As someone who retired as a pit snipe in 2002, and still works on US Navy ships, I can say this poem is of a bygone age. There are only 6 conventional oil fired steam ships left in the Navy. They are the Wasp class LHDs. And the Wasp, which I was a part of her commissioning crew, is 34 years old. It is sad to think that in my lifetime I will probably see the end of oil fired boilers on ships.
All the words in the snipes lament ring true to my experience of being a navy snipe down below decks in the engine room. It is a fight every day keeping the engines running. On the USS Iwo Jima they had a major steam leak and 10 sailors died from it. I was one of the lucky ones . I will never forget my shipmates who made the sacrifice with their lives to keep the engines running.
We snipes never got any glory at all, The planes and missiles and guns got the attention, But as we used to say: If the snipes don’t groove the ship don’t move”
As I remember my days as a BT,you come on 3 days to pulling out to light Boilers,stand watch as if your out a sea.As the Twigets and Deckapes,and Scopedopes had liberty.First one's on last ones to leave.I know that the rating of BT is gone,there all Monkey Mates now.
I served with a MMCM once, he made rank about as fast as possible, and he told me the best advice he got. When you talk to your detailer, tell him "I've got a green ID card and you cant f**k me." Send me haze gray underway! When you get there learn your job and all those above you. One day you might find yourself with two stars.
I was a MM 08-12. How is it going? Two years later and then some. Where did you wind up? If you go to japan get to yokosuka and check out a bar called "blue in green" they have live music every weekend. the bartender is named yoshi, he makes the fuck out of a jack and coke. Tell him wesley said "hello and i hope he is well."
I to served as a Boiler Tech 1987-1997; USS DURHAM (LKA-114) 600psi main steam, USS FOX (CG-33) 1200psi main steam (my best ship, great crew and a better captain) & USS TARAWA (LHA-1) 600ps main steam. Yeah the Navy in their ultimate wisdom merge us BT with the MM's (Monkey Mates back in 1997 lol).....Navy forever...GOOOOOOOOOOOO Navy!!!!!
Nice, i was on the gw. I invented something called "the pocket game" to play at CO's call. You empty all the trash from your pockets into the pockets of the person in front of you without them noticing. Points are awarded based on the size of the trash you deposit in the other person's pockets.
Remember the Broadside cartoon showing snipes looking through the big eyes at the beach and the caption read "Looks like we're having a good time here in Bongo Bongo." Ha!
It how the only way the Navy spent three years on the USS Piedmont AD 17 1974 to 1977 med cruise has a hole snipe. still. working with steam to this day
Always an excellent poem, how's about posting the 600psi version for all of us snipes who served in those plants. USS IOWA BB-61: 600psi at 850°f superheated steam from 8 B&W "M" type boilers. As an Electricians Mate (EM) our switchgear was usually located in load centers adjacent to the fire /engine rooms this is why we were usually referred to as "fresh air snipes". On the Battleships it was different, the 4 main switchboards were located in each engineroom on the opposite side of the space from the main engine, the 2 SSTG 's feeding that board in between the two. These were NOT remotely operated like todays engineering plants, everything was manual control so as a switchboard watchstander you were in the ER for the duration of your watch, it had to be manned 24/7/ while underway or aux. steaming. So yes, I claim to be a hole snipe as I stood my watches with dungarees rolled up to my knees, my chambray shirt off, my skivvie shirt sleevless & mid-drifted, a wet towel around my neck, a wet bandana on my head and a very large Gott beverage ice cooler at the benchboard with me in that 96° Engineroom right alongside my MM Brothers. In closing I'll give you this: 8 burnin'; 4 churnin'; 4 turnin' ! !
"And on the 8th. day of creation God created Snipes and the gates of hell were thrown open"; "Snipes, Heaven don't want us - Hell's afraid we'll take over"; "And on the first day of creation God said "Let There Be Light"...and the answer came back "Number one switchboard AYE" ! !
@@lionsfaninva5536 "We're Battleship Sailors, when the going gets too tough for the others, it's just damn right for us"..........OR.......... "We're Battleship Sailors, Uncle Sam's Navy don't make us anymore".
650 will as well, thanks to all who were lured into this position. Be strong and always look out for your brothers, and get out if you can. Love to all true soldiers, not the ass holes giving orders, no matter branch. American pride should be in the product we perfectly provided w/ unequivocal perfection, all the time every time.
