Who is not familiar with the ever-present group of watch-standers who, after the movies, congregate in the wardroom and there with their heels up higher than their heads, hand down decisions on such matters as may come under discussion? This group is generally either tolerated or denounced, but seldom praised. They should, however, receive recognition for their contributions to what we may broadly term experience.
Here is a term, a phase of naval life if you like, which we are continually running afoul of in its many applications. The young ensign, newly graduated, reports aboard his first ship fired with a determination to do big things in a big way, to make his mark— in short to do his job and do it well. These people, for the most part going to battleships, draw their routine assignments and immediately find their progress toward their goal assuming almost snail-like speed. They do what is given them to do, but beyond that they find the going slow because they lack experience. The term constantly recurs, as witness a few examples:
“Send Jones on patrol, it will be good experience for him.”
“Send the J.O.’s over to observe spotting practice, it will give them a little experience.”
“Smith would be a good man for the job, but has he enough experience?”
“Damn it, young man, I stood boat-officer watches in a frock coat and I consider such details good experience.”
Daily the J.O. has this matter of experience brought to his attention and in a good many cases it leaves him bewildered. The usual procedure followed by a young officer, finding himself without something that he needs, is to turn in an “in excess” requisition for it. Unfortunately, in the case of experience this method fails him.
What, after all, is experience? The dictionaries give it as being the acquiring of knowledge by use of one’s own faculties of sense and judgment, or the knowledge so acquired; especially the state of such knowledge in an individual as an index of wisdom or skill. Fundamentally, then, experience is knowledge. It is knowledge acquired by the exercise of one’s own personal sense and judgment. Further, such knowledge when acquired is an index of wisdom or skill. To simmer it down still further, you gain experience by the things you do and have done. I submit that you also gain experience from the things other people do and have done. Of all professions engaged in by men, I can think of none where this fact is more pronounced than in the Navy. An officer reaching command rank is experienced without question. He is fortified by knowledge obtained over a span of thirty years or more, during which time he has held many positions, discharged many duties, and met many emergencies. He is further fortified by the knowledge of what others have done. The source of this knowledge is the experiences of those who have gone before him and those whose service and experience are contemporary with his. Both these sources are important. To become experienced, in the broad sense, neither may be neglected. Using personal experience as a basis, the experience of others broadens and widens the field, so that in the last analysis the experiences of others may, in effect, be considered as if they were our own. It is on this premise that I base my plea for talking “shop.”
To dwell for a moment on the talking of “shop” as such. By this we mean, largely, the discussion out of working hours of the various tasks, in their many phases and applications, which occupy our time and attention during working hours. It is held by many that the day’s labors should be left at the office, or in the Navy aboard ship. There are some who further contend that professional subjects should for the most part be excluded from the wardroom, after the four- thirty boat has left the ship. To this view I cannot subscribe entirely. Such discussions are most often productive of much benefit, regardless of where or when they are conducted. Naval officers are generally accused of being chronically addicted to talking shop. Truthfully they are not, to my belief, any more at fault than any other group of men following a common profession. People, men in particular, like to talk on subjects they are interested in, because they know most about those subjects. Hence, left to themselves, you might expect doctors to talk of medicine, politicians of politics, athletes of athletics, educators of education, and musicians of music. There are some naval officers, of course, who are continually harping on the Navy, because it is the only subject they are prepared to talk upon. This is without question a nuisance. Nothing is more annoying at dinner than to find spray valves, stable-zenith instruments, or what the admiral said when he got paint on his sleeve, all mixed up with the soup. However, this same failing may be observed amongst individual members of other professions as, for example, Californians. It is a matter of common understanding and etiquette that in mixed company, on the beach, conversation should be conducted on a plane common to all participants. By the same token a group of officers aboard ship have as a common plane the Navy and it is entirely natural and to be expected that their discussions will be dominated by the Navy or, if you insist, “shop.”
Now to return to the young J.O. and his search for experience, with its relation to talking “shop.” We have concluded that experience, of the scope and breadth desired, should consist primarily of one’s own experiences, and secondly knowledge of the experiences of others. The first requisite requires no discussion as it is daily obtained in the discharge of routine tasks and duties. The second may be obtained in two ways. First, through written records such as information bulletins, court-martial orders, bureau and fleet circulars and other official publications. These reports dispense to the service at large the facts attending casualties, disasters, errors in judgment, etc., so that all may benefit by the mistakes and misfortunes of a few. Secondly, it may be obtained through conversation with one’s associates. Here is the field where the "shop” talkers make their greatest contributions.
