The Crisis of the Naval War in WW1. John Rushworth Jellicoe
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of navigation and of handling ships of all types and classes.
(b) Gunnery.
(c) Torpedoes and mines.
It is the case at present (and the conditions are not likely to alter) that each one of these subjects is a matter for specialist training. Every executive officer has a general knowledge of each subject, but it is not possible for any one officer to possess the knowledge of all three which is gained by the specialist, and if attempts are made to plan operations without the assistance of the specialists grave errors may be made, and, indeed, such errors were made during the late war, perhaps from this cause.
In my view, therefore, it is desirable that specialist officers should be included in a Naval Staff organization and not be merely "attached" to it. It may be said that a Staff can take the advice of specialist officers who are attached to it for that purpose. But there is a danger that the specialist advice may never reach the heads of the Staff. Human nature being what it is, the safest procedure is to place the specialist officer where his voice must be heard, i.e. to give him a position on the Staff, for one must legislate for the average individual and for normal conditions of work.
The Chief of a Staff might have specialist knowledge himself, or he might assure himself that due weight had been given to the opinions of specialists attached to a Staff; but, on the other hand, it is possible that he might not have that knowledge and that he might ignore the opinions of the specialists. The procedure suggested is at least as necessary when considering the question of training as it is in the case of operations.
In passing from this point I may say that I have heard the opinion expressed by military Staff officers that the war has shown that artillery is so all important that it would be desirable to place the Major-General of the Royal Artillery, now attached to General Headquarters, on the Staff for operational matters.
Finally, great care should be exercised to prevent the Staff becoming larger than is necessary, and there is some danger that the ignorant may gauge the value of the Staff by its size.
Von Schellendorff says on this subject:
"The principle strictly followed throughout the German Service of reducing all Staffs to the smallest possible dimensions is moreover vindicated by restricting every Staff to what is absolutely necessary, and by not attaching to every Army, Army Corps and Divisional Staff representatives of all the various branches and departments according to any fixed rule.
"There cannot be the slightest doubt that the addition of every individual not absolutely required on a Staff is in itself an evil. In the first place, it unnecessarily weakens the strength of the regiment from which an officer is taken. Again it increases the difficulty of providing the Staff with quarters, which affects the troops that may happen to be quartered in the same place; and these are quite ready enough, as it is, occasionally to look with a certain amount of dislike—though in most cases it is entirely uncalled for—on the personnel of the higher Staffs. Finally, it should be remembered—and this is the most weighty argument against the proceeding—that idleness is at the root of all mischief. When there are too many officers on a Staff they cannot always find the work and occupation essential for their mental and physical welfare, and their superfluous energies soon make themselves felt in all sorts of objectionable ways. Experience shows that whenever a Staff is unnecessarily numerous the ambitious before long take to intrigue, the litigious soon produce general friction, and the vain are never satisfied. These failings, so common to human nature, even if all present, are to a great extent counteracted if those concerned have plenty of hard and constant work. Besides, the numbers of a Staff being few, there is all the greater choice in the selection of the men who are to fill posts on it. In forming a Staff for war the qualifications required include not only great professional knowledge and acquaintance with service routine, but above all things character, self-denial, energy, tact and discretion."
1. Vide Chapter X.
CHAPTER II
THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1917
The struggle against the depredations of the enemy submarines during the year 1917 was two-fold; offensive in the direction of anti-submarine measures (this was partly the business of the Anti-Submarine Division of the Naval Staff and partly that of the Operations Division); defensive in the direction of protective measures for trade, whether carried in our own ships or in ships belonging to our Allies or to neutrals, this being the business of the Trade and Mercantile Movements Divisions.
Prior to the formation of the Mercantile Movements Division the whole direction of trade was in the hands of the Trade Division of the Staff.
The difficulty with which we were constantly faced in the early part of 1917, when the effective means of fighting the submarine were very largely confined to the employment of surface vessels, was that of providing a sufficient number of such vessels for offensive operations without incurring too heavy risks for our trade by the withdrawal of vessels engaged in what might be termed defensive work. There was always great doubt whether any particular offensive operation undertaken by small craft would produce any result, particularly as the numbers necessary for success were not available, whilst there was the practical certainty that withdrawal of defensive vessels would increase our losses; the situation was so serious in the spring of 1917 that we could not carry out experiments involving grave risk of considerably increased losses.
On the other hand, the sinking of one enemy submarine meant the possible saving of a considerable number of merchant ships. It was difficult to draw the line between the two classes of operations.
The desire of the Anti-Submarine Division to obtain destroyers for offensive use in hunting flotillas in the North Sea and English Channel led to continual requests being made to me to provide vessels for the purpose. I was, of course, anxious to institute offensive operations, but in the early days of 1917 we could not rely much on depth-charge attack, owing to our small stock of these charges, and my experience in the Grand Fleet had convinced me that for success in the alternative of hunting submarines for a period which would exhaust their batteries and so force them to come to the surface, a large number of destroyers was required, unless the destroyers were provided with some apparatus which would, by sound or otherwise, locate the submarine. This will be realized when the fact is recalled that a German submarine could remain submerged at slow speed for a period which would enable her to travel a distance of some 80 miles. As this distance could be covered in any direction in open waters such as the North Sea, it is obvious that only a very numerous force of destroyers steaming at high speed could cover the great area in which the submarine might come to the surface. She would, naturally, select the dark hours for emergence, as being the period of very limited range of vision for those searching for her. In confined waters such as those in the eastern portion of the English Channel the problem became simpler. Requests for destroyers constantly came from every quarter, such as the Commanders-in-Chief at Portsmouth and Devonport, the Senior Naval Officer at Gibraltar, the Vice-Admiral, Dover, the Rear-Admiral Commanding East Coast, and the Admiral at Queenstown. The vessels they wanted did not, however, exist.
Eventually, with great difficulty, a force of six destroyers was collected from various sources in the spring of 1917, and used in the Channel solely for hunting submarines; this number was really quite inadequate, and it was not long before they had to be taken for convoy work.
Evidence of the difficulty of successfully hunting submarines was often furnished by the experiences of our own vessels of this type, sometimes when hunted by the enemy, sometimes when hunted in error by our own craft. Many of our submarines went through some decidedly unpleasant experiences at the hands of our own surface vessels and occasionally at the hands of vessels belonging to our Allies. On several such occasions the submarine was frequently reported as having been sunk, whereas she had escaped.
As an example of a submarine that succeeded not only in evading destruction, but in