston: Little, Brown,1897), p. 18.

48. "Memorandum Prepared and Read by Rear-Admiral Knight at the Meeting of theGeneral Board on July 28, 1915," General Board File 420-2, Naval Historical Division.

49. "U.S. Naval Building Policy," Memorandum No. 21, Planning Section, London, May1918, Record Group 45, National Archives.

50. Dudley W. Knox, "National Strategy," 7 October 1932, Record Group XIV, Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

51. "Memorandum Prepared and Read by Captain W.L. Rodgers, Third Section at GeneralBoard Meeting, July 27, 1915," General Board File 420-2.

52. "U.S. Naval Building Policy."

53. "The Blue-Orange Situation: Lecture Delivered by Captain R.R. Belknap, U.S.N., forFleet-War College Sessions, 1 November 1921," Record Group XIV, NHC.

54. "The Price of Peace," p. 15.

55. Outline History of the United States Naval War College 1884 to Date (Newport:Collected Transcript, Bound, 1937).

56. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston:Little, Brown, 1910), p. 39.

57. "Memorandum," Rodgers, General Board File 420-2.

58. "U.S. Naval Building Policy."

59. "The Blue-Orange Situation."

60. W.D. Puleston, The Armed Forces of the Pacific (New Haven: Yale University Press,1941), p. 29.

61. Adm. H.E. Yarnell, "Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, to Chief of Naval Operations,Situation in the Pacific," 26 November 1938, Record Group 8, NHC.

62. "U.S. Naval Building Policy."

63. "Memorandum" Rodgers, General Board File 420-2.

64. "Memorandum of George Dewey," 24 June 1904, General Board File 425, NavalHistorical Division; Seward W. Livermore, "Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and theVenezuelan Crisis of 1903," American Historical Review, April 1946, pp. 452-471.

65. The flavor of that adventure, for Americans, is brought out in Richard O'Connor, TheSpirit Soldiers: A Historical Narrative of the Boxer Rebellion (New York: Putnam, 1973); for adirect, imagistic injection of the American role, see Frederick Remington's painting, "The NinthUnited States Infantry Entering Peking," at the Granger Collection.

66. Seward W. Livermore, "The United States Navy as a Factor in World Politics, 1903-1913," American Historical Review, July 1958, pp. 863-879-

67. "Memorandum for Commander McCain," 15 August 1930, Knox Papers, NHF.

68. Ibid., p. 2.

69. Ibid., p. 3.

70. "Memorandum for Lt.Com. Emmet, September 29, 1922," Knox Papers, NHF.

71. "Our Navy and Other Factors of Sea Power," Gleaves Papers, NHF, pp. 9-10.

72. Ibid., p. 11.

73. Ibid., p. 12.

74. Navy Day Address, Pittsburgh, 1927, Furer Papers, NHF.

75. Hamilton, p. 70.

76. "Memorandum," Rodgers, General Board File 420-2.

77. "Memorandum on Naval Bases," undated (probably 1920), Knox Papers, NHF;"Philippine Independence and Naval Bases," Memorandum prepared by Knox for Stark, August1939, Knox Papers, NHF; "Naval Base in Philippines," Memorandum prepared by YarnellCINCASIATIC for Standley, CNO, 11 February 1937, Yarnell Papers, NHF; Rear Adm. BradleyA. Fiske to Secretary of the Navy, 3 June 1924, Sims Papers, NHF; Sims to Fiske, 6June 1924,Sims Papers, NHF.

78. "Proposed Plans for Establishment of League of Nations Army and Navy,"Memorandum for CNO, PD 179-1, Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, NavalHistorical Division.

79. See Sims' letters to his wife, December 1910 to January 1911, Sims Papers, NHF.

80. Gerald E. Wheeler, Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy: A Sailor's Life(Washington: Dept. of the Navy, Naval History Division, 1974), pp. 96-133.

81. "Cooperation with the Entente Powers," W.S. Benson to the Secretary of the Navy,January 1918, Records of the Chief of Naval Operations.

82. "Building Program," Memorandum Number 67, Planning Section, London, 21November 1918, Record Group 45, National Archives.

83- Outline History of the Naval War College.

84. Knox, "National Strategy."

85. Ibid., p. 12.

86. "Memorandum," Rodgers, General Board File 420-2.

87. "U.S. Naval Building Policy."

88. Knox, "National Strategy," p. 13.

89. Hamilton, p. 70.

90. Knox, "National Strategy," p. 11.

91. Ibid., p. 25.

92. "Memorandum," D.W. Knox to Senior Member, General Board, 8 September 1921,Knox Papers, NHF.

93- Knox, "National Strategy," p. 18.

94. "Memorandum," Rodgers, General Board File 420-2.

95. "U.S. Naval Building Policy."

96. Knox, "National Strategy," p. 20; "Memorandum on Naval Bases," Knox Papers, NHF.

97. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1937), p. 226.

98. Knox, "National Strategy," p. 19; Hamilton, p. 67.

99. Knox, "National Strategy," pp. 7, 24.

100. Ibid., p. 9.

101. Outline History of the Naval War College.

102. Davis to Knox, 13 April 1934, Knox Papers, NHF.

103- Knox to Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, 4 June 1934, Knox Papers, NHF.

104. Knox to Secretary of the Navy, "For Harper's Magazine," 17 February 1932, KnoxPapers, NHF.

105. Ibid., p. 2.

106. Adm. William H. Standley, Address before Academy of Political Science, New York,December 1937, Standley Papers, NHF; Harold R. Stark, Armistice Day Address, 11 November1938 (written by Knox), Knox Papers, NHF; Capt. Dudley W. Knox, "Seapower-What Is It?"Navy Day Address, 27 October 1936, Knox Papers, NHF.

107. "Building Program on Expiration of Washington and London Treaties," Kalbfus toStandley, 1 October 1935, Record Group VIII, NHC

108. "Memorandum," Knox to Senior Member, General Board, Knox Papers, NHF.

109- Analysis of Order of Battle and Battle Ratios in 9 Engagements, 13 November 1943 to 25October 1944.

110. "The Price of Peace."

111. "Situation in the Pacific," Yarnell to Leahy, 26 November 1938, NHC

112. Radio Address, CBS, Standley Papers, NHF.

113- Radio Address, Pittsburgh, 27 October 1927, Furer Papers, NHF.114. Bryan Edwards, quoted inJ.H. Parry, Trade and Dominion (New York: Praeger, 1971),p.45.

PART II-MISSION

1. Rear Adm. Stephen Bleecker Luce, "On the Relations Between the U.S. Naval WarCollege and the Line Officers of the U.S. Navy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1911,p. 25, Sims Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress.

2. Capt. J.R.P. Pringle, "Naval War College Course," 4 September 1924, Record Group II,Naval War College Naval Historical Collection.

CHAPTER V-THE EVOLUTION OF MISSION

1. Rear Adm. Stephen Bleecker Luce, "On the Relations Bewtween the U.S. Naval WarCollege and the Line Officers of the U.S. Navy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1911,p. 28, Sims Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

2. Ibid., p. 25.

3. Ibid., p. 26.

4. Ibid., p. 29.

5. Adm. William Sowden Sims, Memorandum to Secretary of the Navy, "GeneralRecommendations Concerning War College," 15 January 1920, Record Group II, Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

6. Ibid.

7. Sims to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., 22 December 1922, Sims Papers, NHF.

8. Sims, "Tentative Notes Concerning Possible Activities and Functions of the WarCollege," Record Group II, NHC.

9. See, for example, Sims to Coontz, 11 January 1922; Belknap to Sims, 17 July, 2 August1923; Sims to King, 20 February 1914; Knox to Sims, 25 February 1917; Sims to Rodgers, 23August 1921, Sims Papers, NHF.

10. Capt. Dudley W. Knox, "National Strategy," p. 11, Record Group XV, NHC

11. Ibid., p. 12.

12. Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, Diary: "Notes of B.A. Fiske, Rear Admiral, U.S.N.," entriesfor 3, 4, 15 January 1915, Fiske Papers, NHF.

13. Rear Adm. Austin M. Knight, "Address Opening Course of January 1914," p. 11, SimsPapers, NHF.

14. Ibid., p. 9.

15. Ibid., p. 12.

16. Julius Augustus Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in  World War II(Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1959), p. 109-

17. Knox, Address of Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams at 1932 War CollegeGraduation, p. 2, Knox Papers, NHF.

18. Ibid., p. 4.

19. Ibid., p. 5.

20. Ibid., p. 3.

21. Capt. Leonard James Dow, Address, Naval War College, June 1956, p. 4, Dow Papers,NHF.

22. Ibid., p. 11.

23. Ibid., p. 12.

24. Ibid., p. 13.

CHAPTER VI-THE COURSE

1. Outline History of the United States Naval War College 1884 to Date (Newport:Collected Transcript, Bound, 1937).

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Sims, "Tentative Notes Concerning Possible Activities and Functions of the WarCollege," Record Group II, Course Comparison, Outline History of the Naval War College.

5. Questions and Discussion, The Conference of 1905, The Conference of 1907, TheConference of 1912, Record Group VIII, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection(hereafter NHC).

6. Julius Augustus Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War II(Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1959), pp. 115-123.

7. Ibid., pp. 111-114.

8. Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, Journal, 5 November 1914, 17 March 1915, Fiske Papers,Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

9. Rear Adm. Austin M. Knight, "Address Opening Course of January, 1914," p. 11, SimsPapers, NHF.

10. Outline History of the Naval War College.

11. Rear Adm. William S. Sims, "Organization of War College Staff," June 1922, p. 2; Capt.J.R.P. Pringle, "Naval War College Course," 4 September 1924, p. 2, Record Group II, NHC.

12. Outline History of the Naval War College.

13. "Information Regarding Naval War College," 7 October 1925, NHC, p. 3; Pringle, p. 4.

14. Outline History of the Naval War College.

15. "The Naval War College Correspondence Course," 3 May 1920, Record Group II, NHC.

16. Ibid., p. 2.

17. James  O.   Richardson   and  George C.  Dyer,  On  the  Treadmill to  Pearl Harbor(Washington: Dept. of the Navy, Naval History Division, 1973).

18. The Class lists and Curriculum records aggregated in the typescript record, OutlineHistory of the Naval War College, are the basis for the statistical analysis of this section.

