PROGRESS IN JEOPARDY
Immediately after the return of the commission to Washington, a
meeting was held in the Bureau of Engineering, at which those results
of the mission to England which had to do with engineering problems
were reported.
Admiral Bishop, Chief of the Bureau, presided. He was an elderly
officer of robust build, with a hearty red face and white
side-whiskers. At his right hand sat Commander Rich, head of the Radio
Division of the Bureau, a thin-faced man with an aquiline nose and
dark mobile eyes; his face bespoke an alert mind and quick perception.
He had enrolled in the navy as a radio electrician many years before.
By his ability he had risen through the various grades to warrant
officer, and had been one of those selected from this status for the
course at the Naval Academy. In this way he had risen to his present
rank of commander. Heads of other divisions of the Bureau also sat at
the large table near the center of the room. The three or four
officers who had been sent abroad on engineering problems were present
with their reports. Lieutenant Brown, although attached to the office
of the Director of Naval Communications, and therefore belonging to
the Bureau of Operations, was present, for among those who had been
abroad he was the senior officer concerned with communications.
Various other officers, whose duties dealt with the diverse branches
of engineering, sat in chairs around the walls of the room. Among
these was Lieutenant-Commander Elkins whom Evans had sized up as the
most intelligent and open-minded of all the officers in the Radio
Division of the Bureau. His technical training in radio engineering
was less than that of some of the others, but perhaps by just so much
was he free from prejudice in favor of home-made apparatus.
Before the meeting Evans had sought Elkins and explained the results
of his investigation of radio methods in England. The British experts
had presented convincing reasons for the universal adoption of some of
their best engineering developments. One improvement in particular, a
new type of vacuum-tube transmitter which they had recently perfected,
far surpassed anything that had yet been seen, and by its efficiency
in eliminating interference it opened such extraordinary possibilities
in the scope of fleet communications that without it the navy would be
lagging sadly behind the more progressive Allies. Adoption of this
transmitter would mean scrapping a great deal of gear now in use, yet
the facts learned in England showed plainly that the navy could not
afford to do otherwise. Elkins saw this, and so did Brown. It was
Brown’s rôle to report on the handling of communications. This problem
was indissolubly linked with that of producing the apparatus, but on
all technical phases of the subject he left it to Evans, with his
superior scientific knowledge, to report their findings to the
meeting.
As clearly as he was able, Evans described the most important
contributions which the British had made. He warmed to his theme as he
came to their most brilliant feats of invention, especially the new
vacuum-tube transmitter. But at this juncture his enthusiasm met a
check. Admiral Bishop shook his head in disapproval, and remarked that
it would be most unwise to abandon the apparatus which had been so
successfully developed by American talent. One or two of the other
officers nodded acquiescence. Evans was accustomed to the discussion
of problems in physics at meetings of scientists where the quest of
truth was as genuine in the others as in himself. He now started to
argue the case much as he would have done at such a meeting. Too late
he saw his blunder; the opinions of a warrant officer were not to be
set up against those of the Bureau Chief. His insistence had only
served to incense the Admiral. When he saw the effect of his remarks,
he shut up like a clam, and, smarting inwardly with self-reproach
enhanced by the rancor of annoyance at the official complacence of the
Admiral, listened through the rest of the conference.
Elkins endeavored to argue the case.
“There’s a chance here to increase the efficiency of our
communications one hundred per cent,” he said, “I believe, sir, we
shall be making a grave mistake if we don’t at least give this
transmitter careful consideration.”
But Admiral Bishop only shook his head the harder; he had set the
official seal of his disapproval upon the adoption of the British
transmitter, and it was clearly the sense of the conference that
American-made apparatus and American methods were undoubtedly the
best. It is difficult to discard one’s own organization and adopt in
its stead the creation of a foreign nation; and to recognize when a
situation demands that course, requires more imagination and honesty
of mind than most men have.
As the meeting was breaking up, Commander Rich approached Elkins and
Evans and said, graciously:
“I admired your report on that British apparatus; clearly it merits
the most careful consideration. But, of course, you must recognize the
difficulties in the way of radical changes involving destruction of
gear already in use, and you will realize the natural reluctance of an
older man like the Admiral to take such a course unless it is
necessary. However, you may be sure I will see to it that all
arguments in favor of the British apparatus are given a fair and
impartial hearing.”
After Commander Rich and the others had left, Evans continued to
discuss the matter with Elkins and Brown. They tried to view it from
Admiral Bishop’s standpoint. Would it be better, after all, to ignore
the valuable advances made by the British, and to use only the
apparatus of home design, and demand of the British that they adopt
American procedure for the sake of uniformity? Viewing it from every
possible angle, they all agreed that this course would be the height
of folly, for it would materially impair the efficiency of the fleet,
and would also make a very bad impression on the British experts by
using dominance in numbers to force on them the adoption of obviously
inferior methods. The British had been more than willing to adopt such
of the American procedure as was superior to their own. How would they
feel if America failed to reciprocate where common sense clearly
demanded it? This would be an ill omen for friendly coöperation.
“It’s too important to let slide,” Evans said to himself, “but it
wouldn’t be wise to bother Sam with it, if I can help it. He’s got
enough on his hands, and any insistence on his part that the Bureau
should go against the wish of the Chief might do a lot of harm. It’s
got to be done some other way.”
Impelled by this feeling, he voiced his sentiments more earnestly than
ever to Elkins. The implied criticism of superiors would have deterred
both men from candor had it been the average lieutenant-commander
talking with the average warrant officer. But when in time of stress
men actuated by the right spirit join in a disinterested effort to
serve a cause, matters of rank and seniority automatically drop out of
the equation. Elkins assured him he would use what influence he had,
but was by no means confident of his ability to do anything with the
Admiral.
