In this episode we're visiting an essential part of life on board ship, the trash incinerator! To support this channel and the museum, go to: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
On submarines we had to make everything fit in a weighted nylon bag about 8 inches across by 2 ft. long. Could take 10 minutes to get rid of a damn cardboard box. It all went out a mini torpedo looking tube in the galley. When the sanitary (sewage) tanks were emptied the biologics would go nuts. Were they happy about the sudden feast or angry about getting hit by a turd? No one knows, but it was loud on Sonar
@@dirkbonesteel Hard to imagine that wouldn't have an impact on the safety of operations for such a stealthy craft. I'm sure it's all classified, but I can't help imagining the frustration of not being able to empty the tanks until you're in safer waters.
@@scorinth You are correct. Newer boats have a electrical pump to empty the tanks, originally designed for Heinz Ketchup. We used air just like ejecting a torpedo. With practice some are good enough to stop the air before tank is empty. There is a bigger problem tho, fish LOVE our trash. A good sonar tech can spot sudden happy sounds coming from thousand or so fish
@@patrickdoty5534there's a saying with sonarmen, "I listen to fish fuck". Need I really say more? I was Army, but due to some compartmented overlap, ran into a few bubblehead fishfuck listeners. I did craft a joke that was loved though amongst that group. Han submarines had a singular distinction of the only submarine in existence to ever require sonar operators to wear hearing protection aboard said submarine. For the looking for safer waters, yeah, my understanding was, hole in the water and noise right behind it equals target. The nice thing about the Army was, nobody shot at me with shit that'd chase me around. Bullets are dumb, cheap and well, pretty much go in a straight line. RPG fragments, I could write stories about random shit blown about breaking ribs, but getting them cleared for publication, aw, screw it. Not worth the hassle. Thankfully, now I'm retired and rated REF. Retired, Extremely Flatulent.
On the Ranger, from 1968-'70, virtually everything went in the ocean. Every living space, working space, etc., would have 1 or more s**t cans. I don't think we had any garbage cans unless we had women/children visiting the ship as on a Dependent's Day Cruise. These would be taken all the way aft to the fantail. There was a chute welded to the stern where we would dump the cans. This directed everything down to the water where it would be sucked down and "chopped" up by our inboard screws which rotated inward. We were only allowed to do this when the fantail was open. The fantail would be closed during flight ops, specifically landing our aircraft. If a plane crashed into the stern, they didn't want any more people back there than absolutely necessary. When sweepers was called at 1900 each evening, the fantail status was announced. When in port and tied up to a pier, all that trash had to go into the Dempsey Dumpsters on the pier. We actually enjoyed that. It was a chance to get off the ship, get something from the geedunk and have a smoke. In 1968 I was taking trash to the fantail. The CAG (Carrier Airgroup Commander) was back there. He'd brought a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum pistol back there for target practice. He'd have us find things that would float and toss them to the side out of our wake where'd he shoot them. He would even let us lowly non-rates take a few shots with the weapon. That was one very sweet pistol. Damn good officer.
Back in the 80's on the Eisenhower we'd dump trash overboard while the ship made a circle, that way there was no way to tell which way we were going The incinerator was mostly for burning classified materials
The OC bullseye tells all the story I need to know about that particular burn room. That incinerator was being run by the Operations Department's Communications Division. The only thing burned in that incinerator was paper to ensure the destruction of classified materials. The Radiomen were not burning any other kinds of trash.
I remember throwing a broken typewriter off the fantail of the Saratoga in the 80s. My first trash dump at see was a little traumatic because I had never thought about it before. In hindsight, it's not like it's any better stuffing everything into a landfill. I do think the Saratoga had one incinerator for certain types of trash and the other for classified material. I think one of them would go down regularly though. I also recall announcements overhead for the incinerators but I don't recall if it was for the Sara or Abe, or both.