19. Professor John O. Dealey, "National Policies in the Pacific," 10 September 1921, p. 6,Record Group XIV, NHC.

20. Professor John P. Baxter, "The Objectives and Aims of American Foreign Policy," "TheNavy as an Instrument of Policy," 1932-37, Record Group XV, NHC.

21. Professor George Grafton Wilson, "International Law, Orientation Talk," Departmentof Intelligence, p. 2, Record Group II, NHC.

22. "Proposed Plans for Establishment of League of Nations Army and Navy,"Memorandum for CNO, PD 179-1, Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations,Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

23. Ronald Spector, Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of theNaval Profession (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1977), p. 147.

24. The German Aland Island operation of 1917 was the only rival of Gallipoli; see A.Harding Ganz, "'Albion'—The Baltic Island Operation," Military Affairs, April 1978, pp. 91-97.

25. Naval War College to Bureau of Navigation, Memorandum: "Reading Course—Professional Bibliography," 18 June 1928, p. 2, Record Group II, NHC

26. Naval War College, Educational Department, "Prescribed Reading Course," June 1934,Record Group II, NHC.

27. Advanced Course, 1934-1935, "List of Books Reviewed," Record Group II, NHC.

28. Rear Adm. W.S. Pye, "Advanced Course of 1934-1935, Book Review: The Decline of theWest" p. 1, Record Group II, NHC.

29. Ibid., p. 2.

30. Capt. Byron McCandless, "Advanced Course, 1934-1935, Book Review: The RacialHistory of Man',' Record Group II, NHC.

31. "Information Regarding Naval War College," 7 October 1925, NHC, p. 3; Pringle, p. 4.

32. Capt. J.M. Reeves, "Thesis on Tactics, Class of 1925," Department of Tactics, 23 February1925, Record Group II, NHC.

33- Capt. J.O. Richardson, "The Relationship in War of Naval Strategy, Tactics, andCommand," Thesis, Senior Class of 1934, 7 May 1934, p. 2, Record Group XIII, NHC.

34. Spector, p. 150.

35. Capt. J.R. Poinsett Pringle, "Thesis on 'Policy,'" 13 September 1919, Record Group II,NHC.

36. Record Group XIII, Student Theses, NHC.

37. Ibid., scan of titles, 1919-1941.

38. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 605.

39. Capt. T.C. Hart, "Class of 1923: Thesis on Policy," 1 September 1922, p. 5, Record Group.XIII, NHC.

40. Hamilton to Washington, 10 November 1796; Hamilton's draft of Washington's EighthAnnual Address to Congress, 10 November 1796; in Harold C. Syett, ed., The Papers ofAlexander Hamilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), v. XX, pp. 381-387.

41. Clausewitz, p. 608.

42. Cdr. C.W. Nimitz, "Class of 1923: Thesis on Policy," 1 September 1922, p. 5, RecordGroup XIII, NHC.

43- Clausewitz, p. 605.

44. Ibid., p. 581.

45. Capt. E.J. King, "Thesis: The Influence of the National Policy on the Strategy of a War,"Senior Class, 1933, p. 7, Record Group XIII, NHC.

46. Clausewitz, pp. 585-586.

47. Capt. A.J. Hepburn, "Thesis: The Inter-Relation in War of National Policy, Strategy,Tactics, and Command," Senior Class of 1931, 15 May 1931, p. 18, Record Group XIII, NHC.

48. Clausewitz, pp. 605-610.

49. Record Groups II and XIII, NHC.

50. Capt. J.W. Greenslade, "Thesis, Policy," Class of 1926, 5 December 1925, p. 9, RecordGroup XIII, NHC.

51. Clausewitz, p. 594.

52. Bradley A. Fiske, Our Navy as a Fighting Machine (New York: Scribner, 1916), pp. 137-143, 153-157; Charles W. Cullen, "From Kriegsakademie to Naval War College: The MilitaryPlanning Process," Naval War College Review, January 1970, pp. 10-15.

53- Cdr. R.A. Spruance, "Thesis on Policy," Class of 1927 (Senior Class), 4 December 1926, p.30, Record Group XIII, NHC.

54. Greenslade, p. 12.

55. Cdr. Husband E. Kimmel, "Thesis on Policy," Class of 1926, 5 December 1925, p. 4,Record Group XIII, NHC.

56. Greenslade, p. 12.

57. Kimmel, p. 4.

58. Nimitz, p. 7.

59. King, pp. 25, 26.

60. Richardson, "Thesis," p. 6.

61. King, pp. 32, 33; Richardson, "Thesis," p. 7.

62. Capt. R.L. Ghormley, "Thesis: Present Trends in the Foreign Policy of the United Statesin Regard to Europe," pp. 22, 25, Record Group XIII, NHC.

63- Greenslade, p. 2.

64. Hepburn, p. 22.

65. Capt. C.P. Snyder, "Thesis: Policy," Class of 1925,6 December 1924, p. 1, Record GroupXIII, NHC.

66. Capt. Joseph Reeves, "Thesis: Policy," Class of 1924, 4 September 1924, pp. 2-4; Nimitz,pp. 1-5, Record Group XIII, NHC.

67. Nimitz, p. 1.

68. Ibid., p. 2.

69. Reeves, p. 3.

70. Cdr. R.E. Ingersoll, "Thesis on Policy," Class of 1927 (Senior Class), 4 December 1926, p.23, Record Group XIII, NHC.

71. Nimitz, pp. 2, 3.

72. Ibid., p. 2.73- Snyder, p. 6.

74. Nimitz, p. 2.

75. Hart, p. 8.

76. Ibid.; King, pp. 23-24.

77. Cdr. Ellis Mark Zacharias, "Thesis: The Relationship Between National Policy andStrategy in War in the Russo-Japanese War," Senior Class of 1934, 1 February 1934, pp. 8, 56,Record Group XIII, NHC.

78. Lt. W.D. Puleston, "Thesis: BLUE Strategy in the Pacific," July 1914, p. 2, Record GroupXIII, NHC.

79- Zacharias, pp. 6-8; Puleston, pp. 5-7.

80. Kimmel, p. 17.

81. Nimitz, p. 21.

82. Puleston, p. 11.

83. Greenslade, p. 16; Puleston, p. 1; Nimitz, p. 21; Hart, p. 10; Kimmel, p. 19; Snyder, p. 19;Kalbfus, p. 71; Reeves, p. 10.

84. King, p. 22; Richardson, "Thesis," p. 6.

85. Capt. C.C. Bloch, "Thesis: The Present Foreign Policies of the United States," SeniorClass, 1930, 26 April 1930, p. 52, Record Group XIII, NHC.

86. Capt. E.C. Kalbfus, "Thesis on Policy," Class of 1927 (Senior Class), 4 December 1926, p.2, Record Group XIII, NHC.

87. Richardson, "Thesis," p. 6.

88. Lt. Cdr. D.W. Knox, "The Role of Doctrine in Naval Warfare," Reprinted from the U.S.Naval Institute Proceedings, March-April 1915, with a Preface by the President, Naval WarCollege, 15 June 1936, p. 1, Knox Papers, NHF.

89- Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, Journal, "Notes of B.A. Fiske, Rear-Admiral," 15 January1915, Fiske Papers, NHF.

90. Knox, p. 8.

91. Ibid., p. 8.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid., p. 5.

94. Ibid., p. 1.

95. Ibid., p. 2.

96. Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore Politico. Or, the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick(London: J. Martin and J. Ridley, 1650).

97. Leonard Barkan, Nature's Work of Art: The Human Body as Image of the World (NewHaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975).

98. Rear Adm. Austin M. Knight, The Estimate of the Situation, June 1915, Revised by NavalWar College Staff, March 1921, p. 3, Record Group XXVII, NHC.

99. The Estimate of the Situation, Plans and Orders, Prepared at the United States NavalWar College, 1929, p. 9, Record Group XXVII, NHC.

100. "The Estimate of the Situation: Diagram to Show Sequence of Derivation," RecordGroup XXVII, NHC.

101. Rear Adm. E.C. Kalbfus, preface to Naval War College reprint of "The Role of Doctrinein Naval Warfare," p. 2, Record Group II, NHC.

102. Rear Adm. E.C. Kalbfus, Sound Military Decision, 22 July 1940, Record Group XXVII,NHC.

103. Ibid., p. 13.

104. Ibid., p. 45.

105. Richardson, "Thesis," pp. 14-15.

106. Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, quoted in Sims to Fiske, 21 May 1923, Sims Papers, NHF.

107. Richardson and Dyer, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor.

108. Nimitz to Melson, 24 September 1965, NHC.109 Outline History of the Naval War College.

110. Ibid.; Gerald E. Wheeler, Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy: A Sailor's Life(Washington: Dept. of the Navy, Naval History Division, 1974), pp. 67-89; Elting E. Morison,Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942), pp. 293-294.

111. Vice Adm. Reginald R. Belknap to Rear Adm. William S. Sims, 17 July 1923, Sims Papers,NHF.

112. Belknap to Sims, 2 August 1923, Sims Papers, NHF.

113. Updated typescript, probably late summer 1912, Sims Papers, NHF.

114. Ibid.

115. "Slides Made By and Shown to Classes of 1925 Naval War College," Record Group II,NHC.

PART III-THE ENEMY

1. Belknap to Sims, 2 August 1923, Sims Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library ofCongress.

2. Pratt Papers, Naval War College Historical Collection.

3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Avon, Conn.: Heritage Press, 1943).

CHAPTER VII-THE CALLIMORPHOSIS OF THE ENEMY: RED

1. Kenneth Bourne, "British Preparations for War With the North, 1861-1862," TheEnglish Historical Review, October 1961, pp. 600-632.

2. For a contemporary commentary on America's 19th-century naval stagnation, see RearAdm. S.B. Luce, "The Fleet," North American Review, October 1908, pp. 564-576; "NavalStrategy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, March 1909, pp. 93-112; "Modern Navies. No.1—Navy of the United States," Army and Navy Journal, 12 August 1876, p. 7; "AnnualAddress—1888," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, v. XIV, no. 1, 1888, pp. 1-8; "Calhoun'sOpinion of the Navy," The Newport Mercury, 18 August 1906, p. 4; Alfred Thayer Mahan, FromSail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907), pp. 26-102.

