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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to Various Organizations Considering Submarine and Anti-Submarine Devices and Plans

Copy.

From:     Secretary of the Navy.

To:       Bureaus of Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering and Ordnance; Boards of Devices and plans connected with Submarine Warfare; Boards to Consider and Experiment with Devices for the Detection of Submarines; Naval Consulting Board and National Research Council.

SUBJECT:  Detection and other submarine devices – cooperation and organization of Efforts of various groups.

Enclosure: (a) Organization Diagram.1

     1.  The Department has approved the plan to co-operate and organize the efforts of various groups now considering submarine and anti-submarine devices and plans which is shown on the accompanying organization diagram. The co-operation of all concerned is urged in order that useful devices and plans may be put to actual use in the Navy at the earlies possible time.

     2. It is the Department’s desire that the Special Board, of which Rear Admiral Grant, U.S.N. is Senior Member,2 shall have complete charge of the carrying out of experiments on submarine and anti-submarine devices, and that no device of this nature is to be put in use in the service until it has been investigated and such installation recommended by this Board.

     3.   It is desired that all devices and plans which are received by the Department, the Naval Consulting Board, the National Research Council, the various Bureaus, and other Boards in Washington, be considered by them with such communication among themselves as necessary, and that these bodies set as filters to discard all manifestly impossible schemes and duplications of schemes already tried, these bodies to forward to the Special Board only such schemes as show promise, and to give definite recommendations of what experiments they would consider desirable. If any of these organizations believe that any particular men are especially qualified to conduct certain experiments, they should make such recommendations to the Special Board.

/s/ Josephus Daniels.        

Source Note: Cy, DNA, RG 45, Entry 520, Box 337. Identifiers at top left-hand corner of the page: “LMACC” and “Mat-2P-JL-6/19/27219-495.”

Footnote 1: The diagram is no longer with this copy.

Footnote 2: RAdm. Albert W. Grant, who formerly commanded the submarine flotilla attached to the Atlantic Fleet. According to the 1918 Naval Register, Grant held the rank of Vice Admiral as of 20 August 1918. Naval Register, 1918: 8.