Evans remarked: “It would help a good deal if a demand for it made
itself felt from the D.N.C. office. Engineering supplies the apparatus
and Operations uses it. There are times when Engineering can take the
lead by developing gear which creates new possibilities for
Operations; there are times when Operations can take the lead by
saying to Engineering, ‘We want apparatus that will do so-and-so; can
you make it?’ Now, if Operations, as embodied in the D.N.C. office,
could make just the right request, it might shake things up over here.
Mr. Brown, have you got some live wires in your office?”
“Yes, a few,” replied Brown; “but I don’t know just how to rouse them
to the kind of action that you want.”
“That may be rather difficult,” said Evans; “but there’s no knowing
what a little modern telepathy on scientific lines may accomplish.”
“I took you for a simple-minded scientist,” said Elkins, “but from the
way you talk I begin to think you’re a regular politician.”
Evans laughed. In the next few days he found business to discuss with
Lieutenant Brown at the D.N.C. office. While he was there, discussions
arose over modern problems of communications in which he was consulted
as technical expert.
Ten days later, after Elkins had been preparing the ground among some
of the officers in the Bureau of Engineering, they received an
intimation from the Director of Naval Communications that the British
procedure was deemed most suitable for adoption throughout the Allied
fleet, and that it would be desirable to produce, if possible,
apparatus suited to this procedure. These officers asked Elkins if any
information was available bearing on the feasibility of providing
something which would answer these requirements. He said he would find
out, and soon returned with specifications following close to those of
the British transmitter, and estimates furnished by the best available
manufacturers. Armed with this information he took the case to
Commander Rich. This officer expressed a warm appreciation of the
valuable work performed in securing the information and estimates, and
said he would take the matter up with the Admiral. After a conference
with Admiral Bishop, Rich sent for Elkins and told him the Admiral had
been firm in his refusal to abandon the gear then in use and to adopt
in its stead the proposed apparatus.
“Admiral Bishop is conservative,” said Rich, “but we must remember
that he is a man of great experience, and wiser than we.”
Evans was dismayed when Elkins told him the news.
“I don’t like it a bit,” he said. “It seems as if there were something
more than mere conservatism in this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” was the reply.
“Well,” said Elkins, “you know it is devilish hard for an older man to
throw overboard the things he’s used to and take on something entirely
new.”
“I know,” said Evans, “but this case is so perfectly clear—well, I
don’t know.”
That evening Evans spent an hour with Mortimer in his private study.
Their talk was concerned chiefly with the broader problems of naval
policy. Evans did not tell him of the trouble over the transmitter,
but merely remarked that the mission to England had been fruitful of
most interesting developments, especially in connection with the radio
problems that concerned both the Director of Naval Communications and
the Bureau of Engineering.
“When do you expect to visit the Bureau of Engineering again? You’d be
interested to hear something of this from the men at the top,” said
Evans as he was rising to go.
“I’ll be round Friday morning,” replied Mortimer.
Evans knew Mortimer’s habits well enough to be quite certain that this
meant about eleven o’clock.
Next morning he went to the Bureau of Operations and sought Lieutenant
Brown. This officer and his chief, Admiral Fraley, the Director of
Naval Communications, were greatly disturbed by the refusal of the
Bureau of Engineering to furnish the apparatus required for adapting
their procedure to the improved British plan; they hardly knew what to
do about it. Evans now told Brown to tell his chief that he had heard
from some one in the Bureau of Engineering that Friday, a few minutes
before eleven, would be a favorable time for him to see Admiral Bishop
about the question of apparatus. This intimation was duly passed on to
Admiral Fraley.
Acting on this intimation, Fraley called on Admiral Bishop just before
eleven. He had scarcely opened the subject when Secretary Mortimer was
announced. In spite of a good measure of self-possession, Admiral
Fraley’s face revealed to Mortimer’s keen perception a trace of the
annoyance which he naturally felt at losing his chance to present his
case to Admiral Bishop. He started to withdraw, but Mortimer stopped
him and said, “Don’t let me interrupt your conference.”
“I can come back some other time,” said Fraley.
“I’m here to promote, not obstruct, the work of the department,” said
Mortimer. “I’m interested in everything that goes on, and if my
presence doesn’t embarrass your freedom of speech, I’d really rather
have you go on with your business; I’m in no hurry.”
Admiral Fraley hesitated a moment, then, as it flashed on him that
Mortimer’s presence and interest might offer a rare opportunity of
support from superior brains and authority, he stated his case. He
explained how Lieutenant Brown’s report on British methods made it
seem imperative that certain of their procedures depending on their
new transmitter be adopted, and he further said he understood that
those who had looked into the technical side of the matter were
convinced that it could be done. He wondered what was the difficulty
in the way of supplying the necessary apparatus, and whether there
might not be some way of surmounting it, in view of the great tactical
importance of conformity with the British in this respect.
Admiral Bishop was nothing if not pompous. He was senior in rank to
Fraley. His round, red face became slightly redder at what appeared to
be the airing of a difference of opinion in the presence of the
Secretary. But with Mortimer’s keen eye upon him, he was aware that
this was no matter to be put off with a display of authority and rank.
His manner was therefore affable enough as he replied: “In all matters
pertaining to radio apparatus I rely on the judgment of Commander
Rich, who is in charge of that division, and whose wisdom in such
matters is quite unsurpassed. He gave me to understand that he had
inquired into the matter thoroughly and could assure me that the
alleged advantage of the British procedure amounted to practically
nothing, and was certainly not worth making the expensive change
involved in removing vast quantities of material already installed in
the ships and replacing it with something comparatively new and
untried, with which our operators are unfamiliar.”