3. Howard I. Chapelle,/4 History of the American Sailing Navy (New York: Norton, 1949),pp. 172-185.

4. Adm. George Dewey to Victor H.Metcalf, 25 April 1907, General Board Papers, File 420-1, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

5. Cdr. N.H. McCully, "Organization, Mobilization and Distribution of Red Naval Forces inCase of War with Blue," BNOpP, 18 March 1912, Record Group VIII, Naval War College NavalHistorical Collection (hereafter NHC).

6. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston:Little, Brown, 1910), pp. 161-164: Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951 through 1954), v. II, pp. 1151,1362,1208, v. VI, p.1292, v. VIII, pp. 1394, 1412, 1415, 1416; Theodore Roosevelt to Arthur James Balfour, 10December 1918, v. VIII, p. 1415 cites:

We feel that the British Navy from the necessities of the British Empire should be the mostpowerful in the world, and we have no intention of rivalling it

7. Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist or the New Constitution (Avon, Conn.: HeritagePress, 1945), p. 70.

8. Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, Diary, "Notes of B.A. Fiske, Rear Admiral," 12 February1915, Fiske Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

9. The Joint Board, Joint Planning Committee, "Joint Army and Navy Plan for the Captureand Occupation of the Azores (GRAY-WPL-47),"J.B. No. 325 (Serial 694), 28 May 1941; "JointArmy and Navy Basic Plan for the Occupation of Iceland by a Permanent Garrison of the UnitedStates Army (INDIGO)," J.B. No. 325 (Serial 697), 1 July 1941; Gen. L.T. Gerow to Rear Adm.R.K. Turner (Dir WPD), "Plans for DAKAR Operations" (WPD4511-3), 23 July 1941, War

Plans Division (OP-12), Records of the Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy OperationalArchives, Naval Historical Division.

These are the first forward defense, mid-Atlantic combined operations plans drawn up bythe Army and Navy. Two years earlier, Capt. R.L. Thormley, the Director of OP-12, wrote amemorandum to Adm. H.R. Stark, CNO, "State Department's letter 22 May 1939, requestingcomment on the extent of Liberian Protective Measures," 24 May 1939 (OP-12B-WHC (SC)A14-7/RF39 D-17446). Navy opinion, just months before the outbreak of European War, wasunable to support an African, transatlantic base, even with Liberian pleas in their ears. Atlanticparadigm displacement would await the fall of France.

10. "Memorandum No. 67, Building Program," Planning section, London, 21 November1918, pp. 2-11, Record Group 45, National Archives.

11. Ibid., p. 12.

12. Ibid., p. 15.

13- Rear Adm. Julius Augustus Furer, Radio Address, Pittsburgh, 27 October 1929, p. 2, FurerPapers, NHF. Capt. E.J. King, Thesis, p. 21, Record Group XIII, NHC

14. Lt. Holloway H. Frost, "Strategy of the Atlantic," 9 September 1919, p. 1, Record GroupXIV, NHC; Cdr. H.E. Yarnell, Memorandum for Admiral McKean, OP-56, 11 February 1919,Yarnell Papers, NHF.

15. Frost, pp. 5, 16-17.

16. David Syrett, The Seige and Capture of Havana (London: Navy Records Society, 1970).

17. Lt. Holloway H. Frost, "The Naval Operations of a Red-Orange Campaign," Lecturedelivered at the General Staff College, 25 October 1920, "Received from Naval Operations,"Record Group XIV, NHC.

18. Lectures from Army and Naval War Colleges, War Plans Division (OP-12), U.S. NavyOperational Archives, Navy History Division. There are 300 such lectures in the records of theWar Plans Division.

19. Frost, "The Naval Operations of a Red-Orange Campaign," p. 1.

20. Ibid., pp. 6-10.

21. Frost to Sims, 14 October 1923, Sims Papers, NHF.

22. Great Britain, Admiralty, The Navy List (London: HMSO, 1920); U.S. NavyDepartment, Report of the Secretary of the Navy (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1920).

23. Great Britain, Parliament, Navy Estimates, 1921 (London: HMSO, 1921).

24. Holloway H. Frost, The Battle of Jutland (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1936), p. 514.

25. Dudley W. Knox, The Eclipse of American Seapower (New York: The American Armyand Navy Journal, 1922).

26. Capt. J.M. Reeves, "A Tactical Study Based on the Fundamental Principles of War of theEmployment of the Present BLUE Fleet in Battle Showing the Vital Modifications Demanded byTactics," p. 36, Record Group II, NHC.

27. Class of 1923, Tactical Problem IV, "The Battle of the Emerald Bank," Record Group II,NHC.

28. Class of 1924, Tactical Problem II, "The Battle of Sable Island," Record Group II, NHC.

29. Reeves, p. 36.

30. Ibid., Plate 48.

31. Ibid., p. 35.

32. General Board Records, pp. 420-422,1925-1932, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, NavalHistory Division.

33. Reeves, pp. 31-32.

34. Reeves to Secretary of the Navy Charles Swanson, 17 May 1937, Records of the Secretaryof the Navy, Record Group 80, National Archives.

35. Rear Adm. H.E. Yarnell, "Memorandum on London Treaty," Spring 1930, p. 9, YarnellPapers, NHF.

36. Senior Class of 1938, Operations Problem VI (Tactical), Record Group II, NHC.

37. Rear Adm. Hugh Rodman to Secretary of the Navy, "Officers Uniforms—changes in," 30April 1918, Sims Papers, NHF.

38. General Board to Secretary of the Navy, "Questions to Be Answered in Connection withConsideration of the Elevation of Guns," 23 December 1924, G.B. No. 420-6, Serial No. 1259,General Board Records, Navy Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

39. Cdr. T.H. Thomson to Capt. Dudley W. Knox, 11 December 1923, Knox Papers, NHF.

40. Capt. D.W. Knox, "Strategy of the Atlantic in a War with a Major European Power," p.14, Knox Papers, NHF.

41. Capt. E.J. King, "Thesis: The Influence of the National Policy on the Strategy of a War,"p. 21, King Papers, NHF.

CHAPTER VIII-THE CACOMORPHOSIS OF THE ENEMY:

ORANGE

1. Board on Defenses, "War with Spain and Japan," p. 8, UNOpB, Record Group VIII, NavalWar College Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

2. Capt. Caspar F. Goodrich, "Strategic Features of the Pacific," 23 June 1897, p. 6, RecordGroup VIII, NHC.

3. Lt. J.M. Ellicott, "Sea Power of Japan," 1900, JN, p. 23, Record Group VIII, NHC.

4. Ellicott, "The Strategic Features of the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, and Guam," 14 June1900, XSTP, p. 4, Record Group VIII, NHC.

5. Rear Adm. George Remey, Memorandum reported in General Board Proceedings, 29May 1902, General Board Records, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

6. Conference of 1902, "Solution of Problem of 1902," pp. 14-19, Record Group XII, NHC.

7. Conference of 1903, "Problem: Course of 1903," Record Group XII, NHC.

8. A.T. Mahan to Henry C. Taylor, 7 December 1903 in Robert Seager II and Doris D.Maguire, eds. Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,1975), v. Ill, p. 86.

9. See A.T. Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston: Little,Brown, 1910), pp. 38-46; Homer Lea, The Day of the Saxon (New York: Harper, 1907), pp.216-223; Bradley A. Fiske, Diary, 12 February, 10 March 1915, Fiske Papers, Naval HistoricalDivision, Library of Congress.

10. Rear Adm. R.P. Rodgers, "Strategic Plan of Campaign Against Orange," 1911, RecordGroup XII, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC); "War PortfolioNo. 2," General Board Records, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

11. Conference of 1906, "Solution of Problem," Record Group XII, NHC; General Board ofthe Navy, "In Case of Strained Relations with Japan," 1906, Record Group XII, NHC.

12. Ibid., p. 3.

13. Ibid., pp. 9-14, 42-50.

14. Cdr. H.S. Knapp, "Memorandum," 31 January 1907,JNOpP, p. 3, NHC.

15. Mahan to Editor, New York Sun, 28 January 1907; Seager and Maguire, v. Ill, p. 206.

16. Lt. Cdr. W.D. MacDougall, "Study of Special Situation," 5 April 1907, JNOpP, p. 10,Record Group VIII, NHC.

17. James O. Richardson and George C. Dyer, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor (Washington:Dept. of the Navy, Navy History Division, 1973), pp. 383-402.

18. Cdr. J.H. Oliver, "Memorandum Submitted to the President of the War College," 20 April1907, Record Group VIII, JNOpP, NHC.

19. Rodgers, pp. 52-57.

20. Ibid., p. 39.

21. Ronald Spector, Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of theNaval Profession (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1977), pp. 147-150.

22. Nimitz to Melson, 24 September 1965, NHC.

23. Oliver to Rodgers, 27 February 1911, with "Strategic Plan of Campaign Against Orange";also, Outline History of the United States Naval War College 1884 to Date (Newport: CollectedTypescript, Bound, 1937); Mahan to Capt. Raymond P. Rodgers, 22 February and 4 March 1911,Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, v. Ill, pp. 380-388, 390-391.

24. Rear Adm. Bradley A. Fiske, Journal, 30 November 1914, Fiske Papers, Naval HistoricalFoundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

25. Sims to Daniels, "Matters Connected with the Pacific," 13 August 1920, Sims Papers,NHF.

26. Capt. D.W. Knox, "Memorandum on Naval Bases" 1922(?), Knox Papers, NHF; Cdr.Julius Augustus Furer, "Drydocking and Major Repairs in a Campaign in the Western Pacific,"UNOpP, Record Group VIII, NHC.

27. Office of Naval Operations, "Synopsis of a Preliminary Technical Study-Basic OrangePlan, Advanced Base," 1 December 1927, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval HistoricalDivision.

28. Summation of ORANGE Economic Committee, "The influence of ORANGE EconomicFactors on BLUE's Strategy in War," XSTP, Record Group VIII, p. 6, NHC.

29. General Board, "Strategic Problem—Pacific," 7 October 1916, Record Group VIII,UNOpP, p. 25, NHC.

30. Fiske to Sims, 3 June 1924, Sims Papers, NHF.

31. Adm. H.E. Yarnell, CINCASIATIC to CNO, "Situation in the Pacific," 26 November 1938,p. 73, XSTP, Record Group VIII, NHC

32. Capt. R. A. Koch, "BLUE-ORANGE Study," 31 March 1933, UNOpP, Record Group VIII,p. 17, NHC

33. Navy Basic Plan—ORANGE (WPL-13/Volume 1, WPL-14/Volume II, WPL-15/Volume III, WPL-16/Volume IV), March 1929, War Plans Division (OP-12), Records of theChief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval Historical Division.

