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CHAPTER 8 PREPARING FOR THE INEVITABLE

The press accounts gave daily news of the part that science and invention was playing in the war, of the introduction of new weapons, of the fact that those waging the war were utilizing the best inventive and scientific talent of their respective countries.

—Lloyd N. Scott, Naval Consulting Board of the United States, 1920¹

New and horrendous technologies were being introduced on land and in the sky above the battlefields, and now both on and under the sea, resulting in unprecedented human slaughter. Germany, in particular, had engaged her scientific and engineering talent to the development of these technologies. Throughout 1916, as reports from Europe reached American readers, influential voices from the public and within government were calling for an increase in readiness across America’s industries. There would soon be an urgency to respond to an unprecedented need for materials associated with modern warfare. Remaining neutral was becoming less likely as Europe slowly bled to death.

The U-boat represented a technology that naval planners had largely disregarded during the years leading to the war, in spite of those warnings at the turn of the century by the Navy’s Engineer in Chief, Rear Admiral George Melville: “As few things are impossible, the submarine may be developed in time to a state of efficiency and reliability that will cause a revolution in the composition of fleets.” Melville also warned that: “The naval battles of the future will be won by the nation which has made preparation for a conflict, and has supplied itself with every possible weapon of war.”²

In the book Cold Warriors (2014), this author also noted the relevance of Melville’s comments to World War I, as well as modern submarine warfare: “Germany had prepared—America, England, and the rest of Europe had not. The Imperial German Navy would enter the war with a submarine design and construction program capable of winning more than just the battle. [Melville’s] observations, as relevant today as they were over a century ago, give insight, through the eyes of the Navy’s chief engineer, to the technological potential of submarine warfare.”³

Many popular and influential figures recognized the lack of preparation for what they saw as America’s inevitable entry into the war. Theodore Roosevelt, who lost his bid for the presidency to Woodrow Wilson during the 1912 campaign, was particularly outspoken about Wilson and his government’s response to the sinking of Lusitania. In the summer of 1915 he wrote an article, “American Preparedness,” for the New York Times:

We have been culpably, well-nigh criminally, remiss as a nation in not preparing ourselves, and if, with the lessons taught the world by the dreadful tragedies of the last twelve months, we continue with soft complacency to stand helpless and naked before the world, we shall excite only contempt and derision if and when disaster ultimately overwhelms us.

To emphasize his disdain, Roosevelt cited his concern that where “American men, women, and children drowned on the high seas, as in the case of the Gulflight and Lusitania .., [the Government’s reaction would be to] appoint a commission and listen to a year’s conversation on the subject before taking action.”⁴

Losses mounted as a result of Germany’s unrelenting U-boat tactics, which concentrated on mercantile shipping; nearly all deaths were associated with civilian crews and passengers, and the public outcry intensified. Those voices were being heard by the Wilson administration. Pacifism and neutrality would stand aside; Wilson’s Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, a staunch pacifist, resigned on June 9, 1915. “Preparedness” would become a priority within the government, albeit initially behind the scenes. The first sign of this new approach inside Wilson’s administration was a letter from Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, sent on July 7, 1915, only two months after the sinking of Lusitania. Written to the most well known American inventor, Thomas Edison, the letter may have been designed to stroke the inventor’s ego: “Dear Mr. Edison. I have been intending for some time to write you expressing my admiration at the splendid and patriotic attitude you have taken …”⁵

Secretary Daniels had proposed to President Wilson an idea of creating a department within the Navy dedicated to warfare technology development. In his letter to Edison, Daniels explained that: “such a department will, of course, eventually have to be supported by Congress, with sufficient appropriations made for its proper development … Congress must be made to feel that the idea is supported by the people …” Daniels spared no words to persuade the world renowned inventor to join in the effort. “You are recognized by all of us as the one man above all others who can turn dreams into realities and who has at his command, in addition to his own wonderful mind, the finest facilities in the world for such work.” Daniels then turned to his most urgent priority. “We are confronted with a new and terrible engine of warfare in the submarine … and I feel sure that with the practical knowledge of the officers of the Navy, with a department composed of the keenest and most inventive minds that we can gather together, and with your own wonderful brain to aid us, the United States will be able as in the past to meet this danger with new devices that will assure peace to our country by their effectiveness.”

Public acceptance, and thus money from Congress, would not be a problem. Wilson’s protest letter to Germany immediately following the sinking of Lusitania was widely circulated in the press, and Americans were becoming increasingly concerned. Edison accepted the offer to head the organization Secretary Daniels had envisioned, and on July 13, sent his Chief Engineer, Dr. Miller Reese Hutchinson, to meet with Daniels. Daniels then traveled to Edison’s Orange, New Jersey home and laboratory where they discussed the composition and goals of what had been proposed to Wilson.⁶

Drawing representatives from a variety of industries, a formal organizational meeting was held in Washington on October 7, 1915. An initial order of business was naming the organization the Naval Consulting Board of the United States (the NCB).

Preparedness was certainly on Daniels’ mind. At a meeting of the NCB on November 4, sixteen committees were formed, encompassing the spectrum of issues that both Daniels and Edison understood would be sure to become urgent if, and, likely, when the United States entered the war: (1) chemistry and physics; (2) aeronautics, including aero motors; (3) internal combustion motors; (4) electricity; (5) mines and torpedoes; (6) submarines; (7) ordnance and explosives; (8) wireless and communications; (9) transportation; (10) production, organization, manufacture, and standardization; (11) ship construction; (12) steam engineering and ship propulsion; (13) life-saving appliances; (14) aids to navigation; (15) food and sanitation; (16) public works, yards and docks. By November, members of these committees had been selected from the NCB membership based on which technology they were best suited for. Additional committees were later created to address fuel and fuel handling, metallurgy, and optical glass. The objectives were far reaching, but each committee was dedicated to the same goal—preparedness.⁷

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND THE PRESIDENT

During the Civil War, as the earlier records of the [National Academy of Sciences] indicate, its committees and its members dealt actively with military and naval problems of precisely the same type as those which have insistently pressed for solution during the present war.⁸

By the fall of 1915, it had become obvious to members of the National Academy of Sciences that the European war was being defined by rapid advances in technology, the direct result of the efforts of scientific minds among the participating countries—Germany in particular.

During the summer following the loss of Lusitania, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels had initiated an idea to bring together engineering talent from America’s industrial and manufacturing base. Daniels enlisted Thomas Edison to head what would become the National Consulting Board. By October, the NCB had formed committees whose mission was to address the technological needs that were presumed to exist on and over the battlefields of Europe, and on and under the sea. Yet the emphasis would be on improving state-of-the-art technologies through engineering know-how and not through the application of scientific principles.