Mortimer looked at Admiral Fraley, who appeared perplexed and rather
taken aback.
“There seems to be a surprising conflict in expert opinion,” remarked
Mortimer, “and this on a matter of some importance. Can’t we call in
the exponents of the conflicting views and come to an understanding
here and now?”
“I can send for Commander Rich,” said Admiral Bishop.
“Who are your authorities on the side of the British procedure?”
Mortimer asked of Fraley.
“Lieutenant Brown of my office reported on the traffic end of the
question,” answered Fraley. “He got his information on the apparatus
chiefly from Lieutenant-Commander Elkins of this Bureau and also from
a radio gunner who obtained most of the data, as I understand it.”
“Let’s get them all in here and thrash out the problem,” said
Mortimer.
Thereupon Commander Rich, Elkins, Brown, and Evans were all summoned.
Mortimer was spokesman.
“I chanced to be present,” he said, “as Admiral Fraley was asking
Admiral Bishop if there was not some way to overcome the obstacles in
the way of supplying the apparatus needed for the adoption of this
British procedure which, from the standpoint of operations, he deems
so important. From what I heard I gathered that there had been some
misunderstanding, and I thought we might clear it right up. Commander
Rich, I understand from Admiral Bishop that you have looked into this
and concluded that it was not of sufficient importance to warrant the
expense of making the necessary changes. Am I right in my
understanding?”
Evans and Elkins both looked at Commander Rich in surprise. He
appeared perfectly at ease as he replied in a manner which bespoke
deference and conciliation: “Mr. Secretary, if I in any way
underestimated the advantages of the British procedure, I am sure it
was quite unintentional. What I endeavored to do was to sum up the
pros and cons as impartially as I could, and to defer to the superior
judgment of the Admiral, rather than to seek in any way to influence
his decision.”
“It was my impression,” said Admiral Bishop, “that you favored
adherence to our standard procedure, a course to which I should
naturally incline, to be sure, unless very good reasons for changing
were forthcoming. Perhaps, however, I misunderstood your attitude.”
The Admiral’s memory was not clear enough to recall that Rich had
reinforced his natural conservatism by intimating, before the meeting
at which the matter was first brought up, that changes were about to
be proposed which it would be unwise even to consider.
Mortimer then asked for a summary of the case for the proposed
changes. Brown, at the request of Admiral Fraley, explained the
salient points of the communication problem. When he came to the
question of the needed apparatus, he referred Mortimer to Elkins, who
in turn referred him to Evans. In a few words Evans stated the
advantages of the apparatus.
“What about the expense and difficulty of having it installed?” said
Mortimer. “This seems to have been a seriously deterring
consideration.”
Evans answered with figures and estimates which decisively disposed of
this difficulty, leaving the case so clear for the proposed changes
that Admiral Bishop could not do otherwise than authorize them.
Soon after this incident, late one afternoon when the day’s work in
the Bureau of Engineering was done, and almost every one had gone
home, Evans lingered, as he often did, over a knotty engineering
problem. As he was leaving to go, he saw in the corridor a man with a
sallow face going into Commander Rich’s room. He knew Commander Rich
often stayed in his room long after the others had gone, and many
people had business with him; so there was nothing remarkable about
this. But to-night the sight of this man gave him a vague,
uncomfortable feeling, scarcely more than subconscious, that he had
seen him somewhere before. Also in a seemingly haphazard way the
thought and feeling of England stirred in his subconscious mind. But
the guileless physicist was so absorbed in his engineering problem
that these matters never quite reached the arena of his conscious
thoughts. He had so much to think about that he had neither time nor
inclination to heed such capricious freaks of the subconscious, and
the impressions soon passed into the storehouse of forgotten
experience.
During the winter months following the return of the commission to
Washington, the navy was preparing in a hundred different ways for the
task which lay before it. The draft law having been passed, large
numbers of recruits, the pick of the draft, were assembled at training
stations and rapidly absorbed into the fleet and the various naval
bases on shore. Fortunate they were that the organization into which
they were thus merged was led by such a body of men as the officers of
the United States Navy. Through the long years of indifference on the
part of the majority of their countrymen, these faithful guardians of
the Nation’s frontier, trained at the Naval Academy to a high degree
of professional skill, without which the complex organization of the
fighting ships cannot function, had served with zeal, and against
great odds had kept the fleet ready—kept the colossal machine intact,
so that the hordes of untrained men could be assimilated with the
least possible loss of time and effort.
Ship and aircraft construction were accelerated by all known means,
and the work of designing and experimenting in every department went
on with ever-increasing efficiency and concentration. In gunnery no
department was neglected; on ships and in training stations drills
with loading machine and dotter were carried on with zeal, and
everywhere the officers saw to it that the high standard of efficiency
in this field was maintained.
The convoy system had been adopted with the declaration of war, and,
with the aid of light cruisers and destroyers, great quantities of
essential supplies were being poured into Northern Europe, enabling
the Allies to keep up the fight, but by no means to break the
deadlock. Nor were the convoys always able to pass unscathed through
the submarine-infested seas; the toll of ships and cargoes proved a
serious drain on the Allied strength.
During these months, Evans, dressed in civilian clothes, dined with
Mortimer at his house almost weekly, and after dinner they would sit
alone together in Mortimer’s study, discussing the great problem of
the war, often late into the night. Mortimer would tell of the
deliberations and decisions of the General Staff. Evans would listen
attentively and question him on significant points whose importance
Mortimer himself had sometimes missed.