34. Ibid., p. 12.

CHAPTER IX-BEHIND THE MASK

1. Rear Adm. Stephen B. Luce to Vice Adm. Yamamoto Gombei, "To the Secretary of theImperial Japanese Navy," 1901, Luce Papers, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress(hereafter NHF).

2. Lt. John M. Ellicott, "Sea Power of Japan," JN, Record Group VIII, p. 4, Naval War CollegeNaval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

3. Conference of 1902, "Solution of Problem of 1902," pp. 14-19, Record Group XII, NHC.

4. Yarnell to Snyder, 10 January 1939, Yarnell Papers, NHF.

5. Homer Lea, The Day of the Saxon (New York: Harper, 1907), pp. 216-223; Dewey toBonaparte, October 1906, General Board Letters, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, NavalHistorical Division.

6. Dewey to Newberry, 24 February 1909, General Board Letters, U.S. Navy OperationalArchives, Naval Historical Division, "Memorandum for the General Board Presented by CaptainSargent," 15 June 1907, General Board Letters.

7. Rear Adm. B.A. Fiske,Journal, 30 November 1914,12 February 1915, Fiske Papers, NHF;"Problem: Course of 1903," Record Group XII, NHC.

8. A.T. Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston: Little, Brown,1910), pp. 38-39.

9- Fiske, Journal, 9 February 1915, Fiske Papers, NHF.

10. Professor John H. Latani, "The Relation of the United States and Japan," p. 26, 1913,Record Group XIV, NHC.

11. Office of Naval Intelligence, "RE Orange Strategic Plan," 20 February 1914; "JapanesePlan for a Campaign Against America," 22 May 1914; "War Between Japan and America: APicture of the Future" (ostensibly translated from articles in Japanese newspaper Manyo),JNOpP, Record Group VIII, NHC.

12. Fiske, Journal 9, 10 February 1915, Fiske papers, NHF.

13. Lt. Cdr. L.A. Cotton, "Far Eastern Conditions from the Naval Point of View," 26 February1915, p. 7, Record Group XIV, NHC.

14. Ibid., p. 2.

15. Ibid., p. 8.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., p. 11.

18. Ibid., p. 6.

19. Roger Pineau.ed., The Japan Expedition, 1832-1834. The Personal Journal of CommodoreMatthew C. Perry (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1968), pp. 159, 163.

20. Cdr. H.E. Yarnell, "Strategy of the Pacific-Japanese Characteristics," 8 September 1919, p.7, Record Group XIV, NHC.

21. Office of Naval Intelligence, "Memorandum Regarding Japanese Psychology and Morale,"JNP, Record Group XIII, NHC.

22. Capt. Edward Howe Watson, "Some Notes, Comparisons, Observations, and Conclusionsmade in Japan, China, and the Far East," April 1939, 4A, JR, Record Group VIII, NHC.

23. Cotton, pp. 17-18.

24. ProfessorJ.O. Dealey, "National Policies in the Pacific," 10 September 1921, p. 6, RecordGroup XIV, NHC.

25. Cdr. C.W. Nimitz, "Thesis on Policy," 1 September 1922, p. 21, Record Group XIII, NHC.

26. Capt. T.C. Hart, "Thesis on Policy," 1 September 1922, p. 10, Record Group XIII, NHC.

27. Cdr. H.E. Kimmel, "Thesis on Policy," 5 December 1925, p. 17, Record Group XIII, NHC.

28. Capt. Byron McCandless, "Book Review. Advanced Course 1934-1935," The RacialHistory of Man, 3 August 1934, p. 2, Record Group II, NHC.

29. Nimitz.

30. Cdr. Ellis Mark Zacharias, "The Relationship Between National Policy and Strategy inWar in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Russo-Japanese War," 1 February 1934, p. 53, RecordGroup XIII, NHC.

31. Lt. W.D. Puleston, "Thesis Blue Strategy in the Pacific,"July 1914, p. 22, Record GroupXIII, NHC.

32. W.D. Puleston, Armed Forces of the Pacific (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press,1941), pp. 29, 43,56.

33. Yarnell to Knox, 6 September 1938; Yarnell to Snyder, 10 January 1939; Yarnell toHornbeck, 10 March 1939; Yarnell to Leahy, 11 October 1938, Yarnell Papers, NHF.

34. Yarnell to Puleston, 5 January 1938, Yarnell Papers, NHF; Preface by Adm. H.E. Yarnellin Puleston, Armed Forces of the Pacific.

35. Sadao Asada, "The Japanese Navy and the United States" in Dorothy Borg and ShumpeiOkamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931-1941 (New York:Columbia University Press, 1973), pp. 225-259; Stephen Pe\z, Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failureof the Second London Conference and the Onset of World War II (Cambridge, Mass: HarvardUniversity Press, 1974), pp. 35-38.

PART IV-THE GAME

1. Capt. William McCarty Little, "The Strategic Naval War Game, Or Chart Maneuver,"Lecture delivered by Capt. W. McCarty Little, June 1912, Record Group II, p. 10, Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

2. William Shakespeare, Henry V, Chorus.

3. Capt. John Stapler to Capt. J.V. Babcock, 18 November 1931, Record Group II, NHC.

4. Little, p. 12.

5. Ibid., p. 3.

6. Senior Class of 1929, Department of Operations, Information Sheet, TacticalDemonstrative Exercises, 18 July 1929, Record Group II, NHC.

CHAPTER X-THE GAME AS RITUAL: EXPEDE HERCULEM

1. Rear Adm. Stephen Bleecker Luce, "The Naval and Military Conference of 1909," NavalWar College, Summer 1909, Naval Historical Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

2. Ibid., p. 9.

3. Adm.  W.S. Sims, Excerpt from Address to Opening Class of June 1919, GeneralCorrespondence, Sims Papers, NHF.

4. Ibid.

5. Outline History of the Naval War College (Newport, R.I.: Collected Typescript, Bound,1937).

6. Department of Tactics, "Demonstrative Search Problems," Annual Classes, 1922 to 1941,Record Group II, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

7. Department of Tactics, Demonstrative Exercise Materials, Annual Classes, 1922 to 1941,Record Group II, NHC.

8. Department of Operations, The Conduct of Maneuvers, June 1935, p. 2. Record GroupIV, NHC.

9. Ibid., pp. 2-3, 24. See also, Rear Adm. E.C. Kalbfus, Sound Military Decision, 22 July 1940,Record Group XXVII, NHC.

10. The Conduct of Maneuvers, p. 17.

11. Ibid., p. a.

12. Ibid., pp. 24-25.

13 Department of Operations, Maneuver Rules, Record Group II, NHC.

14. Ibid., pp. 126-137.

15. The Conduct of Maneuvers, p. a.

16. Ibid., p. 2.

17. Ibid., p. 7.

18. Ibid., p. 8.

19. Ibid., p. 7.

20. Ibid., p. 27.

21. The Chief of the Bureau of Navigation (C.W. Nimitz) to President, Naval War College,"Request for fifty copies of drawings to accompany specifications for Mark III War Game Outfit,"12 June 1935, plus enclosed drawing, Record Group II, NHC.

22. The Conduct of Maneuvers, p. 29.

23. Maneuver Rules, p. 10.

24. The Conduct of Maneuvers, p. 15.

25. Torpedo Fire Cards, October 1930, Record Group II, NHC; "Table 4: Target Maneuvers,""Table 5: Hits Alongside," "Table 6: Hit Values," Maneuver Rules, pp. 130, 132.

26. Sample Forms Used in Conduct of Maneuvers, 25 November 1930, "Umpire's DamageSheets: Blue, Orange, Red Fleets," Record Group II, NHC.

27. Maneuver Rules, "Section F—Gunfire," pp. 61-84.

28. Sims to Coontz, 11 January 1922, Sims Papers, NHF.

29. Luce, "The Naval and Military Conference of 1909''

30. Ibid.

31. Frost to Sims, 14 October 1923, Sims Papers, NHF.

32. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 578.

CHAPTER XI-THE GAME AS ORACLE: THE CAMPAIGN

1. Bradley A. Fiske, Our Navy as a Fighting Machine (New York: Scribner, 1916), p. 209-

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 358.

3. Ibid., p. 119.

4. Class of 1923, "The Battle of the Marianas," Tac, p. 96,1923, Record Group II, Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

5. Senior Class of 1928, Operations Problem IV, 1928, Record Group II, NHC.

6. Senior Class of 1933, Operations Problem IV, 1933, Record Group II, NHC.

7. "Stenographic Notes Taken at Critique," Senior Class of 1933, Operations Problem IV,May 1933, p. 11, Record Group II, NHC.

8. "Remarks of President Naval War College Preliminary to Solving Operations ProblemIII," Senior Class, 1935, 20 February 1935, Record Group II, NHC.

9. Senior Class of 1938, Operations Problem V (Strategic), 1938, Record Group II, NHC.

10. Senior Class of 1938, Operations Problem VII, 1938, Record Group II, NHC.

11. Ibid.; Senior and Junior Classes of 1939, Operations Problem VII, 1939, Record Group II,NHC.

12. Senior and Junior Classes of 1939, Operations Problem VII, 1937, Record Group II, NHC.

13. U.S. Army War College-U.S. Naval War College, Operation Problem VI-1929, JointArmy and Navy Operations with Forced Landing, Part II, Estimate of Situation and Decision, 1July 1928, p. 6, Record Group II, NHC.

14. Ibid.; Part I, The Preliminary Situation, Annex (A), pp. 5-7.

15. Ibid.; "Stenographic Notes Taken at Critique," Record Group II, NHC.

16. Operations Problem VI-1929, Joint Army and Navy Operations with Forced Landing,Part XII, Support Force Operation Orders and Accompanying Annexes of Commanders, NavalLanding Groups and Air Group, 15 March 1929, Record Group II, NHC.

17. Ibid., Part VIII, Operation Order, No. 1 Support Force, Annex VI, Boat Data.

18. "Stenographic Notes Taken at Critique."

CHAPTER XII-THE GAME AS ORACLE: THE BATTLE

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 227.

