From the mid-70s to 2019, which spans my middy summer at Mayport (spent on an oiler built in 1945), three tours wearing the loop in Jacksonville between 1977 and 1997, and 20 odd years subsequent as a contractor and civil servant, the Admiral's staff at NAS Jacksonville changed roles, but progressively decreased in real authority and responsibilities. The Admiral's job shifted from operational (wartime role as an ASW Region Commander while Soviet nuclear armed subs were patrolling) and combat force support (type wing commander), and immediate superior in command for bases spanning from Panama to Florida to, essentially, property management in the Navy's southeast states.
During that time the staff swelled in size from approximately
60 to over 300. It moved from the first floor of a handsome 1940s administrative building to displacing a data center and more.
Has that been representative of the Navy as a whole?
Well ...
According to Silverstone' s “US Warships of World War II” in 1945 the US Navy was comprised of 3,600 named vessels plus thousands of additional craft bearing numbers only, such as Landing Ships, Sub Chasers, and Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats.
Fahey's “The Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet” reports that in June 30, 1945 the US Navy had “40,417 serviceable aircraft”.
Unlike today, in WWII Naval shipyards were not merely refitting and repairing ships, they were building ships. They were major shipbuilders. Their efforts included such complex products as the Iowa class Battleships in Philadelphia, New York, and Norfolk Navy Yards, 2 Essex class Carriers in New York Navy Yard, and the Midway Class Carrier Franklin D Roosevelt in New York Naval Yard,
3,600 substantial ships, thousands of others, over 40,000 aircraft. and a major shipbuilding enterprise.
And all run with 219 Admirals.
Today the US Navy website provides biographies of 294 Admirals plus 367 'flag equivalent' Senior Executive Staff' creatures (the Carter era bureaucratic building blocks of what we now recognize as the 'deep state').
This cadre of 661 flags and 'flag equivalents' lords over a force comprised of approximately 275 significant ships and something in the neighborhood of 3,111 combat aircraft.
That's three times the number of senior 'leaders' attempting to manage a force one thirteenth the size of the Navy that successfully fought a global war.
Is this anything like the profile of a
fighting force? A combat focused lean organization?
Is this administrative behemoth providing better ships for the dwindling operational force? Anyone who studies the LCS and DDG 1000 disasters knows the answer to that.
Perhaps this bloat is one of the major contributor to the state of 'today's Navy' discussed earlier on this blog.
9/12/20 Update - Here's an insightful article I just located on the mendacious, entitled bureaucrats embedded by Obama as SESs https://stpaulresearch.com/2019/10/31/obamas-secret-stay-behind-army/
Refs
U.S. Warships of World War II Paul H. Silverstone Doubleday 1965
The Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet Fahey's Victory Edition 1973 Reprinted Naval Institute Press 1976
11/2/20 Note - this item tagged in a Cdr Salamander tweet
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