There is no more fruitful field for beneficial knowledge than is found in the mistakes of others. A great number of these mistakes or incidents will be found in the official publications previously mentioned. But a great number, because of their relatively minor importance, do not find their way into the official records. For these, unless we occupied ringside seats at the time of its occurrence, we must depend on the testimony of an “eye” or “hearsay” witness. It is here that the wardroom forum gets in its best work. The field covered by this convention in a single evening’s endeavor beggars description. Let us visit awhile.
Draw up a chair as the toreadors unfurl their red capes and, lubricating their vocal organs with one or two shots of Java, burst into full cry. Lend an attentive ear and you will hear and learn of many things: what Bill Jones did when the turret caught on fire, and what “Red” Smith didn’t do when his submarine expended a starboard “wheel” and his stern “skags” coming alongside something or other in San Francisco Bay; of “Pay” Carruthers who made Title “B” custodies a joy to all concerned, and how “Doc” Brown soothes the heebie-jebbies; of “Al” Anderson, student naval aviator, who made a dead-stick landing in the Bayou Saragossa; and of how Jim Green, judge advocate, utterly confounded the legal talent of the defense by a cagey display of legal dodges.
Then you will hear discussed the latest mooring boards; fire-control installations and problems; the latest misbehaviour of Mr. Sumner’s lines; what chicanery was practiced to enable the U.S.S. Strawbottom to stand first in the destroyer engineering competition; why the British spotting system is all wet; what makes the Lexington and Saratoga faster than the old Emma Giles; and why light bombing planes should, by surface ships, be viewed with alarm.
In most cases, unless some master mind has the deck, for each theory advanced will be found some individual, or group of individuals, who will rise up and state, in no uncertain terms, that the advancers are full of oats. Then indeed will the flood gates of previous experience be thrown open and the battle rage with fury.
Finally you will be asked to shed a tear for Captain Brown who tried to take the U.S.S. Ark to Boston by the overland route via Cape Cod; to remember Jack White who filed no complaint when his parachute failed to open; and to consider the case of “Bat” Smith who temporarily confused red and green. The tragedies of each will be thoroughly discussed and the various preventions and remedies paraded for your information and approval.
Sitting in as an active participant or as a silent observer, the seeker of experience will find his store of knowledge gradually increasing. Finding himself in similar jams and positions he will be armed with the experiences of those who have been there before him, and they are legion.
It will be advanced that as much misinformation as information can be carried away from these combats of the wardroom warriors. This is true, possibly, but if a member will exercise his membership as he goes from ship to ship, he will eventually run into someone who was there, or who knows better, and who will correct the misinformation.
I make no particular plea for the members of the China Station club, Constantinople sailors, or the Special Service boys. Their discussions have little to do with naval science and while you may gain useful knowledge and experience by attending their ravings, you will not gain any particular professional benefit. If you have no interest in dear old Stamboul, or who socked who in the Astor in Shanghai, or as to what went on in Kelly’s last Washington’s Birthday, you may always exercise your prerogative of retiring to your cave, and there pursuing your meditations undisturbed.
Criticism is constructive, in a good many cases, and so is discussion. So I hold that the wardroom group has its place in the sun even as the missionary who spreads the doctrine amongst the heathen. Unless you have something better to do, you will lose little by joining the circle and listening in on the subjects there on tap. Their stories are interesting, they are informal, and you will enjoy hearing most of them. Sooner or later you will find yourself with arms waving and hair on end ready to die for whatever you are howling about.
It has been advanced by some officers who have discussed this theory that it is applicable to tenders, small craft, and aviation, but not to any great extent true of the wardrooms of battleships. This may be true, but it is hard to believe that battleship people talk, amongst themselves, only of the pay bill and prohibition. Perhaps the closer association of people on smaller ships makes the discussion of greater interest to all, but even on a battle wagon you should be able to find a group of congenial souls who will either accept your verbal information or else tell you it is all wet.
This applies also to contact with officers of foreign navies. The British, in Hongkong, told our submarine people of a method of turning a boat in a short distance that defied all the rules on the subject. They did not know who originated it, or why it worked; they only knew that it did work. On trial our people also found that it worked. So now if you see our submarines in San Diego or elsewhere slipping around the sterns of ships in a most unorthodox manner, you are observing the fruits of a wardroom meeting, ably assisted by the excellent soda found in Hongkong.
So may experience be gained with the ears as well as the eyes, and so does the record of what has gone before pass down to those who follow after. Here is a spring where all seekers of experience would do well to linger and drink, even though the watch boy does turn in at midnight and the bridge players complain that you are making too much noise.
So I have made my plea, and I hope that in the future it may move some of the self-appointed judges and juries to descend from their benches and panels, and there in the dust of the arena contribute their share to the common cause.