The Crisis of the Naval War Part 2

Adjutant General (Personnel, Discipline, etc.)

Quartermaster General (Transport and Supply, etc.)

ATTACHED TO GENERAL HEADQUARTERS.

(BUT NOT STAFF OFFICERS.) | ---------------------------------------------------- | | | Artillery Adviser Engineer-in-Chief. Inspector of (Advises Chief of Advises as in case of Training.

General Stall on Artillery.

Artillery matters and operations).

| Advises Administrative Departments as necessary.

N.B.-The Inspector of Training works in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff.

It will be seen that whilst at the War Office the liaison between the General Staff and the administrative side was maintained by a Deputy Chief of the General Staff, in the organization in the field the same function was performed by the Staff Officer known as G.S. (b).

It will also be seen that neither at General Headquarters nor in the case of an Army command does the Chief of the General Staff exercise control over the administrative side.

After some discussion the Admiralty organizations shown in the Tables A and B on page 20 (below) were adopted, and I guarded as far as possible against the objection to keeping the Plans Division separate from the Operations Division by the issue of detailed orders as to the conduct of the business of the Staff, in which directions were given that the Director of the Plans Division should be in close touch with the Director of the Operations Division before submitting any proposals to the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff or myself.

During the remainder of my service at the Admiralty the organization remained as shown in Tables A and B on p. 20 below. It was not entirely satisfactory, for reasons already mentioned and because I did not obtain all the relief from administrative work which was so desirable.

TABLE A

First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff.

Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.

Director of Intelligence Division.

Director of Signals Division.

Director of Operations Division.

Deputy-Director of Operations Operations at home.

a.s.sistant Director Operations Division and Staff.

Operations abroad.

Director of Plans Division.

Preparation of Plans for operations at home and abroad.

Consideration of and proposals for use of new weapons and material. Building programmes to carry out approved policy.

Deputy First Sea Lord.

Director of Training and Staff Duties.

a.s.sistant Chief of Naval Staff.

Director of Trade Division.

Director of Mercantile Movements.

Director of Mine-sweeping.

Director of Anti-Submarine Division.

TABLE B

Board of Admiralty.

Operations Committee.

Naval Staff.

Maintenance Committee.

Shipbuilding and Armaments.

Stores.

Air.

Finance.

Personnel and Discipline, etc.

Works.

Early in 1918, after my departure from the Admiralty, the following announcement appeared in the Press:

The Secretary of the Admiralty makes the following announcement:-

The Letters Patent for the new Board of Admiralty having now been issued, it may be desirable to summarize the changes in the personnel of the Board and to indicate briefly the alterations in organization that have been decided upon.

Acting Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver now brings to a close his long period of valuable service on the Naval Staff and will take up a sea-going command, being succeeded as D.C.N.S. by Rear-Admiral Sydney Fremantle. Rear-Admiral George P.W. Hope has been selected for the appointment of Deputy First Sea Lord, formerly held by Admiral Wemyss, but with changed functions. Commodore Paine, Fifth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Air Service, leaves the Board of Admiralty in consequence of the recent creation of the Air Council, of which he is now a member, and formal effect is now given to the appointment of Mr. A.F. Pease as Second Civil Lord, which was announced on Thursday last.

In view of the formal recognition now accorded, as explained by the First Lord in his statement in the House of Commons on the 1st November, to the principle of the division of the work of the Board under the two heads of Operations and Maintenance, the Members of the new Board (other than the First Lord) may be grouped as follows:-

OPERATIONS. MAINTENANCE.

First Sea Lord Second Sea Lord.

and (Vice-Admiral Sir H.L. Heath.) Chief of Naval Staff.

(Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss.)

Deputy Chief of Naval Staff. Third Sea Lord.

(Rear-Admiral S.R. Fremantle.) (Rear-Admiral L. Halsey.) a.s.sistant Chief of Naval Staff. Fourth Sea Lord.

(Rear-Admiral A.L. Duff.) (Rear-Admiral H.H.D.

Tothill.)

Deputy First Sea Lord. Civil Lord.

(Rear-Admiral G.P.W. Hope.) (Right Hon. E.G. Pretyman, M.P.)

Controller.

(Sir A.G. Anderson.)

Second Civil Lord.

(Mr. A.F. Pease.)

Financial Secretary.

(Right Hon. T.J. Macnamara, M.P.)

Permanent Secretary.

(Sir O. Murray.) The principle of isolating the work of planning and directing naval war operations from all other work, in order that it may receive the entire attention of the Officers selected for its performance, is now being carried a stage further and applied systematically to the organization of the Operations side of the Board and that of the Naval Staff.

In future the general distribution of duties between the Members of the Board belonging to the Naval Staff will be as follows:-

FIRST SEA LORD AND CHIEF Naval policy and general direction OF NAVAL STAFF of operations.

DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL War operations in Home STAFF Waters.

a.s.sISTANT CHIEF OF NAVAL Trade Protection and STAFF anti-submarine operations.

DEPUTY FIRST SEA LORD General policy questions and operations outside Home Waters.

The detailed arrangements have been carefully worked out so as to relieve the first three of these officers of the necessity of dealing with any questions not directly connected with the main operations of the war, and the great ma.s.s of important paper work and administrative detail which is inseparably and necessarily connected with Staff work, but which has. .h.i.therto tended to compete for attention with Operations work generally will under the new organization be diverted to the Deputy First Sea Lord.