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Show Navy Background n0 UNDERSTAND WHY Secre-tary Secre-tary of the Navy Matthews had to discipline Adm. Louis Denfeld whom this column has consistently praised you have to understand what has gone on in the navy. Over the 50-year period beginning begin-ning with Teddy Roosevelt, the admirals ad-mirals have led almost a charmed life. They had behind them the personal glamour and publicity that radiated from those two dynamic dy-namic presidents Teddy and FDR plus the secret but powerful support sup-port of Bethlehem steel, U.S. steel, Westinghouse electric and other big corporations whose business flourished flour-ished from building battleships. The only two Presidents who bucked the navy in that period Coolidge and Hoover faced an admirals' revolt not unlike that of today, aided and abetted by the big steel and ship-building companies. Greatest heyday of the admirals came under Franklin Roosevelt. They had never got over this, and Secretary Matthews is now reaping the consequences. FDR appointed as his secretary of the navy Claude Swanson, a delightful de-lightful and aging ex-senator from Virginia who knew little about the navy. Swanson died in office after letting Roosevelt and the admirals run the show. His . successor was Charles Edison, son of the late great inventor, Thomas A. Edison. Edison Knew Navy The new secretary had operated a big industrial firm, understood construction technicalities, and immediately im-mediately got in the admirals hair. By this time, FDR had diverted many hundreds of millions from public works administration funds to build warships. And, although congress howled, this was probably a good thing in view of impending war. Certainly it would have been a good thing if the admirals had not insisted on building so many battleships but had built a few more escort vessels and antisubmarine antisub-marine craft. This was where Secretary Edison and the top 'navy brass had their first big clash. Edison went out to Pearl Harbor and dared to criticize. criti-cize. He told the admirals that duty at Pearl Harbor did not mean spending all the time on the beach at Waikiki, and that the first thing they had to do was get their fuel-oil fuel-oil tanks underground. Even more important, Edison told the admirals to clear off the superstructures of their battleships. The next war, he said, would be an air war; and battleships would have to fire straight up in the air, not broadside. Therefore, they couldn't be in the position of firing at their own crow's nests. Top-Heavy Destroyer About this time, Edison also caught the admirals lousing up the new destroyers built with PWA funds. He found that out of 28 new destroyers, 20 were so top-heavy that extra weight had to be added to the keels to keep them from turning turtle in the water. In addition, ad-dition, the deck plates on three destroyers buckled in only a "moderately "mod-erately rolling sea." Furthermore, because the navy still insisted on using rivets, millions of defective rivets had to be replaced. Edison not only discovered these facts but also learned that three of the private shipyards building the destroyers feared the center of gravity was too high and warned the admirals in advance. They even offered to submit the center-of-gravity test to Gibbs and Cox. Secretary Edison also discovered that these errors were chiefly due to the fact that the chief of naval construction, Adm. William G. DuBose, was at loggerheads with Adm. Harold G. Bowen, the chief of naval engineering. So he shifter them both. Edison Eased Out By this time the top brass who had been running the navy department depart-ment in the past were really seething. seeth-ing. And they took their complaint to their best friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, ever since he had been assistant secretary of the navy, believed the admirals could do no wrong. So FDR called in Charley Edison, told him the Democratic party needed a good man to run for governor gov-ernor of New Jersey and that he, Edison, was just the man. Furthermore, Further-more, Roosevelt said he needed a Republican in the cabinet to further his bipartisan war policy. Knox Liked Admirals Frank Knox was an easygoing ex-newspaper publisher who loved the navy, enjoyed the polish and precision of things nautical. At first Knox and the admirals got along beautifully. The new secretary sec-retary didn't know too much about the navy, let the admirals have free rein. But gradually, as Knox began to learn what it was all about, he began to realize that it was Franklin D. Roosevelt and the admirals ad-mirals who really ran things. |