@@Tsyroc I was a Marine Infantryman that got yanked out of my “A School” at the School of Infantry on Camp Pendleton early. The year was late 2002 and we had no idea that in 72 hours we would be embarking on LSD’s (USS Pearl Harbor) and sailing out of San Diego for an unknown operation (the invasion of Iraq). Anyway… once on ship I immediately started “cranking” in the scullery because I was an E-3 at the time. I eventually got promoted to go work in the Trash Room. The first trash room space “cleaning” we did involved me trying to throw a broken vacuum cleaner off the flight deck at 3 AM in pitch black rolling seas. I later learned it needed to be done at night so no officers would see us doing it. The vacuum cleaner didn’t get thrown far enough and got fouled in the netting surrounding the flight deck. Guess who had to climb down what felt like 1,000 feet and down out onto that netting staring down into the pitch certain Black Death ocean somewhere far below to free the appliance and throw it into the Pacific? Scared the 💩 out of me but I got the job done and went back to flinging plastic compressed disks like frisbees! I loved the trash room compared to the scullery. 👍🏻😂
Many years ago I had a co worker who passed on this story of his time on a navy cruiser in the 1970's. He worked with top secret communications and once or twice a day he would collect all the paper that was marked for destruction and head for the incinerator. Almost every time he went there a small pot party was going on. Remember this was the 70's and all the smoke and smell was drawn into the fire. He'd catch a quick buzz and head back to work.
I knew it!!!! I was just sitting here thinking how cool it would be to have a nice buzz and to be sitting on the fantail or looking down the bow of BB while underway. If Willy Nelson burned in the WH you know those kids, stopping in ports around the world, "below decks" had to have a whole new meaning.
A thought after Ryan pointed out the alumina paint remaining in the space, A video detailing the paint/colour schemes on different parts of the ship throughout the years would be fascinating- you could look at it from different angles, like why was this color chosen originally, why was it possibly changed, how procurement affected that back then and even now as a museum. You could even host a competition to see who can come up with the best/coolest/most fun livery for the ship... I always wondered what an Iowa would look like in the Great White Fleet!
We had multiple small garbage cans in our space. One for plastics, one for papers, etc. Paper would just go over during trash call, plastics, we'd save until we got to a port and could toss it in regular dumpsters on the pier.
For us while at sea food waste went to a grinder then into the sea. Paperwork was incinerated, confidential and up paper was cross shredded and incinerated the ash went into the sea. Plastic was compressed into manhole cover looking pucks.
I remember reading that when HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned, on her cruise home to be turned into razor blades, tools, spares, anything not bolted down was thrown overboard. The piano from the officers mess was launched off the flight deck using the catapult !
If i recall correctly on a DDG 2000-2004. We called the space PWP. Aluminum got shredded, placed on a burlap sack and tossed overboard at sea. We made them hockey pucks for things such as plastic. But i think a majoring of trash got made into pucks. As an HT the CHT tanks fore and aft i knew well. In port you'd be hooked up to the pier. At least a couple times a day the CHT high level alarm would go off in engineering central control and id have to go down to empty them. The aft cht room was in our shaft alley. At sea same we'd switch to at sea mode and cht and grey water went over the side.
When I was aboard ship in the 90s we had to be outside 25nm to toss overboard. At some point we received a plastic compactor that made the big round disks. Ship was incinerator equipped and it was built in 1960s.
My grandfather served as a seaman in the Royal Navy during WW1. I recall him explaining how seamen in the RN were strictly forbidden to throw anything overboard, because this might create a trail whereby the enemy could track a ship. For this reason, even as late as the 1970's, he would always return a used match to its box rather than discard it. For this reason I am a little surprised that crews of the US navy were throwing refuse OB, especially during wartime - were they really doing this?
I saw one commenter on here say when he was on a navy ship in the 80s they would go around in a circle while they dumped trash so enemy couldn’t determine which way they were going. I’m not sure if that was standard procedure or each captain did something different but it’s a good idea.
@@thornie123 Interesting. I thought they would use a zigzag pattern and only drop small amounts of trash at strictly scheduled intervals. I'm a bit surprised that neither of my theories was correct.
Understand the mindset but I’d recommend against most people returning red hot match sticks into the box filled with unburnt matches. Most people are morons and will burn themselves. 😂👍🏻
On the Bunker Hill at the turn of the century, glass and metal got crushed and put into burlap sacks with weights and thrown over. They did something similar with food waste from the galley. Plastics got crushed into disks (we called them pizzas or stink pizzas) and stored on board until we pulled into port. Cigarette butts went straight into the sea.
