ABSTRACT
Traditional naval belief was founded on a profound misperception of water, upon which all else rested. Unlike land-based cathedrals, it was the battleships misfortune to float in a physical medium even less substantial than the body of belief that had brought it into existence. The implications for the naval establishment were shattering. To the mind of the conventional naval strategist, it seemed only proper that the potent torpedo armament of the destroyer should be turned to defensive purposes. Inexperienced with the ways of technology, the naval world failed to understand that the submarine-torpedo system, unlike the gun-surface ship combination, was at the beginning of its cycle of evolution. In contrast to the commodious battleship, the submarine was an alien and hostile environment where the starch of naval custom quickly wilted and dress whites were soon stained with grease. The feeling against submarine weaponry was probably greatest at the hub of the naval world, in Britain.
