The sixth article drawn from ‘Davy Jones’ Locker’ comes from the November 1976 edition of the Journal of the Australian Naval Institute. It is notable for a couple of reasons. The first is it deals with a subject that was discussed frequently in the Journal, namely officer training. The second is that it is an early example of an article written under a non de plume to enable a serving officer to raise issues without repercussions. Finally, the article, “Training The General List Officer: Some Problems and Possibilities” is written by ‘Master Ned’ aka the 17 year old Cadet Midshipman James Goldrick. This is in fact the first of many articles the late Rear Admiral James Goldrick, and former ANI President (2005-2008), would write for the ANI and the British Naval Review under that pen name as well as under his real name.
James Goldrick’s article gives a very good snapshot of naval officer training as it existed prior to the revolution that was the advent the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). The young James Goldrick’s comments on the future ADFA are of interest, especially noting he would go on to be a Commandant of ADFA.
Training The General List Officer: Some Problems and Possibilities
This article has been submitted by a subordinate officer who is at present undertaking training at the Royal Australian Naval College (RANC), as it provides an insight into the way in which the present training patterns appears to someone actually undergoing that training.
The Present Position
Since 1974 the RANC has been operating under a scheme designed as an attempt to give the officers under training the best all-round education possible.
Two entries go to make up the officers who are selected for each tertiary course. These are the Junior Entry, who enter between the ages of 15 and 17 and complete their last two years of secondary schooling at the Naval College, and Senior Entry, who enter after the age of 17, having already matriculated.
Senior Entry join the RANC at the beginning of February each year and undergo a short indoctrination and familiarization course (two days in 1976) before joining the just-matriculated Junior Entry of two years previous. Both then undergo the Specialization and Tertiary Education Programme (STEP). This course lasts just over a week, and is the means whereby the student officers are informed of the various branches and specializations open to them. It consists of lectures on the general organization of the RAN and its rank structure, on each branch and specialization by a qualified officer and outlines of career patterns and training schemes. To this, if it can be arranged, is added a day at sea to get the ‘feel of the real thing.’ In 1975 a day on board HMAS Stuart at Garden Island was arranged for Senior Entry only, while in 1976 they were sent aboard HMAS Swan in Jervis Bay. Junior Entry were left out of this since it was thought, quite reasonably, that they should already have a good idea of the subject.
There are four degrees and the ‘Creswell Course’ for each officer to choose from. The only real restrictions on choice are: first, eyesight; second, matriculation results – for a cadet who has only just scraped a pass will inevitably be refused permission to undertake the degrees of Bachelor of Engineering or Electrical Engineering; and third, the Bachelor of Arts degree, undertaken entirely at the University of New South Wales is limited to eight places a year (it is in the process of being increased to twelve).
Cadets’s Reasons for Selecting Courses- Junior & Senior Entries
Why do cadets select the branches they do? The reasons seem to be entirely different for either entry. Junior Entry, after two years at the Naval College, have a marked tendency to select the Seaman Branch and avoid the others. There are several causes for this tendency. First, a significant proportion of Junior Entry join with the definite thought in mind that they will be able to get to sea with a minimum of further scholastic effort. The bulk of these cadets originally approached the Navy with the intention of joining as Junior Recruits to enter HMAS Leeuwin but, because of their abilities were persuaded to try for the Naval College instead. On the whole, they do not like the thought of a degree tacked on to their secondary schooling and seek a different way.
The second reason is that many cadets who joined with the original intention of doing a degree, baulk at the thought of three or four more years hard work after the two they have completed. If they do a degree it will be Arts or Science, the shorter and easier ones. It is difficult to say whether the Navy loses out on these cadets’ potential. Certainly a source of possible engineers has dried up but very few of this type of cadet leaves the Navy in the immediate period-these officers will provide a return of service. Furthermore, if it is admitted that, had they joined as Senior Entry, these men would have begun BE or BEE studies, would they not have been among the many who drop out through lack of motivation on the way. It is a very difficult question and one that admits of no easy answer.
The third reason is that. from no apparent source, cadets tend to pick up a dislike for the Supply Branch. No attempts by the authorities could eradicate this dislike, it is probably one that has existed as long as the College and it is an unfortunate fact that the crowning insult at the Naval College is “You’d make a good supply officer.”