I was a Marine Infantryman that got yanked out of my “A School” at the School of Infantry on Camp Pendleton early. The year was late 2002 and we had no idea that in 72 hours we would be embarking on LSD’s (USS Pearl Harbor) and sailing out of San Diego for an unknown operation (the invasion of Iraq). Anyway… once on ship I immediately started “cranking” in the scullery because I was an E-3 at the time. I eventually got promoted to go work in the Trash Room. The first trash room space “cleaning” we did involved me trying to throw a broken vacuum cleaner off the flight deck at 3 AM in pitch black rolling seas. I later learned it needed to be done at night so no officers would see us doing it. The vacuum cleaner didn’t get thrown far enough and got fouled in the netting surrounding the flight deck. Guess who had to climb down what felt like 1,000 feet and down out onto that netting staring down into the pitch certain Black Death ocean somewhere far below to free the appliance and throw it into the Pacific? Scared the 💩 out of me but I got the job done and went back to flinging plastic compressed disks like frisbees! 😂👍🏻I loved the trash room compared to the scullery.
During the early to mid 80s I was stationed aboard an aircraft carrier and we dumped food waste, trash and junk off of the fantail. You name it and I bet I seen it dumped overboard. I once saw them dump a huge Xerox printer overboard. When the ship was out far enough they would announce it over the 1MC. Keep in mind the system works only as good as everyone is honest about what can and can't be dumped. In other words they know nobody is checking those bags and items being dumped. We did have burn bags to take to the incinerator.
I still remember "trash call" onboard my ship during a deployment in 2000-2001, when I was on mess cranking duty, we would take bags of garbage from the galley and throw it off the fantail. You could watch the large paper bags floating in a line for miles before they slipped below the waves.
My 2nd and 3rd ships we had the trash room, where metal and glass were ground up and put in canvas bags to be shit canned over the fan tail. The plastics were melted into disks and stored and the other waste was ground up and flushed over the side. My 1st ship on the maiden deployment (1994) the trash was thrown over the fan tail and the 2nd deployment we had a trash chute off the hanger bay midships on the starboard side that we'd use to get rid of trash.
MARPOL 73/78 came into force in 1983, so after that, you wouldn't be able to throw everything over the side.. Modern ships have to be a lot stricter about what goes overboard. Cruise ships, especially, are in the public eye. When I worked for Holland America Line, there was an environmental officer assigned to each ship to ensure we were complying with the rules. What could be burned was burned. Glass and metal were sent ashore for recycling. Food waste was macerated and pumped overboard. Some of the ships had an AWWPS sewage plant which pumped almost clean water overboard.
I was on board the USS George Washington CVN 73. I was a Undersigned Airman assigned to Weapons Department G3 Division. I went TAD to the Supply department, during that time I ran the incinerator at night. My ship also had a pulpper that handles the ships food waste.
All of the pre-war standard type battleships had incinerators near the forward most funnel if I recall correctly. I know at least the Nevadas, Pennsylvanias, and the Tenna-rados had them on the superstructure (boat/AA gun) deck
On the sub we had a TDU we took a number ten food can from what ever the galley made and made ice to protect the mussel ball valve put the garbage in the TDU which worked like a torpedo tube closed it and flushed it with 10k gallons of seawater and the garbage would come out the bottom - ice then wet food bags then TDU cans weighted with TDU weights
I was the plastic trash guy for 2 months while I had FSA duty back in 05 on FFG-61. We had these machines that would melt the plastics down into these round disc about 2 ft wide. No matter how well you washed the plastic out it was a nasty process. The machines had daily pms cleaning and they would get gunked up with melted plastic and milk and other liquids. I can't do it justice explaining how gross it was. After the plastics were removed we would just throw everything else off the back of the ship
USS Ranger, Marine air wing, late ‘80’s. We’d use burn bags and weighted bags; metal was chucked overboard (broken tie down chains usually). Soviets were generally in trail throughout large portions of our WestPac, likely picking up anything that floated.
I've heard stories about the Royal Navy where rather disgusting things were thrown over the side specifically to piss off the Russians who searched through it. Plus very specific planting of items to give a rather false impression
sensitive papers from crypto or radio were placed in sealed bags and only sailors from that division with the proper security clearance would carry those bags to the incinerator room and place them in the chute personally
When I was aboard New Jersey we incinerated classified waste in an incinerator in the after stack. A spud nozzle in the chimney washed the smoke and ash down to the CHT tanks. It was a separate incinerator from the general waste incinerator down on the second deck. Later in my tour we were blessed with a chipper/shredder that would transform a two-by-four to sawdust in a second. But it was loud and dusty. The best way to destroy classified waste was to not produce it. This was accomplished via remote encryption via satellite.
sounds like some of the intel agencies, docs are often shredded into bags that are then sealed, And only people with clearance handle it along the way to an onsite incinerator, chain of custody noted during all this. Makes me think somewhere in the CIA are a few head janitors who have top secret level clearance and their whole day is destroying classified papers and making sure they all the way to and verify final destruction.
