Maurice Rindskopf commanded USS Drum during WWII, later rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. Commissioned in 1938, 3 years before Pearl Harbor, Rindskopf was the youngest man to command a submarine during WWII.

During WWII, when communications and information technology was far less sophisticated, and commanders required large staffs to support these processes, staffs and the officer corps were far smaller. In WWII there was on average 1 officer for every 10 sailors, and one admiral for every 6,000.

Today there’s one officer for every 5 sailors, and 1,000 sailors per admiral, in a fleet of fewer than 300 ships. This bloat might be acceptable if the Navy were running smoothly; it’s not.

Investigations that followed last year’s collisions revealed ships sent to sea with poor training and poor readiness. And consider this: USS Ford’s catapults can’t launch fully loaded aircraft without damaging them, and the ship reportedly has a host of other problems; or the fabulously expensive Zumwalt class destroyers – 3 for $2 billion – yet the second ship (USS Michael Mansoor, nominal price $4 billion) just arrived in the fleet and already needs a new engine; and there’s the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which, per the DOD Director of Operational Test & Evaluation, is “not expected to be survivable in high intensity combat.”

Most recently, the Navy showed the depth of its ongoing maintenance mismanagement. Every 2 years, like clockwork, the Navy stages RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific), the world’s largest naval exercise. It’s a big deal and the US Navy invites quite a few other navies to participate.

Yet, two large amphibious assault ships, USS Boxer and USS Bonhomme Richard, scheduled to play key roles in RIMPAC, were maintenance “no shows” due to “short-term spending bills and irregular funding.” The Navy added that “…the services do not have an approach to prioritize available training resources.”

Really?

There’s a common (mis)perception the Navy was a mess at the beginning of WWII, hidebound and lacking vision, and wanted to fight WWII like WWI. And only new blood saved the day. Virtually none of that is true.

The creativity and leadership of officers who had served during the previous 25 years was vital to defeating Germany’s U-boats, winning the Battle of the Atlantic, and executing the Pacific island hopping campaign that led to Japan’s defeat. Men like RADM Rindskopf rose quickly, but they were already in the service.

Many senior officers were pushed aside. But, concomitantly, the officers who led the task groups and task forces, who commanded the cruisers and destroyers and submarines, etc., were already in the Navy, and the service recognized them.

In 1941 the US had 7 aircraft carriers, 17 battleships, 43 cruisers, 171 destroyers, 114 submarines (no amphibious warfare ships), and some 200 support ships, manned by roughly 18,000 officers and 200,000 sailors.

But, in the 20 years before the war the Navy planned and war-gamed, and before December 7th, 1941 had already ordered 8 new aircraft carriers, hundreds of aircraft, a host of amphibious supports ships, and hundreds of other ships.
By war’s end the fleet included 99 aircraft carriers, 23 battleships, 72 cruisers, 738 destroyers and escorts, 232 submarines, amphibious forces of more than 2,500 ships, tens of thousands of aircraft, and 1200 support ships manned by 320,000 officers and 3 million sailors – executing operational plans drawn up before the war.

And while certain officers were reassigned, basically the same senior officers were in charge, men with an ability to recognize problems and develop and implement solutions. Quickly.

By comparison, today’s Navy appears to be led by admirals either unable to recognize the problems the Navy has been mired in for more than a decade, or incapable of developing solutions to those problems.

The Navy has capable officers. But they aren’t leading the Navy. Today’s senior leadership seems incapable of addressing problems that have been glaringly obvious for years: in training, procurement, maintenance, in sustained readiness. Nor is it simply one incident, or something explained by budget constraints. The problems span the Navy, and have persisted for years. Further, the admirals who’ve (mis)led for a decade or more have been inadvertently protected by a civilian population that, having spent two generations idolizing our military, is now incapable of recognizing systemic problems within the services.

So, the problems, and the poor leadership, persist. Our nation and our sailors deserve better.

Copyright 2018 Arrias
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