To give an example of the Junior Entry’s tendency towards the Seaman Branch; of the 27 Junior Entry who underwent STEP in 1976, 2 selected the Supply Branch, 7 the Instructor Branch, none the Engineering, 3 the Electrical Engineering Branch and 21 the Seaman. The balance of figures in the Senior Entry is quite the reverse.
Senior Entry on the whole seem much more ‘degree motivated’. There has been something of a problem with the number of Senior Entry’s who join apparently with the idea of getting a degree in mind and little thought or knowledge of the Navy as a career. As a result of more careful screening this sort of thing is now happening a great deal less often.
But it is true that Senior Entry are more interested in degrees for their own sakes than Junior Entry. It is notorious at the College that Junior Entry do not volunteer for Mechanical Engineering while Senior Entry are fairly keen on the idea and while Arts is a great favourite with many Junior entry because it is done completely away from the Naval College and is fairly easy, Senior Entry of the same calibre go more for Science. Whether this is a good thing or not is hard to say, for many who go for the more difficult degrees drop by the wayside and the number of each entry completing their degree generally ends up approximately even.
The Creswell Course
Apart from the four degrees there is the programme of tertiary studies known as the ‘Creswell Course’ conducted by the Naval College. It was designed specifically with the less academically inclined Seaman and Supply officers in mind and is intended to provide a good ‘all-round’ education in the least possible time. It was, until 1974, a course of 15 months, after which the officers involved went to the training ship, and then to the fleet. After a year’s sea time they return to the College for one term of navigation and preparation for the Promotion Parade on promotion to Acting Sub-Lieutenant.
The New Course
The Creswell Course has now been extended to two years, with a six-week training course during the second year. This is followed by six months of courses at various establishments and further time in the training ship, after all of which they join the Fleet for six months.
In the writer’s opinion the expanded course has been a failure. The general air of those undergoing the programme has seemed to be one of lassitude and boredom. The course appears excellent on paper but has the terrible trouble of not only being lengthy but also completely unique. This uniqueness means that there is no way of comparing the Creswell Course with any course of outside tertiary studies, especially as an officer graduates with no qualifications and no recognition of the course as being of diploma status: but it is difficult, bearing in mind the lack of comparable civilian diplomas, to see what effect this will have on those outside the Navy who will deal with graduates of the Creswell Course.
What makes things worse is that the Creswell Course always used to be the way, not only for non-academic officers, but also for those who were disinclined for study, to get to sea early. Now the officers undergoing the Creswell Course find that they are stuck at RANC for nearly two and a half years with only two short cruises and short courses at Penguin, Watson and Cerberus to enliven proceedings. This means that they get to sea only six months earlier than their degree-stream contemporaries and end up with no qualifications to boot.
Furthermore, while degree students have a fair degree of freedom and generally have a very good time at University, the Creswell Course officers find themselves trapped in the Naval College 20 miles from Nowra and 120 miles from Sydney with relatively limited leave.
The situation of the Naval College is a great factor in the failure of the Creswell Course. It is possible for a cadet to spend four and a half years at the Naval College. When one considers that many join Junior Entry with the idea of getting to sea as early as possible it becomes obvious that problems emerge.
Apart from the courses there are many problems of organization within the Naval College. The bulk of these are caused by the system of two entries. To deal fairly with Senior Entry it is necessary to give them privileges and seniority on a par with their contemporaries in the Junior Entry within the least possible time and this is the source of much ill-feeling within the two pre-matriculation years of Junior Entry. Furthermore may feel that the privilege system-by which the senior classes are granted more leave and freedom-is a hangover from the 13-year old entry and treats cadets more as schoolboys than officers.
Furthermore, in order not to give Junior Entry too great an edge over Senior Entry, it is necessary to limit the naval training of Junior Entry and this is rather an annoyance to many.
All in all the system of two entries is iniquitous and must be stopped. Junior Entry, though an excellent producer of naval officers, must go for it is an anachronism and by its very presence is tending to turn Creswell into something rather like a US military high-school rather than a professional Naval College.
Standards of Training
It is well-known that desperate attempts are being made to improve seamanship and other aspects of Naval training above elementary standard, but how can this be done in the present situation?