on my second ship in 96 the yards installed 3 plastic melters that took a bag of plastic and turned into a puck about 24" across by about 3 inches deep. they also installed a big paper shredder paper alone. no food. so all unclass paper could be turned into bascily a slurry and then pumped over the side. there was another for classified in another part of the ship. That was LSD. My 3rd ship was a LHD and we had 8 melters and bigger papper pulpers. the plastic pucks from both ships were unloaded as trash inport or unrepped off. What they did with them, i have no idea. We had to pull the rams out of the melters once a month to clean them. it was quite the pain in the ass and took several hours to complete the PM. Even A-Gang had our tasks that were just nasty to do.
Spent most of my cruising time on FF's from the late 70's to early 90's. Don't know is we even had an incinerator, but I do know that how trash got thrown overboard (if at all) changed quite a bit during that time.
I swear the Iowa didn't have one of these. We stage our trash and kept it in a compartment under the powder flats. When we pulled into port we emptied it then.
D. V. Gallery had a fictional character in some of his novels. "Fatso" ran the fictional carrier's incinerator and a lot of unofficial business too. quite funny.
on the hornet ammo boxes were incinerated a random bullet would go off in the incinerator that was in a space off hanger bay two, its exhaust was connected to the ship's stack
Modern high temperature paints are still aluminum colored. Likely, the space was repainted with the more modern coating (binders resins) but that wouldn't be immediately visible.
I don't know if there's a difference between the USS Iowa and USS New Jersey, but when USS Iowa visited Aarhus in the mid 80s, my company supported her with two small dredgers - one sailing sewage and one sailing solid trash away. Don't know where it went.
The old WWII movie about an Attack Transport, "Away All Boats" is the only movie I know about that talks about the issue of disposing of trash on board a ship.
From what I have heard, whoever had to collect up trash was whoever had annoyed their Chief or officer that week. But there were Sailors assigned to the incinerator. I wouldn't doubt but that an officer would now and again have to personally put classified material into the incinerator himself to ensure it was burned since that has been an approved method of disposal for a while.
I worked the pulper occasionally on a Nimitz carrier, and cranked in the scullery for 3 months. I know how trash is handled real well on ship. Even refused illegal orders from a Chief (now CWO) that is a criminal in the Fat Leonard Scandal when he tried to make us dump hold on station trash. He was the worst of the two bad E-7s I had in my career. "Rapping Chief Brian Ware"
Admiral Daniel V. Gallary wrote a book about the incinerator room on an Aircraft Carrier "Now Hear This" if you can find a copy a very enjoyable read about the chief that ran the incinerator "Fatso".
@@BeKindToBirds I don't doubt that modern supercarriers use electric incinerators (because nuclear power), but how do you know they are plasma arc incinerators?
@@richardmillhousenixon It is called Plasma Arc Waste Destruction System (PAWDS) Developed for the Ford class carriers to increase the efficiency of waste management on ship. There are several scholarly articles you can find about its development by the Navy for the Ford class.
Most interesting thing I got to throw over the side was about 200 5 gallon cans of flight deck topping paint because we didn't have sufficient flammable storage in V-1 Div. Tossed from the catwalk at flight deck level. They exploded upon impact. White red yellow purple green. This was 1983.
That was my understanding, hence the garbage shredder. (On BB55 the garbage shredder looked awful small to grind up all the ships waste on a daily basis..)
I would like to see his opinion on how pre dreadnaught mikasa has been preserved as it was encased inland. As it is quite old has she presented the pancaking effect or was she able to maintain structural integrity. IMHO even most of the interior had to be scraped in 30-50 years. Having the hull encased inland with as little weight above ground as possible. Removing armoured decks etc. Battleship restaurant or entertainment hall New Jersey would still be better than scrapping it. I see steel ships as being able to find a new role in the community after their time as a museum comes to an end.
I am wondering if there was a specific job code for a trash burner swab? Would they be considered party of the Mess Dept? If you were assigned to this job fuction, was that were you would stay for your whole career if you went 20-30 years? Chief Petty Officer of waste desposal?
On the mid 90s, incinerators normally were used for sensitive documents (burn bags) and maybe plastics. 99% of all trash besides plastic went overboard. I did not see plastic recycling equipment till 2008 when went to KITTY HAWK
Does not look like any was captured, but all went up the flue with the boiler gas. Not enough heat to make recovery useful, and not running all the time as well, so just using a small amount of fuel oil to burn the garbage, and then up the stack.
