“Might I suggest,” said Evans, turning to Admiral Johnson, “that the best way to settle this question and find out if the radio compass will do what you want, is to try it with the ships at sea in a test maneuver?”
One rear admiral, incensed by the gunner’s evident contempt for the authority with which he had essayed to set him down, and the unabashed appeal to the higher authority of experiment, exclaimed testily: “It would only be a waste of time, fuel, and energy.”
“Would it involve any more time, fuel, and energy than the practice cruises which are being made periodically at the present time?” asked Evans quietly.
“On these we drill the men at battle stations, gunnery practice, and other things in which the fleet must be kept in constant training,” said the rear admiral.
“That could all be done while the proposed trial maneuver is going on, without the slightest interference,” said Evans. “The men at battle stations and the other regular drills needn’t even know that any other test is being made; in fact, it would be better they shouldn’t.”
Another rear admiral who had been inclined to favor the plan from the first, now nodded in approval and remarked, “There’s some merit in that idea.”
Admiral Johnson then spoke.
“I can see no reason why the question should not be put to the test of a trial maneuver of the fleet, such as has been suggested. It is worth while to experiment to that extent and see what can be done.”
He then requested Fraser to make plans for a maneuver which would give the proposed method of fleet coördination a fair test and to report to him the next day. Then turning to Evans he thanked him for his testimony, and, forgetting that Evans had just put the thought into his head by his last remark, warned him to be extremely discreet and repeat nothing of what he had heard to any one. Evans received the warning with due courtesy and deference, and then withdrew.
It was arranged that in a week’s time two battleship divisions should take station on opposite sides, east and west, of a designated rectangular area at sea; then a division of cruisers, with the Commander-in-Chief on board, would steam into this area from the south at a point unknown to the battleship divisions, and would continue on a roughly northerly course; the flagship in the lead and another ship at the rear, keeping a distance of just two miles between them, were to send radio signals to each other continuously. The battleship divisions, guided solely by their radio compasses, were to take station, each in a stated position, relative to the cruiser force, far enough away to be well out of sight, and were to maintain these relative positions without sending any radio signals; then at a given signal from the flagship they were to deploy toward her till visual contact should reveal whether or no the assigned relative positions had been accurately maintained. This was a fair test which should answer the question whether the maneuver Fraser had so earnestly advocated was feasible.