2. Rear Adm. Harris Laning, President, Naval War College, The Naval Battle, May 1933, p.1, Record Group II, Naval War College Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

3. Ibid., p. 55.

4. Ibid., p. 1.

5. Ibid., p. 55.

6. Department of Operations, The Fire Action of the Battle Line, 23 May 1932, p. 2; Cruisersand Destroyers in the General Action, June 1936, p. 1, Record Group II, NHC.

7. Laning, p.*55.

8. Dept. of Operations, The Fire Action of the Battle Line, p. 45.

9. Laning, p. 2.

10. Ibid., p. 57.

11. Ibid., p. 3.

12. Dept. of Operations, The Fire Action of the Battle Line, Plates 1-4.

13. Ronald Spector, Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of theNaval Profession (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1977), p. 150; Malcolm Muir, Jr."The Capital Ship Program in the Unk,d States Navy, 1934-1935," Unpublished dissertation,Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1976, p. 38.

14. Holloway H. Frost, The Battle of Jutland (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1936), p. 516.

15. Cdr. H.R. Stark, "Thesis on Policy," p. 32, Record Group XII, NHC

16. Laning, p. 48.

CHAPTER XIII-THE GAME AS ORACLE: THE WEAPON

1. The vertebral metaphor of the battleship guided all interwar imagery: it was the supremenaval shibboleth. Every public address made by a naval officer of this era could be certain toencompass both "battleship" and "backbone" in the same breath. The personal papers sifted bythis writer—from Gleaves to Furer to Knox to Sims to Bloch—support the spinal cliche infamiliar battleship imagery. Occasional antomical variations like "The Heart of the Fleet," U.S.Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1940, were acceptable, though rare. Britain had "The SureShield of Empire," in Geoffrey Parratt, The Royal Navy (London: Sheldon Press, 1937), butAmerica could count on "The Backbone of the Fleet," Scientific American, September 1921, orbetter yet, "The Backbone of the Monroe Doctrine," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1940.

2. U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States,"Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington, 12 November 1921-16 February1922; Treaty Between the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan,Signed at Washington, 6 February 1922; Chapter II, Part IV, Definitions," v. I, 1922(Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1938), p. 264.

3. Michael Vlahos, "A Crack in the Shield: The Capital Ship Concept Under Attack," TheJournal of Strategic Studies, May 1979, p. 52.

4. In spite of the tides of "isolationism" and "disarmament," the battle fleet remained, in thecollective American imagination, the emotional symbol of security for this New Worldsanctuary. The writer's father remembers audiences at movies cheering and throwing their hatsinto the air every time the U.S. Battle Fleet appeared at the end of a newsreel. This was thenormal response to America's strategic forces in the 1930s, Springfield, Ohio, the Heartland. AsAdm. C.C. Bloch, then CINCUS, wrote of a similar scene in California, 1939:

A friend of mine reports that his wife and child were in a movie house last week in LosAngeles and had seen newsreels of a foreign navy in action, which left the audiencewondering just how the United States Navy was. Immediately after the newsreel, your"Filming the Fleet" came to the screen. During its showing and afterwards, the audienceapplauded with much gusto.

Adm. C.C. Bloch to Mr. Truman Talley, 7 November 1939, Bloch Papers, Naval Historical

Foundation, Library of Congress (hereafter NHF).

5. Rear Adm. H.R. Stark to Adm. C.C. Bloch, 12 July 1937, Bloch Papers, NHF.

6. C.V. Ricketts, "Battleships and Cruisers," 7 August 1947, Record Group XIV, Naval WarCollege Naval Historical Collection (hereafter NHC).

7. W.D. Puleston, The Armed Forces of the Pacific (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1941), p. 242.

8. Critique by Capt. R.B. Coffey, Senior Class of 1933, Tactical Probelm V, OperationsProblem IV, May 1933, p. 1, Record Group II, NHC.

9. Rear Adm. Harris Laning, President, Naval War College, The Naval Battle, May 1933, p.7, Record Group II, NHC.

10. Department of Operations, Cruisers and Destroyers in the General Action, June 1936, p.1, Record Group II, NHC.

11. Laning, p. 9.

12. Ibid., p. 46.

13. Ibid.

14. Capt. J.M. Reeves, "A Tactical Study Based on the Fundamental Principles of War of theEmployment of the Present BLUE Fleet in Battle Showing the Vital Modifications Demanded byTactics," 20 March 1925, Plates 4-7, Record Group II, NHC.

15. These, the dozen battleships of the battle force in the Pacific—four divisions of threeships each—in the last year of peace: 1940. The oldest of the American ironclad veterans, NewYork, Texas, and Arkansas, were already patrolling the raider-crossed waters of the NorthAtlantic.

195AFTERWORD

1. Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey to Admiral Robert B. Carney, 10 November 1958, DowPapers, Naval Historical Division, Library of Congress.

2. Adm.  Robert B. Carney, Review of "Leyte," typescript,  1959, Dow Papers, NavalHistorical Division, Library of Congress.

3. Michael Vlahos, "A Crack in the Shield: The Capital Ship Concept Under Attack," Thejournal of Strategic Studies, May 1979, pp. 69-75.

4. Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army(New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), p. 179.

5. Vice Adm. J.B. Stockdale, "Taking Stock," Naval War College Review, January 1979, p. 2.

6. Rear Adm. S.B. Luce, "On the Relations Between the U.S. Naval War College and theLine Officers of the U.S. Navy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1911, p. 29.

7. Vice Adm. J.B. Stockdale, "Taking Stock," Naval War College Review, April 1979, p. 1.

8. From conversations with Fleet Games participants.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.     NAVAL WAR COLLEGE NAVAL HISTORICALCOLLECTION

Record Group 2: "Administrative Records" (OperationalFiles)

Serial No. 1836:

Serial No. 1980:

Serial No. 1981:

Serial No. 1997:

Serial No. 1998:

Serial No. 1999:

Serial No. 2095:

Serial No. 2107:

Serial No. 1687:Serial No. 1502-A:

Rear Admiral Harris Laning, President,Naval War College. The Naval Battle,(Confidential). May 1933.Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege. The Conduct of Maneuvers,(Confidential). June 1935.Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege. Maneuver Rules, (Confidential).June 1935.

Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege. Blue Fire Effect Tables, (Confiden-tial).

Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege. Orange Fire Effects Tables, (Confi-dential).

Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege. Red Fire Effect Tables, (Confiden-tial). June 1935.

Department of Intelligence, Naval WarCollege. Fleet Organizations: Blue, Red andOrange, (Confidential). June 1935.Department of Operations, Naval WarCollege, Cruisers and Destroyers in theGeneral Action, (Confidential), June 1936.Torpedo Fire Cards, (Confidential). NavalWar College. October 1930.Sample Forms Used in Conduct ofManeuvers, (Confidential). Naval WarCollege, Master Copy, 25 November 1930.

Serial No. 1800-D:   Description and Use of the Relative Plot

Game Board and Maneuver Protractor,(Restricted). Naval War College, 22January 1937.

Record  Group  8:   Intelligence  and  TechnologicalArchives

XSTP:

UNOpB:JN:

JNOpM:UNOpP(T)

JND:JNT:

UNOpP:

BNOpP:

XBAA:JNOpP:

JNOpP:

Captain C.F. Goodrich. Strategic features of thePacific. Letter to Assistant Secretary of the Navyon War with Japan. 23 June 1897.

Board on Defenses. War with Spain and Japan.July 1897.

Lieutenant John M. Ellicott, Sea Power of Japan.1900 (Confidential).

W.W.  Taylor. Japanese  Operations AboutGens an. 5 February 1905. (Confidential).Navy Department, General Board.  War Plan:Orange-Blue Situation,  assumed September,1906. June 1907. (Confidential).Major L.C. Lucas. Armored Ships-Blue andOrange-Values. May 1909. (Confidential).Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.Japanese Naval War College. 10 August 1910.(Confidential).

Rear Admiral R.P. Rodgers, President, NavalWar College. Strategic Plan of Campaign AgainstOrange. 15 March 1911. (Confidential).Commander N.A. McCully. Organization, Mobili-zation, and Distribution of Red Naval Forces inCase of War with Blue. 18 March 1912.(Confidential).

Captain E.H. Ellis. Naval Bases: Their Location,Resources, and Security. 1913. (Confidential).Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.Possibilities of a Japanese-American War. 26June 1914.

Navy Department, Office of Naval IntelligenceRE Orange Strategic Plan. February 1914.

198JNOpP:

JNOpP:JNOpP:

XPON:UNOpP:

XBAN:

XPOD:

UNOpP:

UNOpP:

XSTP:

UNOpP:JNOpP:

XSTP:

UNOpP:

Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.Orange Strategic Plan, Japanese Plan for aCampaign Against America. 22 May 1914.Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.Plans of the Japanese Government in the Eventof War between the United States and Japan. 17March 1915.

Major General Clarance R. Edwards. Translationof an article from frankfurter Zeitung: "WarBetween Japan and America, A Picture of theFuture," 27 May 1915.

Commander W.V. Pratt. Scheme for the Progres-sive Development of the Fleet. 1915.Navy Department, General Board. StrategicProblem—Pacific. Solution by General Board ofBlue-Orange Problem submitted by Department.7 October 1916. (Confidential).Captain W.V. Pratt. Naval Bases from the View-point of a Definite Policy. 15 December 1919.(Confidential).

Navy Department, Office of the Chief of NavalOperations, Plans Department. Building Pro-gram XIII Appendixes. 8 June 1920. (Secret).Lieutenant Commander H.H. Frost. The NavalOperations of a Red-Orange Campaign. 25October 1920. (Secret).

Commander R.B. Coffey. The Navy War PlansDivision. Naval Plans and Planning. 11 March1924. (Confidential).

Navy Department. General Board. MattersConnected with the Pacific. 13 August 1920.(Confidential).

Lieutenant Commander S.F. Bryant. Pacific WarPlan Notes. 22 November 1921. (Secret).Office of the Naval Attache, American Legation,Peking. Japanese War Plans. 8 September 1923.(Secret).

Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.The Next Great Naval War: Criticism of HectorBywater's Book, "The Great Pacific War." 27August 1925.

