The Navy Chiefs: Australia’s Naval Leaders, 1911-1997. The Leaders who ran the RAN. James Goldrick and Alastair Cooper (Ed. Allen & Unwin (2014); 554 pages
Reviewed by Sudarshan “Shri” Shrikhande, IN Ret
This review begins with a personal note. In Oct 2019, I was in Australia as a speaker at the Sea Power Conference and later for some seminars at Canberra and at ANCORS, Wollongong. VADM Peter Jones and (late) RADM James Goldrick drove me from Canberra to Wollongong and back and we had very useful discussions enroute. They both spoke about this book, which then was in its early stages and how interesting it was for them and several other authors to be involved in the research and writing (with Alastair Cooper as co-editor with James) to put together this book. It is a fine book, indeed.
The 24 Chiefs of Naval Staff in as many chapters cover nearly nine decades of helming a newly created navy of a new dominion and through major wars. Two Navy Chiefs, Admiral Hamilton, RN (#10) and VADM Collins, RAN (#11) fought in both World Wars.
John Reeve’s Introduction is very thoughtful. He points out that inevitably, all these leaders were products of their time, “shaped by the world out of which they came.” His analysis about British attitudes and culture in a “class-conscious” and an “Anglophile and culturally uniform” Australia had their influence in “conservative institutions such as navies” including “traditions of internal career patronage.” The end of WW2 enabled the transition from the last of RN CNS’ to Collins, the first RANC entry CNS, and on to a generation of leaders who were also exposed to the US Navy which was not quite English! Conservatism had its good points, but it also included a “tendency not to reform institutions until further delay was impossible…to espouse originality was conceit and showing off, and people with ideas were suspect.”
With a quiet chuckle, one would disagree that this malaise was or is uniquely British; it abounds in bureaucracies and militaries across a range of cultures, systems and countries from the US to India and perhaps China Russia and North Korea as well. But Reeve’s observation is important. Through many of the chapters, the tension runs between the need for a degree of independence for the RAN, and the subordination to the British Admiralty through the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board (Reeve calls the Board the Admiralty’s local CINC).
These tensions were real including between a need to be a silent service and yet educate the leaders and public about sea power and fight for budgets. As seamen, readers of this book may take note of John’s observation that “The intellectual pitfall of sea power is that it becomes a religion…a gulf emerges between those with faith, who believe the truth to be self-evident…and those who do not share it.” He also assesses that “(V)ery few RAN chiefs could be regarded as intellectuals. Synnot (#19), Stevenson (#18) and McNicoll (#15) were exceptions. Ragnar Colvin (#8) emerges from Peter Cannon’s chapter as one who was the type of rare leader who managed to handle the political and bureaucratic “dead hand of financial control” better than many of his predecessors and especially at a time when Europe was at war and Pearl Harbour a few months into the future. Colvin not only pushed for more cruisers but set in motion the construction of the Captain Cook dry-dock in Sydney that is “still one of the most important strategic assets in Australia today.”
A thread that runs through more than a few chapters is captured by the naval civilian administrator, Robert Hyslop’s observation that naval leadership had difficulty in “understanding politics, and they doubted whether politics was either valuable or essential to their profession.” Hyslop’s numerous books and memoirs analysing Australian naval administration from 1900- 1959 (Aye Aye Minister… deals with the period 1939-1959) possibly makes him an Antipodean version of Samuel Pepys in some ways.
Reeve flags Hyslop’s view that the very first CNS, Creswell, RAN (#1) and Collins (#11) to be at ease with [political persons. This reviewer could add a caution here for navies in democracies that in an age of dominance of social and electronic media, flag officers may need to be very clear about the distinction between the ever-present necessity to argue their case to the elected political leadership and the temptation to appear politically inclined. The imperative for ‘admiralties” to be thoroughly apolitical in no way contradicts the need to be able to engage the political leadership of the day while simultaneously recognising the principle of civilian supremacy. It is likely that political leadership would be more comfortable with such attitudes than not.
Geoffrey McGinley’s analysis of Percy Grant’s (#2) tenure is instructive. While able to overcome his RN loyalties, and identify with the fledgling RAN, even as he had a dim view of armies for domestic policing, his ability to “identify with and work for the Australian government was a different matter.” He had conflicts with the departmental secretary, Macandie and PM Hughes and McGinley calls this a ‘damaging performance.” It led to Hughes exclaiming to the visiting Prince of Wales that the RAN thought it was ‘running the country.’
A theme that runs through several chapters is the tension in what we would today call the “raise, train and sustain” functions and operational command of forces. In the complex arrangements of being the First Member of the Naval Board, and the virtually independent authority of the senior officer commanding the Australian Squadron/Feet, Grant’s differences with Dumaresq served neither well, not helped by the latter’s own ineptness with his naval as well as political superiors. Nonetheless, even chiefs who had these shortcomings also did help build the RAN. Grant, for instance established the hydrographic branch and turned from being a submarine sceptic to believing that “submarines will be our principal weapon of offence for the Empire in the East.”
