The administrative organization of the Battle Fleet revolved around the battleships—the so-called “backbone of sea power.” The big-gun carriers based at Long Beach behind the breakwater where they found nearby plenty of sea room. The destroyer squadrons, then called DESRONS, the submarine divisions, or SUBDIVS, and the aircraft squadrons, or AIRONS, based on San Diego, ninety miles further south. For purposes of administration and elementary training, each of these units operated separately under the supervision of the commander in chief. Once each month, the fleet as a whole conducted combined tactical exercises off the coast. Yet even here the forces operated largely under the command of their administrative staffs. The idea of breaking up the several administrative units and reassembling them as task organizations so constituted as to bring to bear such a concentration of heavy guns, long-range torpedoes, and mobile aircraft as appeared necessary to the accomplishment of a particular mission had not as yet evolved. It was to grow out of the peculiar conditions that prevailed in the aircraft squadrons: the big carriers could find suitable anchorages and deep-water operating areas only at Long Beach; their aircraft could find adequate training and repair facilities only at the Naval Air Station, San Diego.
It was customary to change personnel just before the concentration, sending about half of them to “shore” or other duty, and receiving a new batch of students from Pensacola to be trained “at sea.” Half of the squadron officers changed at this time as well, a fact that dictated a fresh start on fundamental tactics each year. In view of this fact I determined upon a revolutionary procedure. Instead of accepting the ordinary run-of-the-mine officers sent to us by the Bureau of Navigation for duty in certain specified units, we would jump the gun and insist upon the right to select our own squadron commanders and assign other officers to such squadrons as seemed appropriate to us. When we suggested this selective process to Admiral Reeves, he smiled tolerantly and invited us to go ahead, intimating that we would be wasting our time. For the Bureau of Navigation usually selected its officers and made its assignments with little or no regard for their aptitude for the jobs in mind. Someone had long ago worked out a system designed to expose every officer to an equal amount of duty in every line, so as to afford him an equal opportunity to advance in rank, whether or not he possessed qualities of leadership.
But if the factor of leadership had fallen into low estate in Washington, it still rated high in the aircraft squadrons. Frank Wagner and I had observed the vast differences in character displayed by ships and organizations, and had noted that each had seemed to take on some of the personality and character of the man or men who had founded it, and to retain that personality and character no matter who had succeeded to command. If the U.S.S. Taddlyadlie started out as a “smart ship,” she would always be a smart ship; and if the U.S.S. Tiddlywinks started as a “madhouse,” her career would become a series of variations of that theme. With that idea in mind, we determined to give the aircraft squadrons a propitious start and began some tall wangling to gain our ends. For this we brought two powerful arguments to bear: the lives of pilots depended upon the quality of the leaders; if we were to be held responsible, we must have authority over our leadership selections. In our tough battle against this leveling system we won every skirmish but one—a squadron that suffered our only breakdown in morale.
While focusing attention on the quality of leadership of our subordinates, we did a little soul searching of our own. The rapid development of gadgetry in the Navy had tended to create a special group of staff-officer specialists who had become “plank owners” on various staffs. Thus the intricacies of steam engineering, or gunnery, or radio communications, or what have you, had become so mysterious to the average line officer that the specialists had taken over a lot of authorities without accepting the corresponding responsibilities. An admiral, for instance, might sign out a long-winded technical document without being able to pronounce the words, or he might let his radio officer sign the paper “by direction.” The addressee would turn the masterpiece over to his radio officer for reply, and thus accept responsibility for fundamental decisions fogged up by technical jargon. Even Admiral Reeves had tended to shift the administrative authorities to me and the operations to Frank Wagner. But Frank and I determined to have none of that; we directed these matters right back to the admiral.
Contrary to naval custom we sought to build up the admiral and play ourselves down. For instance, after having prepared an order for the Old Man’s signature, we would urge him to call a conference of squadron commanders to indoctrinate them in his plan. A fine speaker, one possessed of unusual knowledge of military history, of policy, strategy, and tactics, he often held us spellbound by his entertaining and instructive discourses spiced by keen wit. Wagner and I would grasp every favorable occasion to suggest a commendatory signal to a subordinate who had distinguished himself; similarly we saw to it that the admiral got word of any complimentary comment from his subordinates. In other words, we made it our first order of business to develop loyalty both ways—up and down. The time soon came when a squadron commander remarked, “If Bull Reeves told us to fly into the side of a mountain, we’d fly—and likely come out safe on the other side!”
We also gave critical attention to our own performance of staff functions stressing especially our communications procedures and techniques. On the matériel side we took extreme pains to train our “mechs” and to emphasize the importance of preventive engineering. Under this doctrine, it became the task of the maintenance crews to discover incipient failures and correct them before they could induce forced landings or other accident. Having good, sound, new equipment to start with, we were able to reduce mechanical failures almost to the vanishing point and to abolish them entirely from over-water operations.
On the important morale side, Frank Wagner was the key to success. Intimately acquainted with the younger pilots as he was, and an active participant in their social affairs, Frank could watch their reactions and recommend actions designed to keep them all at a high pitch of enthusiasm. One day, after we had been pressing hard toward perfection, Frank came to me with a long face; he feared the kids were getting stale. He thought we should secure all flying for several days and actually order the pilots off the station and away from their jobs. When we went in to see the admiral, concealing our misgivings as to this revolutionary idea, the Old Man threw back his head and parted his beard in a laugh that must have carried clear down to the Langley dock.
“Go to it!” he shouted. “And Wagner,” he added, “a little visit across the Mexican border to Tijauna might help you get a smile back on your own face.”
As the summer developed, two special projects helped bring our new outfits to a high degree of precision: the city of San Diego planned to dedicate Lindbergh Field, and the city of Los Angeles would be host to the national air races in dedication of Mines Field. This gave the staff an opportunity to keep the squadrons practicing their close formations, a drill that tended to bore them; they preferred the dive-and-zoom of practical combat exercises. But now, returning from the many operating areas Frank had established in the back country, they passed in review before the admiral’s critical eye, flying wing-and-tail in tight parade formations. Tommy Tomlinson, with the first section of his squadron, began practicing section acrobatics, putting on a rhythmic show of breathtaking formation loops, rolls, and dives.
At the dedication of Lindbergh Field, the overcast lay so close to the surface that, save for fine air discipline, we should have had to call off our participation. Instead, we flew some four hundred fleet aircraft in a thrilling fly past, at low altitude, with the tails of the formations lost in the clouds. Later at the National Air Races in Los Angeles, Tommy’s Three Sea Hawks stopped the show with their precision acrobatics. The Army responded with their Three Musketeers. When one of their team was unfortunately killed in an accident, Charles Lindbergh, stepping into the lead position, gave the crowd a sample, not alone of his own flying, but also of the quality of his teamwork and personal leadership.