[vette6387]

Now if we could only “fix” Naval “leadership.” Not being able to successfully operate naval vessels seems to be a problem needing immediate attention. BTW, my father was “black shoe Navy!”

[Rockingham]

My father is a Kings Point graduate who spent years at sea in the merchant marine and a couple of years as a USN lieutenant piloting ships through the Panama Canal during the Korean War. His experience was that US Navy crews seemed to have less skill, care, and attention to basic seamanship than did merchant marine crews. Also, there was greater tolerance for poor performance on naval vessels.

During the Korean War, the US Navy's arrogance led for a time to such poor relations with US merchant ship crews transiting the Canal that the schedules of essential war cargoes were imperiled. There was much friction because US Navy officers posted as Canal pilots had a tendency to boss around the merchant officers and crews and treat them as inferiors. Sometimes, a merchant ship stopped, ousted the Naval Canal pilot, and refused to move until an acceptable new pilot was provided. The Navy soon noticed that naval officers who were Kings Point grads with merchant marine experience got along well with the merchant crews.

And so, as the country mobilized for the Korean War, the Navy activated my father's reserve commission and sent him to Panama instead of giving him the sea duty he requested. As it was, the Navy probably made the right choice because my father found that even in a USN officer uniform, his merchant marine background meant that his trips piloting merchant ships through the Canal were congenial, with friendly greetings and gossip and generous hospitality for a Kings Point grad with many friends and former shipmates in the merchant marine.

The few problems my father had came from USN captains and admirals who did not like their warship being piloted by a junior lieutenant who was decades younger -- and not an Annapolis grad.