In the final chapter (Reflections), VADM Chris Ritchie, himself a latter-day Chief of Navy, writes empathetically that CNS could be “‘old dogs’ who see the world through their previous experience and, wanting the best for the Navy, do not necessarily see things as do those who control the purse strings and the direction the nation ought to take.” (On another personal note: Adm Ritchie was the first RAN CNS this reviewer met in December 2004 soon after reporting at the Indian High Commission as the defence adviser.) Today, in a period of far more networked armed forces and navies, it is difficult to understand a version of the tyranny of distance imposed by having the CNS based in Melbourne until 1959 while the government moved to Canberra in 1927.
This odd arrangement could have been changed earlier and it not entirely clear why it happened only after Roy Dowling (#12) handed over to Burrell (#13) in early 1959. Alastair Coopers and Thomas Fathers’ essay on Dowling flags the changes taking place on his watch. An ascendant US Navy, a declining RN, led to PM Menzies’ directive that the armed forces were to “look to standardise equipment with the United States, this was no small matter for a Navy which had been created and operated as a ‘navy within a navy.’” One could reflect a similar challenge and changes for the Indian Navy of the 1960s as it transitioned from being an importer of RN’s hardware—mainly hand-me-downs– training practices and even culture, into the second decade of Indian independence to imports of new ships, submarines and some Soviet training methods in addition to laying the foundations of building its own frigates and destroyers.
Although not without hiccups, it went generally satisfactorily and to this day, the IN seems to be managing Indian, Russian, American, Israeli or French platforms, sensors and weapon systems quite well. In symbology, the Indian naval ensign changed when it became a Republic on 26 January 1950 (yes, also Australia Day) while it changed for the RAN only in March 1967 on the urging of a very “Aussie,” intellectual CNS, McNicoll (#15). In this chapter, Greg Swinden mentions the difficulties he had dealing with the aftermath of the loss of HMAS Voyager with 82 of her crew while grappling with “personnel shortages, ageing vessels…increased tasking…and the emerging conflict in South Vietnam.” Melbourne again comes into the picture during the watch of CNS ‘VAT’ Smith (#16) where Desmond Woods explains in nuanced detail the collision that cut USS Evans into two in June 1969 and Smith’s determination to convene a joint RAN-USN Inquiry. In a subsequent RAN court martial the CO, Captain Stevenson, was again acquitted, but there remained questions on the role that the “bilateral defence relationship” and national environment may have played in the entire process.
Some RAN chiefs focussed on indigenisation of platforms, weapons and sensors more than others. The urge was always more marked in the Indian Navy from early days. If today, despite the difficulties, the IN has made significant progress in being self-reliant, it is to the foresight and determination of many flag officers of yore who persisted when there was little hope; who looked ahead when there was little money; and who thought that perfect was the enemy of good enough. Similarly, there seem to have been some CNS’ in the RAN who did their bit. As John Perryman points out about James Willis (#20) when he was appointed the project director of the light destroyer programme.
In a Parliamentary Paper, he mentioned that “Although local building costs are higher than those overseas…local construction…minimises future logistic support problems…simplifies management of the project…increases our technical knowledge…[and} provides the skills and facilities we should need in any case for the repair of battle damage in an emergency.” Yet, as Perryman points out, the government cancelled the project in August 1973 and the Perry class FFGs were ordered instead which came to be known as the Adelaide class. These FFGs did serve the RAN well, though. Willis learned some lessons from this and observed that project management by senior defence civilian staff “’resulted in an enormous increase in paperwork and a proliferation of studies in the absence of decisions.’”
In Reflections, Adm Ritchie flags the efforts of later chiefs like Hudson, McDougall and Taylor (#22, 23 and 24)) for adding the FFGs, Collins boats and ex-USN LPAs to the force. This reviewer suggests that the RAN may benefit from a deeper understanding of the IN’s journey, both for its successes as well as shortcomings, in self-reliance not only for naval shipbuilding but also in merchant vessel construction as Australia thinks more on the elusive “strategic fleet.” It would be a fitting tribute to James Goldrick who has been the foremost among the few here who have given these aspects of Indian issues a serious consideration.
The best part of this collection of essays is that not one is hagiographical and all treat their subject of study critically and empathetically. A minor criticism of the book is that it would have been nice if the contents listing the chapters also had the authors’ names alongside.
This review does not attempt to look at every CNS’ contribution, character or characteristics. That would require more than a review and, in any case, the editors, the several authors and Prof Reeve as well as Adm Ritchie have done it more than adequately for a reader to make his/her own judgments. But he does well to recount the difficulties of change; the often unjustified criticism one service can receive for obstinacy; or the broad-minded comment of CNS Hudson (#22), when a younger Richie and a commodore were discussing a signal that would bring to a close a CNS’ operational duties: “Don’t worry about it.”
