US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

54 AwPlribians Canze To Conquer
ing a marked change taking place in the relationship between quarter deck
and forecastle. As seen through the rose tinted glasses of the Secretary, in
this area:
There is being established between the Commanding Officers and men a
confidential intimacy, which far from undermining discipline, ennobles it
further by an enlightened consciousnessof solidarity and sacrifice.”
TO SEA DUTY
In March 1916, the Bureau of Navigation thoughtfully advised Lieutenant
(junior grade) Turner that he would be assigned to the Penn@oania
(BB-38) upon completion of his postgraduate instruction on 30 June 1916.
The Pennsylvania was brand new, due to be first commissioned on 12 June
1916, and to be the flagship of the United States Atlantic Fleet, with Admiral
Henry T. Mayo on board and flying his four star flag.
The detail was a feather in Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner’s cap, and
brought him into favorable contact again with Lieutenant Commander E. J.
King, Deputy Chief of Staff to Admiral Mayo. There are many disad-
vantages to flagship duty, but one of the real advantages, in those days, at
least, was that the senior officers in the ship and on the Flag officer’s staff
were apt to have been carefully chosen, and more than apt to prosper in
their future climb up the Navy ladder.
Although only a junior grade lieutenant in 19I6, Turner was to become,
within 15 months, first a Turret Officer, then the Assistant Gunnery Officer
of the Pennsylvania, and then in late 1917, when only a senior lieutenant
of one year seniority, the Gunnery Officer of the Michigan (BB-27 ).
He had the good fortune to have Captain Henry B. Wilson, a future
Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, as his captain in the Penn-
~ylvania, and Captain Carlo B. Brittain, an up-coming Flag oficer, as his
captain in the Micbiga.
One of his first flight shipmates in the Pennsyivatzia was Lieutenant
Raymond A. Spruance, Class of 1907, later to be his immediate boss during
the Central Pacific campaigns in 1943–1945.
The Pennsylvania, on a displacement of 31,4oo tons, mounted twelve
14-inch 45-caliber guns in her main battery and twenty-two 5-inch 5l-caliber
guns in her secondary battery, and made 21 knots. The Mickigan was six
‘4SECNAV, Annual Repor!, 1914, p. 6.