Plans for combating the submarine menace were now developing apace. In
spite of the convoy system, serious losses of tonnage kept occurring,
and methods of searching systematically for the undersea pirates were
eagerly sought. The Bureau of Engineering was devoting intensive
effort to testing, perfecting, and installing in new vessels the best
available hydrophones (underwater listening gear) and radio compasses
(direction-finders), the latter both for finding the enemy by his
wireless signals and for making contact with friendly craft when
desired, as well as for purposes of navigation in thick weather. Evans
devoted most of his time to these tasks, taking a hand in the work of
improving methods, and exercising general supervision over the
installation, testing, and calibration of all this sort of gear. As in
1918, a special two weeks’ course was started for instructing radio
operators in the use of the radio compass, a course given in a
laboratory by young radio experts. The operators, as fast as they
finished this course, were sent aboard destroyers and other ships
where the apparatus was installed, with the understanding that they
were fully trained in the use of it. Evans endeavored to enlist the
help of these operators in the work of testing and calibrating the
apparatus; but he found that more than half of them, although
supposedly radio-compass specialists, were utterly useless for the
task. Their teachers, being inexperienced in the psychology of the
student, had failed to impart the essentials, except to those of more
than average intelligence; and, what made matters worse, the
laboratory instruction had not approximated the actual conditions
aboard ship. Even if the principles had been grasped, the operator
found them difficult to apply under conditions so remotely resembling
those of the laboratory. Evidently, to send these men out in charge of
the radio compass aboard ship would mean the failure of the apparatus
in about fifty per cent of the cases in which its use would be
required.
It was clear that the course should not only be improved, but should
be supplemented by practical instruction aboard ship. Evans conferred
with Lieutenant-Commander Elkins, and suggested to him that a
motor-boat be equipped with a radio compass and that the operators be
taken out on her and given practice in reporting the bearing of a
transmitting station as the motor-boat steered an irregular, zigzag
course. Aside from the advantage of instruction and practice under
actual working conditions, the fitness of a man for radio-compass duty
could thus be readily determined. At first they should practice on a
transmitting station sending signals continuously, and thus
facilitating the readings by giving them plenty of time for their
observations; next, they should assay the more difficult task of
taking bearings when the transmitting station sent only brief
messages. Naval experts have pointed out that the enemy, knowing that
his signals will probably be used to locate him by means of the radio
compass, will make his messages as brief as possible, in order to
render difficult the work of direction-finding; hence the importance
of training the operators by calling on them to take bearings with
messages of ever-increasing brevity.
Elkins endeavored to arrange through the “usual channels” to have a
motor-boat assigned to the Bureau of Engineering for this important
training duty. But in this he met obstacles. Those who had control of
the available motor-boats were not interested, and did not see the
need of it; furthermore, Commander Rich told him Admiral Bishop felt
that any training of operators beyond what was already provided would
be quite unnecessary. Elkins told Evans the discouraging result of his
effort.
“What damn nonsense!” said Evans, frowning. “There needs to be a
demand for efficient operators that will make itself felt enough to
shake loose some of the stiff joints of this organization.” Then,
after a pause, “Maybe the demand will come.”
That evening Mortimer heard the whole story.
“I guess it will be a simple matter for me to arrange to have a
motor-boat set aside for this work,” he said to Evans.
“Wouldn’t it be better not to have them get the idea that I have a
‘drag’?” said Evans. “Then, too, sequelæ embarrassing to Elkins might
result if such an order came through just after his request had been
turned down. There’s a better way than that. Isn’t it about time for
you to decide that you want to determine whether the radio-compass
machinery—material and personnel—is up to the important task required
of it? You could order a practical test—a board appointed to make
it—and for samples of the goods, eight or ten operators just through
the compass course, selected at random, aboard a destroyer with the
gear just installed. Let ’em show what they can do with signals sent
from various bearings. Make them come across quick with the test so
that there won’t be time for any one to cheat it by giving the
operators special training. I am confident this test will show that
something is lacking. Then let us have some men along who know a radio
compass when they see it, to show what the gear can do if you
understand it, lest perchance the apparatus be condemned instead of
the poor boobs that are miscalled experts.”
It seemed altogether natural when a few days later the Secretary of
the Navy appointed a board to conduct a test of the radio compass and
the men assigned to operate it, under the nearest possible approach to
service conditions. Ten operators just from their special course were
to report on board a destroyer whose radio compass had recently been
installed. Three patrol boats were to maneuver about her and each one
in turn was to send signals for one minute. Thus the radio signals
would come from unexpected angles. The operator was to be shut into
the radio-compass shack, so that he couldn’t see the patrol boats, and
was to report the bearing by voice-tube to the bridge as soon as he
had determined it. Then the Bureau of Engineering was to select for
comparison four operators known to be really familiar with the radio
compass, to take bearings on the same patrol boats after the new
operators had completed their test, in order that a fair basis might
be established for judging the operators as prepared by the special
course.
When this order became known, Elkins was delighted. “Now is our
chance,” he said to Evans, “to have this thing properly tested, and
we’ll know whether those boys need some practical drilling or not.”
Together they picked the four best men among the radio chiefs who had
been helping with the radio compasses, and made sure that when it came
to their part of the test they would not be found wanting.
On the appointed day the destroyer steamed out into Chesapeake Bay
accompanied by the three patrol boats. Secretary Mortimer was on
board, for he deemed the experiment important enough to warrant his
personal observation. Admiral Bishop, Commander Rich, and Elkins had
come to represent the Bureau of Engineering, and Elkins had obtained
permission to bring Evans to be sure that the gear was in working
order.
