“Then the subject turned to what’s being done to take the submarines out. That was not a bit more encouraging. At that point, I got egg on my face.”
“Sir?
“Admiral Hawley asked.
“Another proof, if I needed one, that, unless you know what you’re talking about, you keep your mouth shut,” the DCNO said. “I opened my mouth and announced before God and the JCS that the last information I had on the Navy project to take out the pens with torpedo bombers based in England looked very promising, and that I would fire off cables exhorting them to even greater effort.” The DCNO looked around the room, then shrugged.
“At that point, rather tactfully I must admit, Captain Douglass told me that the torpedo-bombing idea hadn’t worked out–you can’t get enough explosive into a torpedo to take on that much concrete–and then he let me know that the OSS had been given the responsibility for taking the pens out. I had the definite feeling that there were senior officers at that table who felt that the DCNO should know something like that.
And, of course, I should have.” “Sir,” Hawley said, at here was a message on that… ”
“I’m sure there was, and I’m sure that I should have seen it, but I didn’t, so there I was with my ass hanging out. But I learned a long time ago that once part of your ass is hanging out, no further harm can be done, so you might as well let it all hang out. So I asked how come the job had been taken away from the Navy and why it was thought the OSS could do something the Navy and the Air Corps couldn’t.”
“Admiral, “Admiral Hawley said, “it was my decision to recall the torpedo planes.
We needed them in the Pacific. They were in Europe only because of the high priority of the submarine pens project… ” The DCNO interrupted him by holding up his hand.
“No criticism was intended about that. What bothered me was that we were just as much as hanging up a banner saying, The Navy Can’t Handle Its Own Problems. “‘ “Sir,” said Admiral Hawley, “if I may say so, it wasn’t considered a Navy problem. It was considered a Theater problem.
And I have been led to believe that it was given to the OSS to make that point.”
“Don’t hand me that crap, Enoch,” the DCNO said.
“Protecting the sea lanes is the Navy’s business. Submarines, friendly or hostile, are Navy vessels.
Enemy submarine pens are the Navy’s business. Bombardment of enemy shore bases, either by naval gunfire or aircraft, is the Navy’s business.” “Yes, sir,” Hawley said.
“The Air Corps wants to be its own branch of service, Enoch,” the DCNO said. “And sooner or later, it will be. When that happens, I don’t want the Air Corps saying, You might as well give us naval bombardment aviation, too.
They have proved that they can’t handle it. Remember when we had to come in and take out the German submarine pens for them? “‘ “I take your point, sir,” Hawley said.
“You can’t blame a man for honestly speaking his mind, but I was pretty uncomfortable sitting there and hearing a man in the uniform of a Navy captain assuring me that now that the OSS had the responsibility, a handful of civilians in uniform was going to do something the Navy couldn’t.” He paused and shook his head, as if the memory was painful.
“I said something else I shouldn’t have said,” he went on. “I made smart-ass remark. An unfair and smart-ass remark. I said that I just had a hard time believing that Donovan’s Dilettantes were going to be able to do something the Navy couldn’t. Whereupon the Commandant of the Marines, that disloyal sonofabitch, joined the opposition.”
“Sir?
” “He said, What the hell, Jake, they stole a battleship. If all else fails, they can steal the Kraut submarines. Which of course got a big laugh.
And then the Chairman asked if we could move on to something else.
And then I got control of my runaway mouth and said that all I was trying to do was offer the Navy’s cooperation to the OSS in any way possible to solve the problem.