McBride W.M. Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945

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Technological Change and the

United States Navy,

1865–1945

Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology

Merritt Roe Smith, Series Editor

Technological Change

and the

United States Navy,

1865–1945

William M. McBride

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Baltimore & London

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

987654321

The Johns Hopkins University Press

2715 North Charles Street

Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363

www.press.jhu.edu

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McBride, William M.

Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945/

William M. McBride.

p. cm.—(Johns Hopkins studies in the history of technology)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8018-6486-0 (hardcover:acid-free paper)

1. United States. Navy—Ofﬁcers—Attitudes. 2. United States. Navy—

Civilian employees—Attitudes. 3. Naval art and science—Technological

innovations—United States. I. Title. II. Series.

VA55 .M33 20000

359ⴕ.00973ⴕ09034—dc21 00-009313

For Sally, Billy, Emily, and Kylie,

and in memory of Robert Glenn Thrasher (1952–89),

a courageous shipmate who maintained his dignity

and dry sense of humor during our plebeian year,

and also for Guy Henry Brown (1950–77), who was lost at sea

e may now picture this great Fleet, with its ﬂotillas and cruisers,

steaming slowly out of Portland Harbour, squadron by squadron,

scores of gigantic castles of steel wending their way across a misty, shiny sea,

like giants bowed in anxious thoughts.

—Winston S. Churchill

on the sortie of the ﬂeet, 29 July 1914, The Modern Crisis

Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 The Postbellum Naval Profession: From Discord to

Amalgamation 8

2 Competing for Control: Line Ofﬁcers, Engineers, and

the Technological Exemplar of the Battleship Paradigm 38

3 Reﬁning the Technological Ideal: The Simsian Uproar,

Engineer Bashing, and the All-Big-Gun Battleship 64

4 Technological Trajectory: Geostrategic Design Criteria,

Turboelectric Propulsion, and Naval-Industrial Relations 89

5 Anomalous Technologies of the Great War: Airplanes,

Submarines, and the Professional Status Quo 111

6 Controlling Aviation after the World War: The 1924 Special

Board and the Technological Ceiling for Aviation 139

7 Disarmament, Depression, and Politics: Technological

Momentum and the Unstable Dynamics of the Hoover-

Roosevelt Years 157