US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

42 Am~bibians Came To Conquer
PROMOTION TO JUN1OR LIEUTENANT
In June 1913, Ensign Turner passed his examinations and became one of
the 150 junior lieutenants from the Class of 1908 commissioned in the Navy.
Fourteen of his classmates had resigned their naval commissions while en-
signs; three had been retired because of physical disability; one had been
dismissed; and one had unhappily run away from the Navy and been declared
a deserter. However, the Line of the Class of 1908 in the Navy had suffered
further losses. Two classmates transferred to the Marine Corps, two to the
Civil Engineer Corps, one to the Mathematics Corps, one to the Supply
Corps and the three who stood number 1, 2, and 3 upon graduation trans-
ferred to the Construction Corps. Out of two hundred graduates, in five short
years, only 75 percent remained in the Line.
On 1 January 1908, there were but 1,270 Line oficers in the Navy including
307 past midshipmen. Only 84 of these were captains, and besides Admiral
George Dewey there were no more than twenty other Flag officers. By 1 Janu-
ary 1913 the total number of Line officers had increased to 1,708.”4 During
the interim, Past Midshipman Turner had been examined and promoted to
ensign on 6 June 1910. He was promoted to junior lieutenant on 6 June 1913.
Acquiring a first flight service reputation with these 105 important people
in the Navy, the captains and Flag officers depended upon doing something
worthwhile where they could see or hear about it. This could be accomplished
in the Navy-wide Gunnery Competition or in the Engineering Competition
which had been started in the Navy in 1902 and in 1907 respectively. It
could be accomplished in command of a ship. It could be accomplished on
the staff of a Flag officer. It had to be accomplished where the greatest number
of officers were stationed—that is in the Fleet. Shore duty was a place where
you prepared yourself for more effective duty afloat and got away from as
soon as possible. You could lose your reputation ashore, but you could not
make it there. Unless under instruction, shore duty was something you en-
joyed and swept under the rug and forgot about.
To illustrate how small the number of officers was on shore duty, in the
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations on 1 January 1916, there were only
39 Line officers; in the Bureau of Navigation, 11 Line officers; and in the
Bureau of Ordnance, 14 officers. Yet the Navy had 1,984 Line officers.’”
‘“ Naval Regi~[e~s, 1908, 1913.
‘u Naval Regi~ler, 1 Jan. 1916.