Question: where did the crews for these auxiliary areas (cooks/trash/supply) go during combat operations? Where they given supplemental roles such as damage control or assisting with handling the AAA ammunition?
@@BattleshipNewJersey thank you, that video answered my questions. I was in the Army (a lot smaller vehicle) and our combat engineer squad had duties split just like this. We’d have an alternate or two assigned to each task to ensure everyone knew there roles and we’d train like this as well. Appreciate the feedback.
On my ship if you were in Port you put trash in receptacles are the pier what’s your 50 miles out all trash is dumped over the fantail and I serve from 83 to 87
Can you please show us the air compressor units onboard? I worked at a ski resort that had an air compressor from a Navy vessel not sure which, all I know is that it had navy symbols stamped all over it.
Since New Jersey has a butcher shop, was it just for cutting meat into the different cuts, or did they actually take on live animals at time for the freshest meat possible and butcher them right on the ship?
@@finscreenname I would believe that the chef in the us army were educated about slaughtering and butchering. A number of swedish army units in Afghanistan bought living goats and then had a feast. Only trouble: how to reimburse them for the business ... so they took a photo of the farmer with the money, the goat, the ready made food and the empty platters.... and the accountant took that into her books....
You don't want to burn plastics -- that can create toxic fumes. You can heat up plastics even at home with a Dremel sanding barrel and it WILL release fumes as well.
actually its save to burn plastics in specially desinged stoves, all the un halogenated stuff will burn like any other Hydrocarbons the clorinated stuff needs to burn pretty hot and then the smoke needs to get washed
There are 2 kinds of trash that which floats and that which sinks. Floating trash can give your position away a ship has so much trash being dumped that the garbage trail can be seen for miles leading straight to the ship I’m assuming that the Incinerator was only used in times of war to burn floating trash
The view on garbage disposal at sea was very different in the past. Here is a public information film from 1964 from Sweden about how to avoid littering at sea: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XrcrX9Qaw2o.html The first example is where you were recommended to make holes in a beer can so it sinks but after that, it was ok to throw it to the sea. Not what we would do today really.
waste isn't being dumped continuously .......and subs don't surface to look for waste that might be miles away from a constantly moving ship.....that's a hollywood thing
@@judpowell1756 tell that to Joheim Priem and other U Boat aces. That was their favorite trick. They could tell the distance by the distance between the trash haw far away their prey was and direction their prey was moving.
@@judpowell1756 they had something modern submariners don't have, nerves of steel, gile, and guts. Today instead of going into a dogfight they can just shoot a missile, rely on computers, no gile or bravado in that. The olden days submarine warfare was a dirty business most of the wolfpacks didn't return after Johiem Priem after sinking the second highest tonnage of allied shipping including the British Battleship Oak Royal he didn't return. American and Japanese subs met the same fate.
Spoiler alert--the ocean is the incinerator. Well into the 90s, if you were something like 15 miles out, you could throw garbage over the side. Anything so long as it wasn't toxic like paint or oil or something.
it's just a small air pressure difference - not a full vacuum. They have to provide venting to the compartment to prevent it from causing the doors to fly open toward the inside or trap the crewmen inside if they opened outward. Not a big difference of pressure, but applied across the area of a door - it's potentially dangerous.
Ryan it seems like your beard is always the same length. How is that possible? I would think by now you would have a full beard but I have never seen you shaven.
Hearing that man talk about the garbage bags was depressing. But why would they incinerate food stuff? That and human waste are the only things that should be thrown over
Blast from the past when doing trash overboard indian ocean the Russian s would put a rubber boat over the side pick up trash in ships rooster tail any thing that was too be deep six was toss over the fan tail .including 55 gal barrel s worn out part that were nt no longer useable cleaning out the holding tanks bilges wet garbage.
I would have thought a ship the size of an _Iowa_ would have at least one huge compactor room with magnetic seals and live-in sea monster. Disappointing.
Ryan, I love you. But man you just aren't set up for doing these videos. I saw when you did the first one. And I wrote that you needed to practice your scripts a little more. But now you've had that practice a whole lot of it and you still look as if someone is just off-screen threatening you. I don't know man maybe have like four shots of really strong liquor before you go on. If that doesn't help maybe give the girl the microphone and you take the camera.. I'm just kidding great video brother keep up the good work.
