T&T: More on the Captain and his accountability

[Rich Gano]

When I took command in 1976, I was sent a nice letter of congratulation from
the Chief of Naval Personnel.  Also included was a quote from Joseph Conrad
which hangs on the wall behind me as I type.  Two of the paragraphs go like
this:

"In each ship there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at
sea, can turn to no other man.  There is one who alone is ultimately
responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate
gunfiring and morale of his ship.  He is the Commanding Officer.  He is the
ship.

This is the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy.  There is
not an instant during his tour of duty as Commanding Officer that he can
escape the grasp of command responsibility.  His privileges in view of his
obligations are most ludicrously small; nevertheless command is the spur
which has given the Navy its great leaders."

Joseph Conrad

And then there was another piece given me by the Fleet Commander from the
Wall Street Journal editorial of 14 May 1952.  I had a hard time finding the
full text.  It refers to the collision in April of that year between the USS
HOBSON, a WWII Gleaves-class tin can, and the USS WASP, a carrier.  The
Hobson lost, and her captain was lost.  The article is entitled Hobson's
Choice.  Even the merchant marine masters are not wedded to their ships for
years at a time as is done in the Navy - they at least can come ashore and
forget the ships they skipper for lengths of time, and of course they never
have to give orders to kill.  More like the Navy than the merchant marine,
we boat owners have responsibilities that are continuous.   We can all
reflect on this article.  It is somewhat political in nature as it discusses
past debacles, and it could be republished again today with the names of
recent wars changed - HOWEVER, I am only commending the nautically related
portions to your study.  The rest is left in for context.

HOBSONs Choice

	One night past some thirty thousand tons of ships went hurtling at each
other through the darkness.  When they had met, two thousand tons of ship
and a hundred and seventy-six men lay at the bottom of the sea in a far off
place.
	Now comes the cruel business of accountability.  Those who were there,
those who are left from those who were there, must answer how it happened
and whose was the error that made it happen.
	It is a cruel business because it was no wish of destruction that killed
this ship and its hundred and seventy-six men; the accountability lies with
good men who erred in judgment under stress so great that it is almost its
own excuse.  Cruel, because no matter how deep the probe, it cannot change
the dead, because it cannot probe deeper the remorse.
	And it seems crueler still, because all around us in other places we see
the plea accepted that what is done is done beyond discussion, and that for
good men in their human errors there should be afterwards no accountability.
	We are told it is all to no avail to review so late the course that led to
the crash of Pearl Harbor; to debate the courses set at Yalta and Potsdam;
to inquire how it is that one war won leaves us only with wreckage and with
two worlds still hurtling at each other through the darkness.  To inquire
into these things now, we are reminded, will not change the dead in
Schofield Barracks or on Heartbreak Ridge, nor will it change the dying that
will come after the wrong courses.
	We are told too how slanderous it is to probe into the doings of a Captain
now dead who cannot answer for himself, to hold him responsible for what he
did when he was old and tired and when he did what he did under terrible
stresses and from the best of intentions.  How useless to debate the wrong
courses of his successor, caught up in a storm not of his own devising.  How
futile to talk of what is past when the pressing question is how to keep
from sinking.
	Everywhere else we are told how inhuman it is to submit men to the ordeal
of answering for themselves.  To haul them before committees and badger them
with questions as to where they were and what they were doing while the ship
of state careened from one course to another.
	This probing into the sea seems more merciless because almost everywhere
else we have abandoned accountability.  What is done is done and why torture
men with asking them afterwards, why?
Whom do we hold answerable for the sufferance of dishonesty in government,
for the reckless waste of public moneys, for the incompetence that wrecks
the currency, for the blunders that killed and still kill many times a
hundred and seventy-six men in Korea?  We can bring to bar the dishonest
men, yes.  But we are told men should no longer be held accountable for what
they do as well as for what they intend.  To err is not only human, it
absolves responsibility.
	Everywhere, that is, except on the sea.  On the sea there is a tradition
older even then the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age
than this new custom.  It is the tradition that with responsibility goes
authority and with them both goes accountability.
	This accountability is not for the intentions but for the deed.  The
captain of a ship, like the captain of a state, is given honor and
privileges and trust beyond other men.  But let him set the wrong course,
let him touch ground, let him bring disaster to his ship or to his men, and
he must answer for what he has done.  No matter what, he cannot escape.
	No one knows yet what happened on the sea after that crash in the night.
But nine men left the bridge of the sinking ship and went into the darkness.
Eight men came back to tell what happened there.  The ninth, whatever
happened, will not answer now because he has already answered for his
accountability.
   	It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men.  But
the choice is that or an end to responsibility and finally, as the cruel sea
has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men
will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for
what they do.
	And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order
disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts.
	The enormous burden of this responsibility and accountability for the lives
and careers of other men and often, the outcome of great issues, is the
genesis of the liberality which distinguishes the orders to officers
commanding ships of the United States Navy.

Wall Street Journal May 14, 1952

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42-295)
Southport, FL (Panama City area)