at which these few selected matters were discussed in council and decisions made. The final results of these deliberations were the only matters that were referred to me. This system of subdividing responsibility and authority not only promoted efficiency but it left the Force Commander time to attend to vitally important questions of general policy, to keep in personal touch with the high command of the Allied navies, to attend the Allied naval councils, and, in general, to keep his finger constantly on the pulse of the whole war situation. Officers of our own and other navies who were always coming in from the outlying stations, and who could immediately be placed in touch with the one man who could answer all their questions and give immediate decisions, testified to the efficient condition in which the American headquarters was maintained.
One of our departments was so novel, and performed such valuable service, that I must describe it in some detail. We took over into our London organization an idea that is advantageously used in many American industrial establishments, and had a Planning Section, the first, I think, which had ever been adopted by any navy. I detached from all other duties five officers : Captain F. H. Schofield, Captain D. W. Knox, Captain H. E. Yarnell (who exchanged places afterward with Captain L. McNamee of the Plans Section of the Navy Department), and Colonel R. H. Dunlap (of the Marines), who was succeeded by Colonel L. McC. Little, when ordered to command a regiment of Marines in France. These men made it their business to advise the Commander-in-Chief on any questions that might arise. All were graduates of the Naval War College at Newport, and they applied to the consideration of war problems the lessons which they had learned at that institution. The business of the Planning Section was to make studies of particular problems, to prepare plans for future operations, and also to criticize fully the organization and methods which were already in existence. The fact that these men had no administrative duties and that they could therefore devote all their time to surveying our operations, discovering mistakes, and suggesting better ways of doing things, as well as the fact that they were themselves scholarly students of naval warfare, made their labours exceedingly valuable. I gave them the utmost freedom in finding fault with the existing regime; there was no department and no office,
