The Navy as a Fighting Machine

by Bradley A. Fiske

Probably nine officers in ten would answer this question with the words, "the line of duty." This does not mean that officers are the only people who should be trained to follow the line of duty; but it does mean that, in military and naval schools, the training is more devoted to this than in other schools, except, of course, those schools that train young men for the priesthood or other departments of the religious life. The analogy between the clerical and the military professions in this regard has been pointed out many times; but perhaps the closeness with which the medical profession approximates both in its adherence to the line of duty has not been appreciated as fully as it should be.

Duty.—The reason for the predominance of the idea of duty over any other in naval training is due, of course, to a realization of the fact that more can be accomplished by officers having a strict sense of duty though otherwise lacking, than by officers having any or all the other qualifications, but lacking the sense of duty. As an extreme instance of the doubtful value of highly trained officers who lack the sense of duty, we need but to point to those traitors who, in the past, have turned their powers in the hour of need against the cause they were engaged to fight for.

One cannot pursue the path of duty when that path becomes difficult or disagreeable unless the sense of duty is so strong as to resist the temptation to leave the path. To train a man to be strong in this way, we train his character.

There are several ways in which a man is tempted to leave the line of duty; of these perhaps the most important are danger, sloth, and love of pleasure. No human being is perfectly strong along any of these lines; and some are most tempted by danger, some by sloth, and some by love of pleasure.

Sloth and the love of pleasure do not act as hinderances to efficiency in the naval profession any more than they do in other callings. There is no profession, business, or vocation, in which a man's efficiency does not depend largely on his power of resistance to the allurement of sloth and pleasure. In all walks of life, including the usual routine of the naval life, these two factors are the main stumbling-blocks to the success of any man. That is, they are the main stumbling-blocks that training can remove or lessen; the main stumbling-blocks in the way of his attaining that degree of efficiency for which his mental and physical abilities themselves would fit him. Natural abilities are not here considered; we are considering merely what training can do to develop men as they are for the naval life.

Courage.—Danger is the special influence to divert a man from duty's line that is distinctive of the army and the navy; and therefore to secure ability to overcome this influence is the distinct effort of military training. To train a young man for the army, the training naturally is directed toward minimizing the influence of one class of dangers; while to train a young man for the navy, the training must be directed toward minimizing the influence of another class. Of course training toward courage in any line develops courage in other lines; but nevertheless a naval training does not enable a man to ride a plunging cavalry horse with equanimity; nor does training as a cavalryman wholly fit a man to brave the dangers of the deep in a submarine.

Thirty years ago, the present writer showed Commander Royal Bird Bradford, U. S. N., the wonders of the U. S. S. Atlanta, the first ship of what Americans then called "The New Navy." When I showed Bradford the conning-tower, I remarked that many captains who had visited the Atlanta had said that they would not go into the conning-tower in battle. To this Bradford replied: "The captain who would not go into the conning-tower in battle would be very brave, but he'd be a d——d fool."

The obvious truth of this remark, the intimate connection which it suggested between courage and folly, and the fact often noted in life that to be brave is often to be foolish, contrasted with the fact that in all history the virtue of courage in men has been more lauded than any other virtue, suggests that a brief inquiry into the nature and influence of courage may be interesting.

The definitions of courage found in the dictionary are most unsatisfactory, except that they say that the word "courage" comes from the Latin "cor," the heart; showing that it is deemed a moral quality, rather than physical or mental.

Yet the deeds of courage that history and fiction tell, have been deeds of what we call "physical courage," in which heroes and heroines have braved death and physical suffering. Far in the background are deeds of "moral courage," though many wise men have told us that "moral courage" is a quality higher than "physical courage," and more important.