Defects and Repairs
[Lord Fisher found fruitful scope for his reforming energy in the Royal dockyards, and was very keen on making them efficient in working as well as economical in administration. The former tendency had been for ships to accumulate defects until they went into dock, when their stay was accordingly prolonged, and the longer they were in dockyard hands the more work was provided for the officials and workmen, so that there was a double incentive to spend money. In the following memorandum, Lord Fisher insists that this drain upon the limited funds available for the Navy must stop, and explains how the Admiralty meant to discriminate between vessels which it was essential to keep thoroughly efficient and others which were not worth any, or so much, money for repairs. Elsewhere in this volume Lord Fisher has shown how he got rid of 6,000 redundant dockyard workmen.]
The head has got to wag the tail. The tail sometimes now wags the head. It is for the Admiralty, and the Admiralty alone, to decide whether, how, or when the defects and repairs of the Fleet are to be taken in hand.
Sir John Fisher going on board the Royal Yacht.
The sole governing condition is what the Admiralty require for fighting purposes! It is desirable to put an extreme case to accentuate this:—
In the secrets of Admiralty Fighting Policy undesirable to make known to our enemies there are certain vessels never going to be used for actual fighting, but they serve an extremely useful purpose for subsidiary purposes. In such vessels there are defects and repairs of a particular character that might stand over till Doomsday! whilst there are other vessels where only defects affecting purely seagoing and actually direct fighting efficiency should be attended to. All this entirely depends on our probable enemy and may vary from time to time, and the sole judge can only be the Admiralty. But what it is feared now obtains is a blind rushing at all defects and repairs of all kinds and classes in all vessels. It is perfectly natural that the Commander-in-Chief and Admirals Superintendent may wish for the millennium of having all their vessels perfect—but this cannot be. What does it lead to? Extreme local pressure accentuated by Parliamentary action to enter more Dockyard workmen. What does this mean? It means in some recent cases that practically the upkeep of three cruisers is swallowed up in pay to Dockyard workmen! No—the Admiralty Policy is sound, consistent and irrefutable, which is never to exceed the normal number of Dockyard workmen as now fixed by the recent Committee, and have such a great margin of Naval strength—such as we now possess—as admits of a leisurely and economical refit of ships without extravagant overtime or inefficient hustling of work. Therefore, what it comes to is this:—The Admiralty decide what vessels they require first and what defects and repairs in those vessels are most material, and they give orders accordingly. It is not the responsibility of the local authorities at all to say that this vessel or that vessel must be completed at once, for, as before-mentioned, it may be that in the Admiralty scheme of fighting those vessels are not required at all.
The Controller has great difficulties to contend with because he has not the free hand of a private employer who can discharge or enter men just as he requires. To get rid of a Dockyard workman involves agitation in every direction—in Parliament, at the Treasury and locally, and even Bishops throw themselves into the fray, like the Bishop of Winchester at Portsmouth, instead of looking after his own disorganised and mutinous Established Church. There is now a plethora of shipwrights at Chatham, because the Treasury will not allow their transfer to other yards, and a paucity of boilermakers because unwanted men occupy their places, and the scandal exists of men being entered at Devonport with men having no work at Chatham. But, of course, this is one of the blessings of Parliamentary Government, Treasury Control, and a Free Press!
Where the special influence of the Commander-in-Chief is desired by the Admiralty is to bring before them cases where defects have not been dealt with in the initial stages by the ship’s artificers and so allowed to increase as to necessitate Dockyard intervention. Such cases would be drastically dealt with by the Admiralty if only they could be informed of them, but there is an amiable desire to avoid severe punishments, and the dire result is that the zealous and efficient are on the same footing as the incompetent and the careless who get more leave and time with their friends because their vessels are longer in Dockyard hands.
It is desired to give prominence to the following facts:—It is a matter of everyday occurrence that vessels come home from Foreign stations, often immense distances, as from China or Australia, and are inspected by the Commander-in-Chief on arrival home and reported thoroughly efficient, and praise is given by the Admiralty accordingly, and the full-power steam trial is conducted with great care, and the mere fact of the vessel having steamed home those thousands of miles is itself a manifest evidence of her propelling machinery being efficient, and yet instantly after paying off we are asked to believe that such a vessel instantly drops down to a totally incapable condition of either seagoing or fighting efficiency, by our being presented with a bill of thousands upon thousands of pounds.
The attention of the Commanders-in-Chief of the Home Ports and of the Admirals Superintendent will be specially drawn to a new series of instructions which will specifically detail their responsibility in carrying out the orders of the Admiralty in regard to defects and repairs. It is admitted that no comprehensive statement has as yet been issued as to the order and urgency in which both Fleet and Dockyard labour should be applied.
This statement is now about to be issued—it is based, and can only be based, on the knowledge of what vessels are most required for war at that particular time, and so must emanate direct from the Admiralty, who alone can decide on this matter. For instance, at this present moment there are vessels, even in the first line as some might suppose, which would not be employed until the last resort, whilst there are others almost believed to be out of the fighting category which under certain present conditions might be required for the first blow. This fact came so notably into prominence some months since that it has led to the adoption of what may be termed the “sliding scale” of nucleus crews, with the Torpedo craft and Submarines at almost full complement down to the vessels in “Special Reserve” with only a “skeleton” crew capable of raising steam periodically and working only the heavy armament. So no local knowledge could determine from day to day which are the first vessels required. This is changing from day to day and it is the duty of the necessarily very few to determine the daily fighting requirements. The ideal is for only one to know, and the nearer this is adhered to the more likely are we to surprise our enemies.