world; should he see the flag officer, bending under the weight of his responsibility, begin to have misgivings as to his own plan, he must argue with all his might that the original order was correct, that the difficulties in the way of its execution are exaggerated and that counter orders should not be issued. He must recall the words of Napoleon: "But when I have come to a resolution everything is forgotten, except that which will lead to its attainment." A staff officer who criticises an order after it has been issued without the strongest reasons should be dismissed from his post. A staff composed of such officers will soon ruin any command.

A flag officer is frequently required to cooperate in the execution of a task with officers of his own service, with the army and with allied forces. In order that this cooperation may be effective it is necessary that a kindly and friendly spirit exist between his staff and the staff of the other officer, as most of the business will be carried on through the agency of staff officers. If the staff officers conduct the negotiations tactfully many delicate questions can be smoothed over and the business so arranged that it will be to the advantage of both commands. Blucher's cooperation with Wellington at Waterloo is probably the best example of one army coming to the assistance of another in the very nick of time. Only one day after the Prussians had been badly defeated at Ligny and while their commander was still on a sickbed as the result of being ridden down in a cavalry charge, he received word from Wellington that the British would give battle to Napoleon the next day at Waterloo provided they could count on having the assistance of two Prussian corps. Blucher replied: “I shall not come with two army corps only, but with my whole army; under this understanding, however, that should the French not attack us on the 18th, we shall attack, them on the 19th."

We have now come to the end of these letters. Let me pass in review some of the most important points.

First, a flag officer afloat must be selected for his force of character, courage and resolution.

Second, he should select as his chief staff officer a man of great force of character, who has a practical knowledge of strategy and tactics, administrative ability and who is in substantial agreement with him on all important professional subjects.

Third, the flag officer and the chief staff officer should select the rest of the staff, choosing officers of known ability who have the same characteristics as are necessary for the chief staff officer. Fourth, the administration of the command should be delegated as far as possible to the commanding officers.

Fifth, administrative details which must be passed upon by the flag should be handled quickly, accurately and carefully by the staff. Only the most important matters should be referred to the flag officer for his personal action.

Sixth, when the command is to be used for the carrying out of important duties or operations, the situation must be carefully and completely estimated by the chief staff officer; the flag officer should himself make the decision, considering, however, the opinions of the other staff officers.

Seventh, the decision once made, clear and concise orders should be quickly delivered to the selected vessels, every precaution being taken to prevent their contents from being divulged; the orders should state only the task to be accomplished, the methods to be used in its accomplishment being left to the initiative of the officers on the spot, guided by the force doctrine.

Eighth, the orders once issued, the flag officer must stand by his decision with all his force and should not issue counter orders except for the most important reasons.

Ninth, the flag officer must cooperate in the most friendly spirit with other officers of the navy, of the army or of foreign services allied to his.

It may have occurred to you that through the entire length of this paper I have been trying to prove to you the advantages of the offensive spirit, the fighting spirit that has always been alive in our navy, and, with God's help, always will be. But we must always remember that we must always keep on building up this spirit. We have already enough skill, but we want skill that can fight, we want the sacred fire. Please take for your motto the noble words of Brasidas as he entered into his last battle: "I will show you that I can not only advise others, but fight myself."

[COPYRIGHTED]

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

AN EASY METHOD OF GETTING THE GREENWICH MEAN TIME

By LIEUT. COMDR. FRANKLIN VAN VALKENBURGH, U. S. Navy

Graphical methods of obtaining data for so many engineering problems are in use and have proven so satisfactory that one is impelled to wonder why an exact science like navigation does not find use for more such methods. The solution of sights of nearly every kind requires first the obtaining of the Greenwich mean time and date, and when one is out of practice or meets one of the border line cases, the Greenwich mean time puzzles the oldest hand.

It is easy enough to take the watch time and apply the C-W and CC to it to find the chronometer time but then comes the question as to whether to add 12 hours to the chronometer time or not and what the date is. But it is always easy to know the watch time and the calendar date and if we had some way of taking these and telling directly what the Greenwich date and hour angle was we would get away from all the difficulty.

In an effort to find some method of picking out the GMT, after applying the confusing rules in Muir and memorizing several thumb rules, etc., the following astonishingly easy graphical method was developed.

On the accompanying chart the horizontal lines are time lines for any latitude or longitude and correspond to your watch time. The vertical lines are the longitude lines, East or West; the diagonal lines are the GMT lines. To find the GMT, note your calendar date and watch time, then find on the chart the intersection of the line representing the longitude that you are in with the line representing the watch time and read from the nearest diagonal line the hours of the GMT. If the intersec

20 HOURS GMT

22/HOURS

tion lies below the zero hour line the GMT date is the same as your calendar date; if the intersection lies above the zero hour line the date is one day preceding your calendar date.

In crossing the 180th meridian from west longitude to east longitude add one to your calendar date and proceed as in the general case. In crossing from east longitude to west longitude subtract one from your calendar date and proceed as in the general case.

The principle on which the chart is constructed is the very simple one of drawing in the lines representing the loci of all places having the same GMT at the same time.