Captain J.M. Reeves. A Tactical Study based onThe  Fundamental Principles  of  War  of the

JNP:XSTP:

UNOpP:

UNC:

XSTA:

UNOpP:

XSTP:

XSTP:

XSTP:

UNC:

XSTP:XSTP:

XSTP:

Employment of the Present Blue Fleet in Battleshowing Vital Modifications Demanded byTactics. 25 March 1925. (Secret).Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.Memorandum Regarding Japanese Psychologyand Morale. 1 March 1927. (Confidential).Navy Department, Office of Naval Intelligence.The Strategical Situation in the Pacific (NavalAttache Report W-28, 1927). 27 January 1927.(Confidential).

Captain J.W. Greenslade. Joint Estimate of theBLUE-ORANGE Situation. 1928. (Secret)Rear Admiral Harris Laning, President, NavalWar College. Building Program, 1932 (WarCollege Suggestion). 19 September 1930. (Confi-dential).

Commander H.H. Frost. BLUE Naval Strategy inthe Atlantic. 16 February 1932. (Secret).Captain R.A. Koch. Blue-Orange Study. 31 March1933. (Secret).

Naval War College, Orange Economic Com-mittee. The Influence of Orange EconomicFactors on Blue's Strategy in War. 21 March 1933.(Confidential).

Correspondence between Rear Admiral H.E.Yarnell and Rear Admiral E.C. Kalbfus, Presi-dent, Naval War College; 21 November 1934, to18 December 1934.

Rear Admiral H.E. Yarnell, and Rear AdmiralE.C. Kalbfus. Northern Pacific—Strategy of.November 1934. (Confidential).Rear Admiral W.H. Standley, President, NavalWar College. Building Program on Expiration ofWashington and London Treaties. 1 April 1935.(Confidential)

Ensign August Smiley. A History of theCampaign. 7 April 1936.

Commander R.R.M. Emmet. Comment on Planof Operations submitted by Advanced Class of1935-1936. 15 August 1938. (Confidential).Admiral H.E. Yarnell, Commander in Chief,Asiatic Fleet. Situation in the Pacific. 26November 1938. (Confidential).

200JR:

Captain Edward Howe Watson. Some Notes,Comparisons, Observations, and Conclusionsmade in Japan, China, and the Far East after anabsence of 15 years. April 1939.

Joint Efforts of Army and Navy War Colleges:

JNOpP: Correspondence   between   Lieutenant

Colonel W.W. Wotherspoon, President,Army War College, and Rear Admiral J.W.P.Merrell, President, Naval War College, 23February 1907, and 21 April 1907.

JNOpP: Army War College, Joint Army-Navy Com-

mittee. Memorandum Prepared for the Presidentof Army War College by Joint Committee. Consider-ation of Special Situation. 18 February 1907.

JNOpP: Army War College, Joint Army-Navy Committee.

Problem Involving War Between Orange andBlue. Course of 1907-1908.

JNOpP: Lieutenant Commander W.D. MacDougall. Study

of Orange-Blue Situation of 1906-1907. 5 April1907. (Confidential).

JNOpP: Commander J.H. Oliver. Military Policy in the

Pacific. 20 April 1907. (Confidential).

JNOpP: Army War College, Joint Army-Navy Committee.

Preliminary Papers in Army War College JointCommittee's Work. 25 January 1907 to 14February 1907. (Confidential).

UNOpP: Army War College,  Memorandum  for  the

Director, G-4 Division. Estimate of maximumBlue forces which can be transported to andmaintained in Western Pacific and AsiaticMainland. 21 December 1925. (Secret).

UNOpP: Army War College, Course at the Army War

College, 1923-1924. The Logistic Plan of theOrange War Plan. Committee No. 5. NavalSupply. 27 February 1924. (Secret).

Part I. Introduction, and Discussion of BasicStrategic Plan, Orange.

Part II. Discussion of the Basic Logistic Plan,Orange.

201Record Group 12: Student Problems and Solutions

Naval War College.   Solution of Problem of 1902. Strategy and

Military Operations. Summer 1902. (Con-fidential). 3 Appendixes.

Naval War College.   Conference of 1906. Solution of Problem.

Summer 1906. (Restricted). Three Parts.

Naval War College.   Problem of 1908. Informal Memorandum

Relating to Questions of Fleet Supply.September 1908.

After 1918: See Appendix III.

Record Group 13: Student Theses

Captain C.C. Bloch, "Thesis: The Present Foreign Policies of the

United States," 26 April 1930.Captain Aubrey W.  Fitch, "Thesis:  Present Trends in the

Foreign Policies of the United States as Affecting the Monroe

Doctrine," 18 April 1938.Captain R.I. Ghormley, "Thesis: Present Trends in the Foreign

Policy of the United States in Regard to Europe and the Near

East," 18 April 1938.Captain J.W. Greenslade, "Thesis: Policy," 5 December 1925.Captain T.C. Hart, "Thesis on Policy," 1 September 1922.Captain T.C. Hart, "Thesis: Tactics," 28 April 1923.Captain A.J. Hepburn, "Thesis: The Inter-Relation in War of

National Policy, Strategy, Tactics and Command," 15 May

1931.Lieutenant J.L. Holloway, Jr. "Thesis Number One: Destroyer

Operations at the Battle of Jutland," 30 October 1930.Commander R.E. Ingersoll, "Thesis on Policy," 4 December

1926.Captain E.C. Kalbfus, "Thesis on Policy," 4 December 1926.Commander H.E. Kimmel, "Thesis on Policy," 5 December

1925.Captain E.J. King, "Thesis: The Influence of the National Policy

on the Strategy of a War," 1933.Captain Harris Laning, "Thesis: Tactics," 22 April 1922.Commander C.W. Nimitz, "Thesis: Policy," 1 September 1922.Lieutenant W.D. Puleston, "Thesis:  BLUE Strategy in the

Pacific," July 1914.Captain J.M. Reeves, "Thesis: Tactics," 1 May 1924.Captain J.M. Reeves, "Thesis: Policy," 4 September 1924.

Captain J.O. Richardson, "Thesis: The Relationship in War ofNaval Strategy, Tactics, and Command," 7 May 1934.

Commander R.A. Spruance, "Thesis on Policy," 4 December1926.

Captain C.P. Snyder, "Thesis on Policy," 6 December 1924.

Commander H.R. Stark, "Thesis Tactics," 28 April 1923.

Commander Ellis Mark Zacharias, "Thesis: The RelationshipBetween National Policy and Strategy in War in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Russo-Japanese War," 1 February 1934.

Record Groups 14 and 15: Faculty and Staff Presenta-tions, and Guest Lectures

Professor John H. Latani, The Relation of the United States and

]apan.  Lecture—summer conference, Naval War College,

1913.Lieutenant Commander L.A. Cotton , Far Eastern Conditions

from Naval Point of View. Lecture delivered at Naval War

College, 26 February 1915.Captain H.E. Yarnell, Strategy of the Pacific. Lecture delivered

before Army General Staff College, 8 September 1919.Commander H.H.  Frost.  Strategy of the Atlantic. Lecture

delivered before the General Staff College, 9 September 1919.Professor J.O. Dealey, National Policies in the Pacific. A lecture

delivered before the officers of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, at the

Naval War College, 10 September 1921.Captain R.R. Belknap,  The Blue-Orange Situation. Lecture

delivered for Fleet-War College Sessions, 1 November 1921.Captain J.A. Furer, Drydocking and Major Repairs in a

Campaign in the Western Pacific. Lecture delivered for Fleet-War College Sessions, 21 November 1921.Captain W.S. Pye, War Plans. Lecture delivered at the Naval

War College, 7 January 1926.Captain D.W. Knox, National Strategy. Lecture delivered at the

Naval War College, 7 October 1932.

Record Group 27: General Subjects

The Estimate of the Situation, Revised and Printed for the Useof Officers in Attendance at the Naval War College. MasterCopy. Naval War College. May 1921.

The Estimate of the Situation, Plans and Orders, Prepared at theNaval War College. Naval War College. 1929.

Sound Military Decision, Including the Estimate of the Situa-tion, the Elements of Planning, and the Formulation ofDirectives. Naval War College. 22 June 1940.

Manuscript Collection

This list contains personal papers of United States Navyofficers. This collection complements the holdings of the NavalHistorical Foundation at the Library of Congress.Ms. Coll. 12:   Raymond Ames Spruance. Papers, 1942-1968. 7

boxes, 5 vols.Ms. Coll. 13:   William McCarty Little. Papers, 1880-1915. 3

boxes, 3 vols.Ms. Coll. 17:   Alfred Thayer Mahan. Papers,  1880-1908.  14

vols., 15 folders.Ms. Coll. 24:   William Veazie Pratt.  Papers,  1903-1963.   18

boxes, 22 vols.

Ms. Coll. 28Ms. Coll. 30Ms. Doc. 15

Richard W. Bates. Papers, 1932-1972. 19 boxes.

Richard G. Colbert. Papers, 1932-1973. 21 boxes.

Harris Laning. Unpublished autobiography "An

Admiral's Yarn," 1 vol.Ms. Doc. 24:   Charles M. Remey. Unpublished "Reminiscences,

George C Remey, Rear Admiral, USN," 1920. 2

vols.Ms. Doc. 43:   Charles L. Melson.  "Reminiscences of Vice

Admiral Charles L. Melson," 1974, 413pp.

II. THE NAVAL HISTORICAL FOUNDATION,LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, MANUSCRIPT DIVI-SION

Baldridge, Harry Alexander, 1880-1952 (100).Belknap, George Eugene, 1832-1903 (1400).Belknap, Reginald Rowan, 1871-1959 (7100).Bingham, Donald Cameron, 1882-1946 (100).Bloch, Claude Charles, 1878-1967 (1400).Chambers, Washington Irving, 1856-1934 (12000).Cotton, Charles Stanhope, 1843-1909 (600).Cushing, Leonard R, 1901-1962 (3600).Dahlgren, John Adolphus, 1809-1870 (700).Farragut, David Glasgow, 1801-1870 (400).Fullam, William Freeland, 1855-1926 (3850).