Commander Rich was almost constantly at Mortimer’s side, talking with
him pleasantly or earnestly as seemed most fitting at the moment. He
spoke of the value of a broad sense of proportion in naval matters.
“Some people,” he said, “can’t see anything outside their own little
problems. A man in charge of a thing like this radio compass, for
example, is apt to think it’s the most important thing in the whole
navy, and everything else should give way before it. I believe a man
should see the problem as a whole. Now take my case: I’m in charge of
radio, but it would be silly of me to fancy that radio was the most
important thing in the whole organization. I recognize that Admiral
Bishop has a much wider vision, that radio is only one small part of a
colossal machine, and I am ready to defer to the needs of gunnery and
the like when occasion demands.”
In preparation for the test, Evans had to come up on the bridge to
confer with Elkins. Encountering Commander Rich, he saw in his face a
look of scorn as this keen-looking officer eyed him in his dungarees,
and in the look he fancied he saw, too, something more sinister than
scorn. It haunted him as he returned to the radio compass, but with an
effort he dismissed the thought, convincing himself that it was
probably the result of pique in his own rather sensitive nature.
Commander Rich, watching Evans swinging himself nimbly up the ladder
to the radio-compass shack, remarked jovially to Mortimer, “Looks to
me like that gunner had a little of that monkey-gland extract you read
about, the way he goes climbing round the ship.”
And when during the subsequent stages of the test Evans appeared,
Commander Rich was ever ready, if the chance offered, to drop a
sarcastic remark about the “monkey-man.”
Admiral Bishop had some difficulty engineering his portly form up the
steep ladder leading to the destroyer’s bridge. It would be hard to
find anywhere, on land or sea, a scene more vividly expressive of
human efficiency than is presented by the bridge of a warship
executing a maneuver even of the simplest sort. Officers, signalmen,
and helmsman, alert and intent on the perfect team-work needed to fit
the operation of the ship into the working of the larger machine, the
fleet, execute their orders in a way that testifies to the high
character of their training. Into such a scene came Admiral Bishop
with all his pomp, as the signals were being sent which directed the
patrol boats to their stations.
When all was ready for the test, the patrol boats circled round the
destroyer at a distance of a mile or so, and first one, then another,
was signaled to send messages. First, the operators just graduated
from the special radio-compass course were tested. Each man was given
three bearings to report, one on each patrol boat. The first operator
to be tested nervously entered the radio-compass house, wondering if
his fate hung on his performance, and fumbled for a while with the
somewhat unfamiliar apparatus. Finally he tuned in the patrol boat
signal, and then, as he twirled the hand-wheel which rotates the coil,
he became confused, and before he could gather his wits he realized
that his minute was up and he had reported no bearing. On his second
and third bearings he made a little progress, but the results were
considerably in error. As he took off the head-phones and stepped out
of the house, he said to the chief radio operator of the destroyer,
“That don’t sound nothing like what they give us to learn on in the
course. It’s all so different I couldn’t make nothing of it.” The next
man, awaiting his turn, heard the remark and profited somewhat by it.
He obtained a rough bearing each time just before his minute was up.
Out of the ten operators tested, only three gave even a respectable
performance.
Admiral Bishop had but a hazy idea of the nature of the test which was
being made. When he first came on the bridge, he got into conversation
with the skipper of the destroyer, who fortunately had his officers
well enough indoctrinated to operate the ship and carry on the test
without his personal attention. The Admiral, having been on shore duty
for several years, coming once more on shipboard, was reminded of
cruises of long years ago. His talk became one of reminiscence about
the good old days. It was not until the test of the ten operators was
nearly finished that he became aware that it had begun. Commander Rich
then explained to him just how the test was being conducted.
“You see the patrol boat out there is sending us signals. Down there
in the radio-compass house aft, the operator is taking the bearing he
gets on the signal as it comes in. He reports it to us here on the
bridge by voice-tube. At the same time the navigating officer here is
noting the actual bearing of the patrol boat by eye with the pelorus,
to see whether the radio bearing is right.”
About this time the last of the ten operators completed his test, and
the results were displayed before Admiral Bishop, revealing clearly
their unsatisfactory performance.
“Seems to me this radio compass doesn’t show up very well in service
conditions, Mr. Secretary,” said the Admiral. “That’s the way with a
lot of these gadgets; they’re all right on paper and in the
laboratory, but on board ship they don’t cut much figure.”
“We have still to see the second part of the test,” answered Mortimer.
“The fault may be in the gear or in the operators; I want to find out
which.”
One of the men picked by the Bureau was then sent into the compass
house. The signal was given for the sending to begin and in twenty
seconds he reported by voice-tube, “Sixty-five.”
“That looks like business,” said the skipper of the destroyer. “How is
it?” addressing the question to his navigator, who with his eye at the
sighting vane of the pelorus followed the course of the patrol boat.
“She’s bearing sixty-four,” was the answer.
“Right to within one degree. Will he do it again?” said the skipper.
In five successive tests this operator reported the bearings with an
average error of less than one degree, and his reports were delivered
to the bridge with increasing promptness.
A signal to the patrol boats ordered the time of sending reduced to
thirty seconds. The three remaining picked men then showed what they
could do, and the greatest error was two degrees. On average barely
eighteen seconds elapsed from the time the signals began till the
report was heard on the bridge.
Admiral Bishop was now following the proceedings with interest and
began to see what an accurate instrument the radio compass was when in
competent hands, but his imagination was not keen enough to envisage
the possibilities which it opened. The skipper of the destroyer was
the first to propose a more spectacular demonstration.
