balancing ironclad rules versus intuition

the dynamics of the real world

One of the most compelling presentations at the Western Naval History Association meeting this past two days was by Karl Zingheim, the Historian for the USS Midway where we held the symposium due to the Midway’s generosity. He is also an adjunct at San Diego State University.

The topic he presented was rivetting because it highlighted what appears incredible arrogance in the September 1923 disaster at Honda Point where the US Navy lost the single largest number of ships during peace time. Seven US destroyers ran aground not far from Lompoc, California, miraculously only lilling 23 of more than 800 sailors on board. The headshaking around the conference room, full of experienced sailors as well as professional historians, was pretty universal yet I had to wonder how many (including me) saw themselves in some of the panoply of poor decisions and blithely ignoring untested assumptions? I suspect there were a few.

Karl’s presentation discussed the transit from Fleet Week in San Francisco, a public relations event bringing the Navy to the taxpayers by showing off this relatively new military presence on the west coast. The Destroyer Squadron 11 sailed south from the Bay to their anchorage in San Pedro, near Los Angeles. It ought to have been a relatively straightforward training opportunity for the destroyers, moving relatively safely just off the California coast.

The senior officer who led the seven destroyers in DesRon11 into harm’s way, Captain Edward Watson (no relation to my knowledge), was unreasonably confident in his actions and disastrously wrong in the outcome. He trusted his own intuition, based on experience (he was a 1895 graduate of the Naval Academy, thus a seasoned sailor). He also presumed to know more facts than he did and he ignored pretty basic adages about his profession. Put another way, he probably saw his actions as more desirable than taking a more conservative course, as did another captain simultaneously. to reach the same outcome.

The ships were more fragile than newer destroyers in the twenty-first century. the nation was low balling its fleet after World War I, desiring to spend less on the navy as we invariably do following any overseas conflict. Yet we also wanted a Navy presence