The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp

by Augustus C. Buell

Of course, we exclude from this reckoning the two show-ships built by Armstrong for a South American government and foolishly bought by our Navy Department in the paroxysmal flurry incident to the outbreak of the Spanish War. The main excuse for buying them was that, if we did not, Spain would. So be it. Better to have let Spain buy them, if they could not have strengthened her navy more than they did ours. At any rate, had Spain bought them, we might have captured or destroyed them, as we did nearly all her ships. They would probably have been worth capture or destruction, but they were never worth buying.

Since 1887, a period of sixteen years, Mr. Cramp has completed fifteen ships for the navy (including the “Vesuvius” and “Terror”), and is building three more at this writing. In every case these ships embody in plan and design more or less of his own knowledge, skill, and experience. In some cases the designs are altogether his own. In others the machinery is his, with important modifications of the Department’s hull. In no case has he built a ship wholly upon the plans of the Department. While this has redounded to the benefit of the navy, it would be idle to say that it has been in the long run advantageous to Mr. Cramp. On the other hand, its tendency has been otherwise: A certain class of naval officers have chosen to consider Mr. Cramp’s constantly recurring propositions to modify and improve their designs as having the force and effect of criticisms, and, to say the least, they have not been grateful to him for his pains. On the contrary, no little jealousy and some resentment have been the results, and he has been made to feel their consequences more than once. The chief misfortune of this state of affairs is that it precludes the cordial co-operation which should exist between officers of the Navy Department and a contractor engaged in building naval vessels, and creates in its stead a sense of antagonism which tends to augment the difficulties of naval construction, which are great and perplexing enough at the best.

But Mr. Cramp has not concerned himself with the building of naval ships alone. He has delved into the problems presented by the uses to which the ships are put when completed. The results of his observations in this direction were embodied in an address to the Naval War College read before that institution, June 18, 1897, by invitation of the Commandant, a little less than a year before the Spanish War. The experience of that struggle, brief as it was, and decided almost wholly by sea power, made this paper little short of prophetic.

Some extracts from it will serve to exhibit the trend of Mr. Cramp’s thought in the direction of the practical uses and needs of ships-of-war after they leave the ship-builder’s hands. Among other things he said:

“The accomplishment of the objects of sea-warfare will depend partly upon the character of the armaments and partly on the wisdom with which their operations are directed; nor can any one gainsay that the wisdom of direction will depend on the conversancy of officers with the nature and necessities of the material units of which the armaments are composed.

“These propositions being taken for granted, it becomes clear that there can be no effective system of teaching the art of naval warfare which does not embrace exhaustive study of and consequent close familiarity with the instruments by which the principles of the art are to be carried into force and effect.

“From this point of view it must be admitted that questions within the province of the naval architect and problems which he is best qualified to solve form an essential part of such a curriculum in its largest and most comprehensive aspects.

“The unvarying tendency of naval progress is to exalt the importance of the naval architect and to augment the value of the constructor as a factor in the sum-total of sea power.

“The naval armament of to-day is a mechanism. If we view it as a single ship, it is a mechanical unit whose warlike value depends on its excellence as a fighting machine. If we view it as a fleet, it is an assembly of mechanical units, the warlike value of which will depend alike on the excellence of each unit as a fighting machine, and on the adaptation of each unit to its consorts to produce the most symmetrical efficiency of the group as a whole.

“For this reason, the word seamanship, in the old-fashioned or conventional sense, has ceased to cover adequately the requirements of knowledge, skill, and aptness which the modern conditions of naval warfare impose upon the officer in command or subordinate.