“Let’s have him steer us to one of the boats,” he said.
A signal was made to the patrol boat on the port quarter to send
signals continuously till further notice. The operator, when told what
he was to do, listened a moment, revolving the coil and manipulating
the switches, then called to the bridge, “Left rudder.” The officer of
the deck passed the word to the helmsman, and as the ship swung round
till the signaling patrol boat bore dead ahead, the voice from the
radio-compass house called, “Steady as you go.” It looked like
witchcraft, this guidance of the ship by an unseen and sightless power
unerringly toward the source of the silent ether waves. As the patrol
boat bore away to starboard, the operator kept the destroyer following
her with her bow till, bearing down on her at eighteen knots, they
were only a hundred yards from the little boat, when the skipper said,
“Left rudder,” and the destroyer shot past the smaller boat within a
stone’s throw.
Admiral Bishop, watching this exhibition, grasped for the first time
what it really meant. As the unfailing precision with which the
destroyer tracked her quarry became more and more apparent, his
enthusiasm grew till his eyes fairly sparkled with delight. He shook
hands with Commander Rich and congratulated him heartily on the
splendid equipment which his division had installed in the ships.
After that it was only natural that, when the report of the test had
been made, a motor-boat equipped with a radio compass should be set
aside for the drilling of operators. And in the wake of this reform
there naturally followed similar methods for the drilling of personnel
in the use of hydrophones of all sorts, and all manner of special
apparatus.
About a fortnight after this convincing demonstration on Chesapeake
Bay, the _Sheridan_, a brand-new scout cruiser, was steaming back to
the Boston Navy Yard after making her speed trial at Rockland, Maine.
She was the first of a new batch of scout cruisers being rushed to
completion, and in speed and every other important essential for this
type of craft she was the last word. She was, of course, equipped with
a radio compass of the latest model, and before the trip to Rockland
this had been carefully tested and calibrated. In view of the
importance attached to this apparatus since the demonstration on the
Chesapeake, a radio gunner named Long had been sent by the Bureau of
Engineering to stay on board throughout this trip and check the work
of the operators to be sure that both they and the apparatus were
dependable for purposes of navigation. On the way to Rockland, Long
had seized every opportunity of taking bearings on stations along the
coast. The results had delighted the navigator, who saw that in every
case he could depend on the bearings given.
Now, on the return trip, the navigator had occasion to be especially
glad of the pains Long had taken, for a thick fog shut in soon after
they passed Monhegan Island; every adjunct that could help him in his
important duty of fixing the ship’s position was more than welcome.
Late in the afternoon the captain, the navigator, and the officer of
the deck stood on the bridge straining their eyes ahead into the
dense, wet fog.
“Captain,” said the navigator, “I think we’d better get some
radio-compass bearings; my dead-reckoning shows us about ten miles
from Cape Ann, and we don’t want to go much closer without checking
our position.”
“Very well,” said the captain, “you may instruct the radio room to get
the bearings.”
A signal was sent out, and in less than five minutes a full report
from the radio room was handed to the officer of the deck on the
bridge. It read as follows:
Cape Cod reports bearing 338°, Gloucester reports bearing
73°, Fourth Cliff radio compass temporarily out of
commission; ship’s own radio compass gives bearing of
Boston Navy Yard transmitter 242°.
With alacrity the navigator plotted on the chart the position thus
given.
“This shows us five miles south-southeast of our dead-reckoning,” he
said to the captain.
“Are those bearings dependable?” was the reply.
“Our radio compass has been giving us bearings accurate to within one
degree without fail ever since we left Boston, and the shore stations
are regularly dependable to within less than that. Besides, we have
here three bearings and they check each other reasonably close, making
the fix practically a certainty.”
“Have them repeated,” said the skipper.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The message was sent and in three minutes a report was received
corroborating the previous bearings.
“How do you account for the error in dead-reckoning?” asked the
captain.
“I don’t know,” said the navigator; “but you remember the seven
destroyers that went aground on the Pacific coast in 1923 because they
ignored the radio-compass bearings and trusted their dead-reckoning.”
“That’s right,” said the skipper; “we can’t afford to do that. What
about sounding?”
“That wouldn’t help us much here, the bottom’s too irregular.”
They looked at the chart together for a minute.
“Give us a course that will pick up the whistling buoy off Thatcher’s
Island from this last fix,” said the skipper.
The navigator plotted the course, and the order was given, at which
the ship swung a point and a half to the northward.
The speed of the ship had already been reduced to fifteen knots which
on a ship in the habit of cruising at twenty-five, and capable of
forty, seemed like a snail’s pace. There was not much more than an
hour of daylight left, and making a landfall in fog and twilight is
nasty business; so the captain was loath to slow down any more. But
the fog shut in thicker till the bow could barely be seen from the
bridge; a hundred yards marked the limit of visibility ahead. At
fifteen knots a hundred yards is traversed in very few seconds;
caution therefore constrained the captain to reduce speed to twelve
knots. The lithe ship seemed to be crawling through the water.
Forty minutes passed. All eyes looked forward into the thick blanket
of fog which seemed to paralyze the sense of sight. Captain and
navigator paced nervously to and fro, looking now at the chart and
then again into the gray void. The leaden sky began to darken visibly.
“We’ve gone eight miles since we changed course,” said the navigator;
“we ought to hear that whistle, we could hear it two miles in any
direction.”
“You’d better get some more bearings,” said the captain.
At that moment the lookout in the bow shouted, “Surf ahead.”