For example, the 1975 Junior Entry did not get into a warship larger than a landing craft for their entire first year! And this in Jervis Bay! Certainly no fault of the College’s, this, I feel, is rather more the responsibility of the Fleet as a whole. It seems that the Fleet want to both have their cake and eat it for thy quite correctly complain that officers from the College lack a deal of service knowledge. To quote Rear Admiral Neil McDonald, then Commodore Chief of Staff to Flag Officer Commander Australian Fleet (FOCAF) in 1970, who was summarizing the results of a survey conducted among senior officers of the Fleet:
“The main professional shortcomings appear to be in General Service knowledge, leadership, Fleetwork and Midshipman’s sea training.”
Now Rear Admiral McDonald was referring principally to technical officers when he talked about a lack of general service knowledge but in view of the similarity of the training patterns of the various branches it could be said to apply to all degree-stream officers and, to a lesser extent, to the Creswell Course and, when you consider that a cadet can spend a year at the College and not get to sea, It is not an unreasonable comment.
Why don’t cadets get to sea? The system is that the RANC asks ships entering Jervis Bay if they can lake any cadets for a visit or sea-day. Of late the answer would always seem to be NO. This is quite unreasonable, for while the Fleet expects Midshipmen joining to have some knowledge and ‘feel’ of the situation it does not want to see them beforehand. The excuse is made that the half-day or full-day visits are of dubious value and that they are extremely disruptive to the ships concerned but this attitude must change. Admittedly having a party on board is a nuisance but the Fleet must realise that to make omelettes it must break a few eggs – heavy work-up programmes or not.
The next problem with more advanced Naval training is the ever chronic lack of equipment. Great advances have been made in the field of boat handling over the past twelve months (due mainly to extensive pressuring by the College) with the acquisition of two fast 35′ seaboats and other types. Practice on these boats will give the Midshipman some idea of boat work when he joins the fleet and much more confidence when he comes to run boats from his ship.
But other than this the College has no real facilities – no modern navigation equipment or other training aids. And with the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) scheduled to (at the moment) begin within ten years the Naval College is not likely to receive any.
As one can see, then, the College is labouring under terrific disadvantages and many drastic changes must be made to remove them.
Proposals for Future Training
Appreciating the faults in the present training system, the training staff at the Naval College have proposed to Navy Office (or whatever it is called now!) that the order of training be reorganised. What the College suggested was that both entries, in their first post-matriculation year, do their basic naval training and a cruise in HMAS Duchess for their first six months and then go to sea as Midshipmen in the Fleet for a further half year. After this, and only after this, would each officer choose his branch and begin his academic training.
Such a training system would be a vast improvement on the present one and would certainly relieve the criticism of officers coming out to the Fleet on completion of their degrees with little or no knowledge of the Service. Furthermore it would give each officer the chance to see each branch at work and to decide whether or not he would be suited to his particular choice before he is committed to it.
However there is another way, a far more radical change in the training system but one that could well be a vast improvement on the present or other proposed methods.
The first basic premise is that the idea of ADFA, in its present form, should be dropped. At the moment it acts only as a hindrance to officer training in all three services as it is deferred further and further into the future. It is possible that the idea could be revived as a joint-service Staff College for Lieutenant-Commanders and the equivalent but it is difficult to see what improvement the present conception of ADFA could possibly be on the services’ individual methods.
As to the scheme of training there should only be the single entry, a post-matriculation one from the ages of 17 to 20 years. This entry would spend six months doing extensive professional training-drill, organization, boat work, navigation, and so on. A minesweeper or a patrol boat should be attached to the College purely and simply for day or week-running with cadets. At the end of this six-month period an officer should emerge with the basics of his profession. All branches should undergo this training and at the same time. It should be impressed upon the cadets that they are officers, albeit under training, and that they should act and be treated accordingly-it would be a great retainer of the doubtful if a real sense of ‘esprit de corps’ could be built up among the new entries.
After this six months the class would be sent to the training ship for three months. This time would be conducted in the same way that it is in Duchess at present with cadets performing a variety of duties in the ship as she cruises in home or foreign waters.
Following their cruise the class would return to the College for two further months of advanced work-navigation, weapons, tactics and so on.