Furer, Julius Augustus, 1880-1963 (2800).Gleaves, Albert, 1858-1937 (6000).Halsey, William Frederick, 1882-1959 (22000).Home, Frederick Joseph, 1880-1959 (1000).Jones, Hilary Rollard, 1863-1938 (2400).Kimmel, Husband Edward, 1882-1968 (200).King, Ernest Joseph, 1878-1956 (10000); these papers containcomplete material for King's two courses of study at NWCKnox, Dudley Wright, 1877-1960 (6500).Lockwood, Charles Andrews, 1890-1967 (7600).Luce, Stephen Bleecker, 1827-1917 (8000).Merrill, Aaron Stanton, 1890-1961 (600).Porter, David Dixon, 1813, 1891 (600).Richardson, Holden Chester, 1878-1960 (3600).Rodgers Family, 1788-1944 (15500).Sargent, Nathan, 1849-1907 (2700).Sellers, David Foote, 1874-1949 (6500).Shafroth, John Franklin, 1887-1967 (1800).Sims, William Sowden, 1858-1936 (43000).Standley, William Harrison, 1872-1963 (2500).Symington, Powers, 1872-1963 (2500).Taylor, Henry Clay, 1845-1904 (300).Taylor, Montgomery Meigs, 1869-1952 (1200).Wainwright Family, 1842-1941 (18).Wilkinson, Theodore Stark, 1888-1946 (200).

*Dupont, Samuel Francis.*Fiske, Bradley Allen.*Yarnell, Harry Ervin.

•Collections not part of Naval Historical Division

III. UNITED   STATES   NAVY   OPERATIONALARCHIVES,  NAVAL  HISTORY  DIVISION,

WASHINGTON NAVY YARD.

General Board. Letter Books, 1900-1911.General Board. Proceedings, 1900-1916.General Board. Subject File Records:

420-2. Building Programs and Overall Policy, 1914-1945.420-6. Battleships, Design and Employment, 1900-1937.Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, War Plans Division.Navy Basic War Plan—Red. 1930.WPL-22, Volume I.WPL-23, Volume II.WPL-24, Volume III.Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, War Plans Division.Navy Basic Plan—Orange. March 1929.WPL-13, Volume!WPL-14, Volume II.WPL-15, Volume III.WPL-16, Volume IV.The Joint Board, Joint Planning Committee.Joint Army and Navy Basic Plan for the  Capture andOccupation of the Azores, GRAY—WPL-47,].B. No. 325(Serial 694), 28 May 1941.The Joint Board, Joint Planning Committee.Joint Army and Navy Basic Plan for the Occupation of Icelandby a Permanent Garrison of the  United States Army,INDIGO, J.B. No. 325 (Serial 697).

IV. PUBLISHED WORKS

This list contains many of the autobiographies, biographies,memoirs, and journals that I have consulted, as well as thoserelatively few histories dealing with the Navy of the interwarperiod. In my investigation of the Navy ethos, all of these havebeen of use.

Abbazia, Patrick. Mr. Roosevelt's Navy: The Private War of the

U.S. Atlantic Fleet, 1939-1942. Annapolis: Naval Institute

Press, 1975.Albion, Robert Greenlaugh, and Connery, Robert Howe.

Forrestal and the Navy. New York: Columbia University

Press, 1962.

Arnold, Henry H. Global Mission. New York: Harper, 1949.Arpee, Edward. From Frigates to Flat-Tops: The Story of the

Life and Achievements  of Rear Admiral William Adger

Moffet, U.S.N. Lake Forest, 111.: privately printed, 1953.Bailey, Thomas A. "Dewey and the Germans at Manila Bay,"

American Historical Review, October 1939, pp. 59-81.Ballantine, Duncan S. U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World

War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947.Beard, Charles A. The Navy: Defense or Portent? New York:

Harper and Brothers, 1932.Bishop, Joseph. Charles Bonaparte, His Life and Public Services.

New York: Scribner, 1922.Borg, Dorthy, and Shumpei, Okamoto, eds. Pearl Harbor as

History: Japanese-American Relations,  1931-1941. New

York: Columbia University, 1973.Braisted, William R. The United States Navy in the Pacific,

1897-1909. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958. The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1909-1922.

Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.

"The United States Navy's Dilemma in the Pacific,

1906-1909," Pacific Historical Review, August  1957, pp.235-244.

"The Philippine Naval Base Problem," Mississippi

Valley Historical Review, June 1954, pp. 21-40.Brownlow, Donald Grey. The Accused: The Ordeal of Rear

Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel,  U.S.N.  New York:

Vantage Press, 1968.Buckley, Thomas A. The United States and the Washington

Conference, 1921-1922. Knoxville: University of Kentucky

Press, 1970.Buell, Thomas B. The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral

Raymond A. Spruance. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.Bywater, Hector C. The Great Pacific War: A History of the

American-Japanese  Campaign  of 1931-1933.  Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1925. Navies and Nations: A Review of Naval Develop-ments Since the Great War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.Sea Power in the Pacific: A Study of the American-

Japanese Naval Problems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.Carter, Worrall R. and Duvall, Elmer E. Ships, Salvage andSinews of War: The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in Atlanticand Mediterranean Waters During World War II. Washing-ton: Navy Department, 1954.

Challener, Richard D. Admirals, Generals, and foreign Policy,

1898-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.Clark, Joseph J. with Reynolds, Clark G. Carrier Admiral. New

York: David McKay, 1967.Clinard, Outten Jones. Japan's lnfhence on American Naval

Power, 1897-1917. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1947.Coontz, Robert E. From the Mississippi to the Sea. Philadelphia:

Dorrance, 1930.Cronan, Robert E. The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels,

1913-1921. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963.Cummings, Damon E. Admiral Richard Wainwright and the

U.S. Fleet. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1962.Davis, Forrest. The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American  Control of the  Seas.   New  York:   Reynal  and

Hitchcock, 1941.Davis, George T. A Navy Second to None: The Development of

Modern American Naval Policy. New York: Harcourt, Brace,

1940.Dingman, Roger. Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval

Arms Limitation, 1914-1922. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1976.Dyer, George Carroll. The Amphibious Came to Conquer: The

Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. Washington: U.S.

Govt. Print. Off., 1972.Evans, Holden A. One Man's Fight for a Better Navy. New

York: Dodd, Mead, 1940.Fiske, Bradley A. From Midshipman to Rear Admiral. New

York: Century, 1919.  The Navy as a Fighting Machine. New York:

Scribner, 1916.Frank, Benis M. Halsey. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.Frost, Holloway H. The Battle of Jutland. Annapolis: Naval

Institute Press, 1936.Fry, Michael G. Illusions of Security: North Atlantic Diplomacy,

1918-1922. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972. "The North Atlantic Triangle and the Abrogation

of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance." Journal of Modern History,

March 1967, pp. 353-362.Furer, Julius Agustus. Administration of the Navy Department

in World War II. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1959.

Gleaves, Albert. The Life of an American Sailor: Rear Admiral

William Hemsley Emory, United States Navy. New York:

Doran, 1923.Halsey, William F., and Bryan J. III. Admiral Halsey's Story.

New York: Whittlesey House, 1947.Herwig, Holger H. The Politics of Frustration: The United

States in German Naval Planning, 1889-1943. Boston: Little,

Brown, 1976.Herwig, Holger H., and Trask, David F. "Naval Operations

Plans Between Germany and the United States of America,

1898-1913: A Study of Strategical Planning in the Age of

Imperialism." Militareschichliche Mitteilungen, v. II, 1970,

pp. 5-32.Hoyt, Edwin P. How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz

and His Admirals. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970.Ichihashi, Yamato.  The  Washington Conference and After.

Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1928.Ishimaru, Tota. japan Must Fight Britain. New York: Telegraph

Press, 1936.Jones, Ken, and Kelley, Hubert Jr. Admiral Arleigh (31 Knot)

Burke, The Story of a Fighting Sailor. Philadelphia: Chilton,

1962.Karsten, Peter. The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of

Annapolis and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism.

New York: Free Press, 1972.Kimmel, Husband E. Admiral Kimmel's Story. Chicago: Henry

Regnery, 1955.King, Ernest J., and Whitehill, Walter Muir. Fleet Admiral

King: A Naval Record. New York: Norton, 1952.Kittredge, Tracy B. Naval Lessons of the Great War. Garden

City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1921.Knox, Dudley W. The Eclipse of American Sea Power. New

York: Army and Navy Journal, 1922.- A History of the United States Navy. New York:

Putnam, 1948.Leahy, William D. / Was There. New York: Whittlesey House,

1950.Leutze, James R. Bargaining for Supremacy: Anglo-American

Naval Collaboration, 1937-1941. Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press, 1977.Livermore, Seward W. "The American Navy as a Factor in

World Politics, 1903-1913." American Historical Review, July

1958, pp. 863-879.

Livermore, Seward W. "American Strategic Diplomacy in theSouth Pacific." Pacific Historical Review, March 1943, pp.42-49.

"Battleship Diplomacy in South America."

Journal of Modern History, March 1944, pp. 31-48.

"Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the

Venezuelan Crisis  of  1902-1903." American Historical

Review, April 1946, pp. 452-471.Lockwood, Charles A., and Adamson, Hans Christian. Tragedy

at Honda. Philadelphia: Chilton, I960.Long, John D. The New American Navy. New York: Outlook,

1903.Lundstrom, John B. The First South Pacific Campaign: Pacific

Fleet Strategy, December 1941-June 1942. Annapolis: Naval

Institute Press, 1976.Mahan, Alfred Thayer. From Sail to Steam: Recollections of a

Naval Life. Boston: Harper and Brothers, 1907. The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and

Future. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897.

- The Lessons of the War with Spain. Boston: Little,

Brown, 1899.

N aval Administration and Warfare. Boston: Little,

Brown, 1908.

Naval Strategy, Compared and Contrasted with the

Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land.Boston: Little, Brown, 1911.

Matloff, Maurice, and Snell, Edwin M. Strategic Planning forCoalition Warfare, 1941-1942 in subseries The War Depart-ment, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department ofthe Army series The United States Army in World War II.Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1953.

Mayo, Claude Banks. Your Navy. Los Angeles: Parker and Baird,1939.

Melhorn, Charles M. Two-Block Fox: The Rise of the AircraftCarrier, 1911-1929. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1974.

Mills, Walter, ed. The Forrestal Diaries. New York: VikingPress, 1951.

Morison, Elting E. Admiral Sims and the Modern AmericanNavy. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1942.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Opera-tions in World War II. Boston: Little, Brown, 1947-1962. 15vols.