The captain sprang to the engine-room telegraph and jerked back the
lever calling for full speed astern. In two seconds, which seemed an
eternity, the whole ship began to shake as the turbines backed water
with all their power. But a seven-thousand-ton ship even at twelve
knots cannot be brought to a standstill instantly, and just as the
breakers ahead became visible to the anxious eyes on the bridge, there
was a hideous, grinding crash and shock.
To the skipper and navigator it was like the crack of doom—the
death-knell of their careers, for with a horrible sickness in their
hearts they knew they had driven one of Uncle Sam’s finest ships
ashore on an exposed and dangerous coast. The _Sheridan_ was hard
aground on the north end of a reef known as “the Salvages,” just off
the Rockport breakwater, some three miles north of Thatcher’s Island.
The coolness, self-possession, and resourcefulness which these
officers and those under them showed in handling this disastrous
situation, which confronted them with overwhelming suddenness, was to
their eternal credit and to that of the navy. Fortunately, the sea was
not heavy and no difficulty was found in getting the crew safely off
the ship. Salvage operations were promptly begun, and in a few days
the Sheridan was pulled off the reef and towed to the Navy Yard where
the extensive repairs and rebuilding of her bow were begun.
When the board of inquiry met to investigate the cause of the
disaster, it was clearly revealed that the navigator’s dead-reckoning
had been correct, that the radio-compass bearings, which showed the
ship to be five miles south-southeast of the dead-reckoning position,
must have been in error, and that trusting these bearings and changing
course to the northward had caused the ship to run aground.
Mortimer held a conference with Commander Rich.
“You can’t trust these gadgets,” said Rich, speaking of the radio
compass. “There’s a dangerous tendency among some officers to rely on
a thing like this because it works well once. You see what
happens:—one day it works beautifully, the next day it puts your best
cruiser on the beach. If I were you I wouldn’t waste another dollar
installing such gear; it will be leading to a false sense of security,
and will wreck some more ships.”
With the wreck of the _Sheridan_ staring Mortimer in the face,
Commander Rich’s logic seemed to him convincing. When Evans heard of
this, he was sorely troubled.
“See here, Sam,” he said, “this radio compass is a thing that has been
working for twenty years, guiding our ships safely into harbors in
thick weather. Look at the possibilities it has in naval warfare! To
go and scrap it because of one bad fix would be like throwing
overboard all your guns because of one wild shot.”
“Commander Rich says it’s not dependable and is apt to cause more
wrecks,” said Mortimer; “and Commander Rich is one of the keenest and
wisest men in the navy.”
“He’s a jackass if he tells you to give up this valuable instrument.
There’s some definite reason why those bearings were wrong, and the
reason ought to be looked for and found.”
“I don’t like the way you speak of Commander Rich. I count on him in
matters of practical engineering more than on almost any one.”
Evans was silent a moment, frowning and fingering a paper-weight
restlessly.
“I wish you’d let me go to Boston myself and examine the _Sheridan’s_
radio compass, and the one in the shore station at Gloucester that
gave the wrong bearing. I believe I could find out something.”
“I don’t see that it would do any good,” said Mortimer. “Besides,
you’re needed for your work right here in the Bureau.”
“I’m doing nothing in the Bureau half so important as getting the
truth on this matter. If I can find out why the apparatus failed and
show how to prevent its failure in future, and thereby restore your
confidence in it, I’ll have done the biggest job for the navy that I
can ever hope to do.”
“If Commander Rich thinks it worth while to send you there, well and
good,” said Mortimer.
“Commander Rich would never send me. He has disliked me ever since
that scene we had over the British vacuum-tube transmitter. He’d turn
down a request like that just for the sake of snubbing me, even if he
saw the point in my going, which he wouldn’t. The only way is to have
orders come from some one above him. For God’s sake, Sam, give this
thing a chance. Let me get up there and see what happened.”
His earnestness startled Mortimer and recalled the deep trust in his
friend that he had always felt, and at last he yielded. It was
arranged that Evans should receive orders which would enable him to
visit the radio compasses around Boston and to go aboard the
_Sheridan_, now being repaired there.
First Evans visited the station at Fourth Cliff near Scituate, the
station which on the fateful day had been reported out of commission.
He learned that during the entire day of the wreck the operators had
been unable to make the apparatus work. The next morning a careful
examination had revealed a loose connection which had resulted in an
open circuit. It was the kind of thing that might easily result from
undue haste in installing the gear.
At Gloucester he questioned the operators closely. They could not
account for the error in the bearings they had given to the
_Sheridan_, both of them having proved to be some sixteen degrees off.
The apparatus had been giving accurate bearings for years; they used
it on that day just as they always had, and since that day it had been
tested and recalibrated, and had proved to be in perfect condition and
giving just as accurate bearings as it always had. Evans examined the
apparatus himself with the greatest care. Nothing was amiss; it
certainly was in perfect working order and adjustment. He was
mystified; he could find no possible clue to this sudden and
disastrous lapse. At all events, the gear was working well now, and
the operators on their guard against mistakes.
On the _Sheridan_ Evans found the radio compass apparently in good
order. But when he had signals sent from a station near by and tested
the gear in actual use, he found the bearings which it indicated
always eight degrees to the right of what they should be. He then
examined the circular scale from which the readings were taken and
found it eight degrees out of alignment with the coil.
“That’s a rank bit of installation,” he said to the operator in charge
of the apparatus. “I thought you’d been getting good bearings with it
all along the coast before you went aground.”
“We did,” said the operator.
“How could you? The scale is eight degrees out.”
“It must have slipped.”
Evans took hold of the scale and found it securely fixed in position.
