The Crisis of the Naval War in WW1. John Rushworth Jellicoe
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was so desirable.
TABLE A First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff. Deputy Chief of Naval Staff. Director of Intelligence Division. Director of Signals Division. Director of Operations Division. Deputy-Director of Operations Operations at home. Assistant Director Operations Division and Staff. Operations abroad. Director of Plans Division. Preparation of Plans for operations at home and abroad. Consideration of and proposals for use of new weapons and material. Building programmes to carry out approved policy.
Deputy First Sea Lord. Director of Training and Staff Duties.
Assistant Chief of Naval Staff. Director of Trade Division. Director of Mercantile Movements. Director of Mine-sweeping. Director of Anti-Submarine Division.
TABLE B Board of Admiralty. Operations Committee. Naval Staff. Maintenance Committee. Shipbuilding and Armaments. Stores. Air. Finance. Personnel and Discipline, etc. Works.
Early in 1918, after my departure from the Admiralty, the following announcement appeared in the Press:
The Secretary of the Admiralty makes the following announcement:—
The Letters Patent for the new Board of Admiralty having now been issued, it may be desirable to summarize the changes in the personnel of the Board and to indicate briefly the alterations in organization that have been decided upon.
Acting Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver now brings to a close his long period of valuable service on the Naval Staff and will take up a sea-going command, being succeeded as D.C.N.S. by Rear-Admiral Sydney Fremantle. Rear-Admiral George P.W. Hope has been selected for the appointment of Deputy First Sea Lord, formerly held by Admiral Wemyss, but with changed functions. Commodore Paine, Fifth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Air Service, leaves the Board of Admiralty in consequence of the recent creation of the Air Council, of which he is now a member, and formal effect is now given to the appointment of Mr. A.F. Pease as Second Civil Lord, which was announced on Thursday last.
In view of the formal recognition now accorded, as explained by the First Lord in his statement in the House of Commons on the 1st November, to the principle of the division of the work of the Board under the two heads of Operations and Maintenance, the Members of the new Board (other than the First Lord) may be grouped as follows:—
| OPERATIONS. | MAINTENANCE. |
| First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff. (Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss.) | Second Sea Lord. (Vice-Admiral Sir H.L. Heath.) |
| Deputy Chief of Naval Staff. | Third Sea Lord. |
| (Rear-Admiral S.R. Fremantle.) | (Rear-Admiral L. Halsey.) |
| Assistant Chief of Naval Staff. | Fourth Sea Lord. |
| (Rear-Admiral A.L. Duff.) | (Rear-Admiral H.H.D. Tothill.) |
| Deputy First Sea Lord. (Rear-Admiral G.P.W. Hope.) | Civil Lord. (Right Hon. E.G. Pretyman, M.P.) |
| Controller. (Sir A.G. Anderson.) | |
| Second Civil Lord. (Mr. A.F. Pease.) | |
| Financial Secretary. (Right Hon. T.J. Macnamara, M.P.) | |
| Permanent Secretary. (Sir O. Murray.) | |
The principle of isolating the work of planning and directing naval war operations from all other work, in order that it may receive the entire attention of the Officers selected for its performance, is now being carried a stage further and applied systematically to the organization of the Operations side of the Board and that of the Naval Staff.
In future the general distribution of duties between the Members of the Board belonging to the Naval Staff will be as follows:—
| FIRST SEA LORD AND CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF | Naval policy and general direction of operations. |
| DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF | War operations in Home Waters. |
| ASSISTANT CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF | Trade Protection and anti-submarine operations. |
| DEPUTY FIRST SEA LORD | General policy questions and operations outside Home Waters. |
The detailed arrangements have been carefully worked out so as to relieve the first three of these officers of the necessity of dealing with any questions not directly connected with the main operations of the war, and the great mass of important paper work and administrative detail which is inseparably and necessarily connected with Staff work, but which has hitherto tended to compete for attention with Operations work generally will under the new organization be diverted to the Deputy First Sea Lord.
The grouping of the Directors of the Naval Staff Divisions will be governed by the same principle.
The only two Directors that will work immediately under the First Sea Lord will be the Director of Intelligence Division (Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Hall) and the Director of Training and Staff Duties (Rear-Admiral J. C. Ley), whose functions obviously affect all the other Staff Divisions alike.
Under the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff will be grouped three Directors whose duties will relate entirely to the planning and direction of operations in the main sphere of naval activity, viz.:—
| Director of Operations Division (Home) | Captain A.D.P. Pound. |
| Director of Plans Division | Captain C.T.M. Fuller, C.M.G., D.S.O. |
| Director of Air Division | Wing Captain F.R. Scarlett, D.S.O. |
together with the Director of Signals Division, Acting-Captain R.L. Nicholson, D.S.O., whose duties relate to the system of Fleet communications.
Under the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff will be grouped four Directors, whose duties relate to Trade Protection and Anti-Submarine Operations, viz:—
| Director of Anti-Submarine Division | Captain W.W. Fisher, C.B. |
| Director of Mine-sweeping Division | Captain L.G. Preston, C.B. |
| Director of Mercantile Movements Division | Captain F.A. Whitehead. |
| Director of Trade Division | Captain A.G. Hotham. |
Under the Deputy First Sea Lord there will be one Director of Operations Division (Foreign)—Captain C.P.R. Coode, D.S.O.
The chief change on the Maintenance side of the Board relates to the distribution of duties amongst the Civil Members. The continuance of the war has caused a steady increase in the number of cases in which necessary developments of Admiralty policy due to the war, or experience resulting from war conditions give rise to administrative problems of great importance and complexity, of which a solution will have to be forthcoming either immediately upon or very soon after the conclusion of the war. The difficulty of concentrating attention on these problems of the future in the midst of current administrative work of great urgency may easily be appreciated, and the Civil Lord has consented to take charge of this important matter, with suitable naval and other assistance. He will, therefore, be relieved by the Second Civil Lord of the administration of the programme of Naval Works, including the questions of priority of labour and material requirements arising therefrom and the superintendence of the Director of Works Department.
It has further been decided that the exceptional labour and other difficulties now attending upon the execution of the very large programme of urgent naval works in progress have so greatly transformed the functions