O'Connor, Raymond G. Perilous Equilibrium: The U.S. and the

London Naval Conference of1930. Lawrence: The University

of Kansas Press, 1962.O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of

the Modern Navy. Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1943.Palmer, Wayne Francis. Men and Ships of Steel. New York:

Morrow, 1935.Pelz, Stephen E. Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second

London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.Pomeroy, Earl S. Pacific Outpost: American Strategy in Guam

and Micronesia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951.Potter, E.B. Nimitz. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976.  The United States and World Sea Power. Engle-

wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1955.Puleston, W.D. The Armed Forces of the Pacific. New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1941.  Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred

Thayer Mahan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939.Rappaport, Armin. The Navy League of the United States.

Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962.Reynolds, Clark G. Command of the Sea. New York: Morrow,

1974.

, The Fast Carriers. New York: McGraw-Hill,

1968.Richardson, James O., and Dyer, George C. On the Treadmill to

Pearl Harbor: The Memoirs of Admiral James O. Richardson,

U.S.N. Washington: Navy History Division, 1973.Schroeder, Seaton. A Half Century of Naval Service. New York:

Appleton, 1922.Seager, Robert II. Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His

Letters. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977.Seager, Robert II, and Maguire, Doris D., eds. Letters and Papers

of Alfred Thayer Mahan. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,

1975. three volumes.Sherman,  Frederick  C.   Combat  Command:   The American

Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific War. New York: Dutton, 1950.Sims, W.S., and Hendrick J.B. The Victory at Sea. Garden City,

N.Y.: Doubleday, 1920.Spector, Ronald. Admiral of the New Empire: The Life and

Career of George Dewey.   Baton  Rouge: Louisiana State

University Press, 1974.

Standley, William H., and Ageton, Arthur A. Admiral Ambas-sador to Russia. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955.Stirling, Yates. Sea Duty. New York: Putnam, 1939.Taussig, Joseph K., and Cope, Harley F. Our Navy—A Fighting

Team. New York: Whittlesey House, 1943.Taylor,  Theodore.   The Magnificent   Mitscher.   New  York:

Norton, 1954.Tillman, Seth P. Anglo-American Relations at the Paris Peace

Conference of 1919. Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1961.Trask, David F. Captains and Cabinets: Anglo-American Naval

Relations,  1917-1918. Columbia:  University of Missouri

Press, 1972.U.S. Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department. Information

Pamphlets for  Officers  Ordered to  the Asiatic  Stations.

Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1930.U.S. Navy Department. Navy Directory of Ships and Stations.

Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1921.Watson, Mark S. Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations,

in subseries The War Department, Office of the Chief of

Military History, Department of the Army series The United

States Army in World War II. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print.

Off., 1950.Wheeler, Gerald E. Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy, A

Sailor's Life. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1974. Prelude to Pearl Harbor: The United States Navy

and the Far East, 1921-1931. Columbia: University of Missouri

Press, 1963.Wiley, Henry A. An Admiral from Texas. Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday, Doran, 1934.

INDEX

Adams, Charles Francis 32Allen, Rear Admiral Burrell C. 26Annapolis

Rites of Passage 15

role in corporate acculturation 16

B

Dealey, Professor John Q. 68, 127Demonstrative exercises 134Doctrine

Role in Operational Ethos 89-90,  141,

158Evolution  of,  from  Knox  to  Kalbfus85-91Dow,  Rear  Admiral  Leonard James  62,157

Babcock, Captain J. V. 28

Baxter, Professor J.P. 68

Beard, Professor Charles 31

Belknap, Admiral Reginald R. 93, 94, 97

Benson, Admiral William S., center of Navy

Anglophobia 46Bloch, Admiral C.C 26, 84Board maneuvers 135

Ellicott, Lieutenant J.M. 115Elliott, Professor William Y. 68Ethos

American frontiers and ethos 8-14

Corporate iii, iv, 1 et seq.

Institutional 3, 29

Operational 89-90, 141, 160

The Capital Ship

at Newport, place of the capital shipconcept within the naval war game 140critical instrument in planned transpacific

offensive 143-144, 153-156defender of the "Monroe Doctrine" 36, 99dominance of the battleship in the engage-ment 139dominance of the engagement in tactical

thought 147 et seq.emotional image of the battleship as "Shield

of the Republic" 152growing awareness of the potential of the

aircraft carrier 136-137, 145role of the battleship in U.S. naval strategy108Carpenter, Rear Admiral Arthur S. 26Chart maneuvers 134

Clausewitz, role in War College thinking:Operational Ethos 76,77,78-79,141,147Cooper, James Fenimore 13Cotton, Lieutenant Commander L.A. 124-126,

127Cultural personality 5corporate 6individual 5national society 5, 7

Fiske, Rear Admiral Bradley 85, 91, 119, 143

Foote, Rear Admiral Percy W. 26

Frost, Commander Holloway 103, 105-106,

150Furer, Rear Admiral Julius Augustus 17,36,53,

119Furlong, Rear Admiral W.R. 26

Game histories and scenario development forthe Pacific War 141, 143 et seq. 157-158Ghormley, Admiral R.L. 81Gleaves, Admiral Alfred 18, 25, 34, 35, 43, 44Goodrich, Captain Caspar S. 114Goodrich, Professor L.M. 68Great Britain

as ally and future friend/fraternal rival 46

as declining empire according to Darwinistimages 106, 110-112

as role-model 101-102, 104

as role to be inherited, future nationalmission 112

as traditional antagonist 98 et seq., 104Greenslade, Admiral J. W. 79

H

Daniels, Josephus 119

Halsey, Admiral William S. 93, 157-158Hamilton, Alexander 10, 30

importance of Federalist Papers 31

"Navalist" School 100-102

role in Monroe Doctrine 31

traditional Atlantic Strategy, Navy mission34, 121Hart, Admiral Thomas C. 26Hepburn, Admiral AJ. 78, 81

Jahncke, Ernest Lee 32

Japan, image of future enemy and future war98, 113 et seq.Japan and Social Darwinism 40-41, 82-84place of Japan in  naval  historicism as

inevitable enemy 129racism toward Japanese culture 82, 83, 122-

130role of Newport in creating hostile mask40-41, 68-69, 73, 82-84, 114, 122-130Jefferson, Thomas

"Anti-Navalist" School as symbolic father

100-101role in "Continentalist" School 30Jellicoe, Admiral John 150Jutland

impact of battle on naval thinking 70, 111role in Newport war gaming 148-151U.S. Navy attitudes toward British perfor-mance 103,111-112

Morison, Samuel Eliot 157Mythologies of American persona, Navy andAmerican myths 8, 9

N

The Naval Battle

game search for a pattern for an AmericanTrafalgar 149-151

negative image of Jutland 105-106, 149-150

role-model of the "Decisive Engagement"118, 141

Trafalgar, Tsushima 148Naval War College

approach to history 58-59

approach to Navy mission 76

bibliography 71 et seq.

curriculum focus 65

educational role within Navy 63 et seq.

lectures 67 et seq.

role of student thesis in indoctrination/acculturation of mission 75-85Nimitz, Admiral C.W. 77-78, 80, 83, 92, 128

O

Oikoumene, nation in embracing cultural

system 158Oliver, Commander J.H. 118Operations problems 134, 135

Kalbfus, Admiral E.C. 52, 84, 90Kidd, Admiral Isaac 160, 161Kimmel, Admiral Husband 79, 83, 128King, Admiral Ernest J. 24, 80, 93, 110Knight, Rear Admiral Austin M. 39,60,64,86,

87Knox, Captain Dudley W. 32,33,34,36,39,43,

47 et seq., 59, 61, 85, 93, 110, 119

Laning, Admiral Harris 93, 147Lee, Admiral Willis 93, 132, 158London Planning Section

role in promoting Darwinian world view 39,40-41Luce, Rear Admiral Stephen Bleecker 57,121,133, 140, 141, 159

M

Mahan, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer 13, 16,

20,37,38, 101, 115, 117, 119McNamee, Admiral Luke 93Melville, Herman 22Merk, Professor Frederick iv, 37Mission v, 4, 29, 55 et seq.Mitchell, Brigadier General, William 70

Philotema

Greek concept of honor, self-esteem,

identity 141its place in the formation of a distinct

operational ethos within the Navy 158-

161Pratt, Admiral William Veazie 45, 93, 95, 97,

119Pringle, Admiral J.R. Poinsett 55, 93Puleston, Captain W.D. 41, 128-129, 153-154Pye, Rear Admiral W.S. 74

Quick-decision problems 134R

Reeves, Admiral Joseph 92, 107-108

Remey, Rear Admiral George 115

Richardson, Admiral J.0.23,75,80,84,91,93,111

Rodgers, Rear Admiral Raymond P. 118

Rogers, Admiral W.L. 45, 48, 93, 119

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

role in Navy mission definition in interwarperiod, creation of historical precedentduring Barbary Wars and Quasi-War 33

Roosevelt, Theodore

role as "Founding Father" of modern Navy35,114

Schofield, Admiral F.H. 46, 94, 119

Search problems 134

Sims, Admiral William Sowden 19, 27, 58,67,

92,93,94, 106, 119, 133, 141Snyder, Admiral C.P. 26, 81, 82Social Darwinism

role in early 20th century Navy world view

37 et seq., 75, 80, 81, 104Spruance, Admiral Raymond A. 79Standley, Admiral William H. 33, 35, 36, 93,

111Stark, Admiral Harold R. 26, 150Stockdale, Vice Admiral James 159-160Swanson, Claude 32

W

War games

origin at Newport, role of McCarty Little in

131-132role of the war game in indoctrination of

operational ethos 141-142, 160-161structure of game play, Maneuver Rules 133

et seq.texture of game play 137-140

War plans

continuities of focus on potential enemies

99-104enemy fleets, color-coding of 97RED, ORANGE, BLACK, etc. Appendix Irole of War College in formulation 98role of War College in preparation 60

Watson, Captain Edward Howe 126

Whitman, Walt 11, 19,50

Wilde, Oscar 14

Wilson, Professor George Grafton 69

World View iii, 1, 3 et seq.

Tactical problems 134Taussig, Admiral Joseph 21, 93Taylor, Admiral Montgomery Meigs 21

Yarnell, Admiral Harry E. 23, 24,93, 122-123

Vision 4

Zacharias, Rear Admiral Ellis Mark 93, 128

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