He looked carefully for any possible obstruction which might have
caught on it as the coil was rotated and forced it round on the shaft,
but he found none.
“I don’t see how it could have slipped; it’s on tight enough,” he
said.
The operator shrugged his shoulders.
“Are you sure no one made any adjustments here that day?” Evans asked.
“I know I didn’t, and I’m pretty sure my mate didn’t, but I’ll ask
him. We were the only ones in here except Gunner Long who came from
the Bureau to see that the gear was working. He was here in the shack
and sent me to get some wire or something from the main radio room an
hour or so before we struck. I was gone only two or three minutes, and
that was the only time I was out of the shack all the forenoon. I
stayed here till the order came to abandon ship and we all got into
the boats.”
His mate, the other radio-compass operator, was sent for, and
corroborated his story as far as his own watch was concerned. Evans
was baffled. But it was a simple matter to set the apparatus right. He
reset the circular scale in its proper position; and he nearly broke
his screwdriver tightening the set-screw which held it in position, to
be sure it did not “slip” again.
When he returned to Washington to report on his findings, his task was
not easy. Elkins, with whom he discussed the matter, was entirely
sympathetic. A peculiar combination of circumstances had wrecked the
ship. The one time in years when the Gloucester station failed to give
accurate bearings happened to coincide with an unaccountable slipping
of the scale on the Sheridan’s radio compass. Such a combination of
mishaps was not likely to occur again in a generation. It would be
absurd to abandon anything so obviously useful because of it. Mortimer
was still skeptical, and inclined to follow the advice of Rich, but
Evans drove home his point with such earnestness and force, as they
discussed it by Mortimer’s study fire, backing up his argument with
Elkins’s concurrence, that Mortimer finally said he would allow
installation of the gear to continue for the present. But he
considered it on trial; any more serious failures or disasters, and
the radio compass would be discarded as far as any active use of it in
warfare was concerned.
One day, soon after his return to Washington from Boston, Evans talked
with Commander Barton of the Bureau of Intelligence about the peculiar
mishap, and his failure to explain just how it occurred. When he
mentioned his investigation of the Gloucester station, and finding the
apparatus there in perfect order, Barton said, “Did you ask them who
had been in the station that day or the day before?”
“No, I didn’t think of that,” said Evans; “I was looking for trouble
in the apparatus.”
“I should say that was the first thing to find out,” said Barton.
That evening Evans did some hard thinking, and went to bed a wiser
man.
Barton sent one of his best officers to Boston to visit the stations
at Gloucester and Fourth Cliff, and conduct a bit of research along
somewhat different lines from those Evans had followed. What this
officer told Barton on his return he kept to himself. For a long, long
time he did not speak of it to another living soul except Admiral
Rallston, Chief of the Bureau of Naval Intelligence.
As the winter months wore on, the navy’s main task was escorting the
great convoys across the ocean and thus enabling the armies of
Northern Europe to hold their line. But the navy was preparing for
larger things than escort duty. The enemy submarine base at the Azores
proved to be a constant menace; from it submarines would come out in
force, and sometimes succeed in sinking ships and escaping unharmed
from the depth charges of the escort.
At Punta Delgada, the capital port of the Azores, the enemy had for
some years been building a giant breakwater to create a harbor far
bigger than that which sheltered American destroyers and submarines in
1918 when this port was in friendly hands. Work was now being rushed
to complete this greater harbor, and with it docking facilities that
would make the base more efficient in the maintenance of extensive
submarine operations.
The nearest Allied base to the Azores was Berehaven on the Irish
coast, and from here a British airplane carrier went out from time to
time, cruising southwest to within two hundred miles of Punta Delgada,
whence just before dawn she would launch into the air two or three
high-speed aeroplanes equipped only with their machine guns and
cameras of the most perfect type for long-distance photography. When
the first rays of the rising sun struck the harbor and port works of
Punta Delgada, revealing all details through the contrast of light and
shadow, with a brilliance of relief which is lost when the sun is
high, these planes, soaring at an altitude too great for the eyes of
the drowsy watchers, would take their pictures and fly away unseen to
the waiting mother ship. The optical system in these cameras was a
marvel of design, and when the photographs were studied under the lens
in London and Washington, it was not difficult to follow in detail the
work of perfecting the submarine base.
By the end of the winter this photographic study had revealed that the
breakwater was practically complete, and the docks almost ready for
the opening of more extensive submarine operations; moreover,
coast-defense guns and vast stores of ordnance and engineering
material had been accumulated, and all was in readiness for the
building of powerful defenses which would make the seizure of the port
difficult in the extreme. Now was the time to attack, before the great
coast-defense guns were mounted and ready for use. The American Navy,
which had suffered from the peace-time shortage of personnel, was now
adequately manned and ready for aggressive action. A consolidation
with the British and French ships was effected, and in March the
attempt was made to seize Punta Delgada. The Mediterranean Powers
deemed it unwise to risk their capital ships for the defense of this
point, and kept them safe in the Mediterranean. After a brief
resistance, the Azores fell into the hands of the Allies. The enemy
had done the lion’s share of the work of preparing a first-class base
with the strongest kind of defenses. The materials were there, and it
was a comparatively easy task for the Americans and British to
assemble them after their own pattern. The loss of this valuable base
was extremely annoying to the enemy, but as long as their fleet
remained intact within the shelter of the Mediterranean Sea they felt
secure in their control of the great resources on which they pinned
their faith.
Following the advantage gained by possession of the Azores, the Allied
forces soon took Madeira and the Canary Islands, both bases being less
strongly defended than the Azores. The Cape Verde Islands thus were
virtually cut off from their base, and surrendered before long without
resistance.