After this the cadets would be given at least one month’s leave, be promoted Midshipmen and posted to ships of the Fleet for a year’s sea time. During this year they would do their task-book and begin to work towards Bridge Watchkeeping Certificates (BWC) in their particular branch. Officers of every branch should undergo this part of the training scheme because it would be of immense value to every officer to be able to spend a couple of months in different departments (of his own and a full year at sea would enable this to be done in more than the present rather sketchy basis. Although the trainee officers would only be supernumeraries, of little use to the department concerned, the exercise would pay handsome dividends in a wider general knowledge.
The end of this year would be the beginning of the specialist training. The Mechanical and Electrical Engineers would either, if academically clever, go immediately to a degree or else up to a more job-oriented diploma course at RMIT. Following this they would return to sea to work in their departments.
Supply Officers would similarly be divided into two. Those who wished to could avail themselves of the opportunity to do a BA or BSc while the remainder would return to the College for a year’s tertiary studies directly linked to their profession in such fields as languages and the law. This year and the six months supply courses to follow would be the last stage of their training and at its finish they would begin their work in the Supply Branch.
The problem now comes with Seaman officers. Should they get their BWC before any tertiary training? I think so. After the year as Midshipmen those in the Seaman Branch should be promoted to Acting Sub-Lieutenant and do a further year at sea to gain their Ticket. When this has been accomplished they would be given the choice of doing a BA or a BSc combined with an Operations and Weapons Course to last three years or else a course similar to the Supply Officers’ with OW. instead of supply training involved. After completing their chosen course they would return to sea as watch-keeping officers.
This proposed system of training means that it will take a year more than at present to produce a fully qualified degree officer but would the result not be worth that year? There would be no difficulties of two entries or Degree versus Creswell Course because all officers would have the option of doing a degree sometime in their careers and the matter would depend simply upon the inclinations of the officer concerned.
A much more professional officer would be produced with a wide-ranging knowledge of the various fields of activity within the Navy and, no matter what the course or branch, an intelligent and well-spoken man should emerge. While it could be argued that the year’s tertiary studies are not likely to have any greater success than the Creswell Course, it must be said that the proposed studies will not only be much shorter but also much more relevant to a junior officer than at the moment-if necessary more complex studies can come at a later stage in a man’s career. lt should be possible to introduce a system of later degrees and post-graduate studies in a fashion similar to that of the US Navy.
Are there any other possible disadvantages? Three main arguments may be presented against the proposed system. First, officers doing degrees would have at least a two year interval between matriculating and beginning their university studies. The answer to this is that it is being increasingly felt around the universities that matriculants should spend a couple of years away from the academic world before beginning their degrees. This would mean that the person concerned would be very much more ‘motivated’ on recommencing his studies and it is felt that this would apply as well to naval officers as to civilians.
It is in this area that the principal difference and advantage over the new College proposals comes into effect. There is a danger with the single year Stage 1 training that officers will not be able to experience the full responsibilities and duties of their career ahead and this would apply to Seaman Officers to a great extent-there is a great difference between being Midshipman of the Watch and Officer of the Watch. To have officers get their Tickets before returning to University would mean that they would come back with a great deal more confidence in themselves and the Navy and enable them to really know whether they like their future.
The second criticism is that the time spent in the Fleet would result in a need for more training billets-already at a premium and more training staff in the ships themselves. The cry would be that there is no space remaining in the Fleet for more officers under training and this, seemingly, is quite true. Yet is it necessary for a ship to be at sea, or even operational, for an officer to do his time in the Supply Branch? Do all the ships used need to be big ones? For example, with an average class of 60, would it not be possible to spread a midshipman or two on a rotating basis to the patrol boats and minesweepers; for few as they are, these ships ought to be able to take 20. While it can be argued that these ships would not be able to give the right training they would provide an invaluable insight into small ship life that engineers and supply officers might never have again. As for the other places, it is hard to think that midshipmen have ever expected, or got, palatial accommodation so it should be quite possible to squeeze a few more into each ship. As to the increase in training staff, it must be stressed that the emphasis for this first year at sea would be an observation and ‘learn by example’ training rather than formal tuition so the workload should not be greatly increased.
The third difficulty is that of pay rates. Under the present system a return to university after gaining their BWC would mean a return to under-training rates for the Seaman officers. This is merely a matter of changing Ore relevant instructions and is simply a triviality.
That then is the proposal for a new training scheme. Admittedly it will take more time and effort than the present methods but it would go far to solve many of the College’s problems. How does it seem to you?
