But if the factor of leadership had fallen into low estate in Washington, it still rated high in the aircraft squadrons. Frank Wagner and I had observed the vast differences in character displayed by ships and organizations, and had noted that each had seemed to take on some of the personality and character of the man or men who had founded it, and to retain that personality and character no matter who had succeeded to command. If the U.S.S. _Taddlyadlie_ started out as a “smart ship,” she would always be a smart ship; and if the U.S.S. _Tiddlywinks_ started as a “madhouse,” her career would become a series of variations of that theme. With that idea in mind, we determined to give the aircraft squadrons a propitious start and began some tall wangling to gain our ends. For this we brought two powerful arguments to bear: the lives of pilots depended upon the quality of the leaders; if we were to be held responsible, we must have authority over our leadership selections. In our tough battle against this leveling system we won every skirmish but one—a squadron that suffered our only breakdown in morale. While focusing attention on the quality of leadership of our subordinates, we did a little soul searching of our own. The rapid development of gadgetry in the Navy had tended to create a special group of staff-officer specialists who had become “plank owners” on various staffs. Thus the intricacies of steam engineering, or gunnery, or radio communications, or what have you, had become so mysterious to the average line officer that the specialists had taken over a lot of authorities without accepting the corresponding responsibilities. An admiral, for instance, might sign out a long-winded technical document without being able to pronounce the words, or he might let his radio officer sign the paper “by direction.” The addressee would turn the masterpiece over to his radio officer for reply, and thus accept responsibility for fundamental decisions fogged up by technical jargon. Even Admiral Reeves had tended to shift the administrative authorities to me and the operations to Frank Wagner. But Frank and I determined to have none of that; we directed these matters right back to the admiral.