Try to be on a bird farm flattop during Top Gun in 87 and also being a Snipe. Surrounded by Airedales and flyboys from off shore airwings...nah I'll always be proud to be called Turdchaser. R-Div CV-61 84-88. CHT, Metal, DC and Pipe Shop. Even did some turnin and burnin in the MR Shop next door. Yeah.
Nope, we are trained to make shit run. If snipes don't groove the ship don't move. Even our officers are different. Efficiency and quality of work make our officers happy.
Can you make one for Supply? We've been around since the beginning of the Navy, always in the background. Some calls us the most thankless jobs on the ship. If we do everything right, no one knows. If we mess up, the everyone knows. We exist at every command; we are in the sky, we are on the seas, the land, and even deep below. Supply is there, if someone else is working, we're working.
Sure Ill make you one . Down in the whole- steam may burn snipe nuts - While supply personell complain all day about showering and paper cuts , Let there be no mistake when supply personell shoot straight from the hips , As the most dangerous job that they have- is finding paper clips .
now each of use from time to time has gazed upon the sea and watched the mighty warships pulling out to keep this country free, and most of us have read a book or heard a lusty tale bout theses men who sail these ships through lightning wind and hail but there's a place within each ship that legends fail to teach its down below the waterline and it takes a living toll a hot metal living hell that sailors call the hole, it houses the engines that run with steam that make the shafts go round a place of fire noise and heat that beats your spirits down, with boilers like a hellish heart with blood of angry steam, our molded gods without remorse are nightmares in a dream, who's threat from fires roar is like a living doubt that at any moment with such scorn might escape and crush you out, where turbines scream like tortured souls alone and lost in hell are ordered from above somewhere they answer every bell, the men who keep the fire lit and make the engines run are strangers to the light and rarely see the sun they have no time for man or god no tolerance or fear there aspect pays no living thing a tribute to a tear for there's not much that men can do that these men haven't done, beneath the decks deep in the hole to make the engines run, and every hour of every day the keep the watch in hell for if the fires ever fail, the ships a useless shell, when ships converge to have a war upon a angry sea the men below just grimly smile at what there fate will be, there locked below like men foredoomed, who hear no battle cry, it is well assumed if they're hit men below will die, for every days a war down there when gauges all read read, twelve hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead, so if you ever write there song or try to tell their tale, the very words would make you hear a fired furnace wail, and people as a general rule dont hear of theses men of steel, so little known about this place sailors call the hole, but I can sing about this place and try to make you see the hardened life of men down there cause one of them is me, ive seen these sweat soaked heroes fight in super heated air to keep there ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there, and thus they'll fight for ages on til warships sail no more amid the boilers mighty heat and the turbines hellish roar, so when you see a ship pullout to meet a warlike foe remember faintly if you can the men who sail below
Served almost 21 years as EN. USS MIDWAY CV-41 JAPAN 86-88 USS FIFE DD-991 JAPAN 88-90 USS THATCH FFG-43 90 93 PORT OPERATIONS YOKOSUKA YTB787 93-96 PORT OPS SAN DIEGO SUBBASE 96-99 USS BLUERIDGE LCC-19 99 -02 USS CURTIS WILBUR DDG- 54 02 -06 RETIRED 06 . CIVILIAN MARINE MACHINERY MECHANIC PORT OPS 32ND STREET NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO 07 TO PRESENT .
@@lasvegascream1799 hardest non combat role in the navy. Harder than some of those too. Lack of sleep is the least of your worries down there. Spinning equipment, steam, hot oil, not to mention heat exhaustion. Everything in the engine room wants to kill you. It takes everybody down there going full speed at peak performance to keep everything right, and when they are wrong people could die. But yes air-conditioning and refrigeration is something you can learn as a machinist mate. It is a special school. Usually people go to the fleet and then get selected for ac&r school. Go to different towns and talk to two or three recruiters.
I was a snipe in reactor. Conventional MM, Stood watch, worked and stood watch again. This poem could be could be gender friendly. It’s not just men doing shaft ally watches or reboiler watches, or cold iron watches. Women are down there too. I was not a nuke, yeah they get paid extra, and they get a longer time to get “qualified” we just have the same duty rotation, and “2 week fast cruises” when the rest of the ship is still on 8 section duty going out every day. FUCK THAT SHIT
"Men" ,in this case, refers to all mankind. Also this was written sometime in ww2, before women were allowed on ships. The work itself does not need to change, the way we interpret it does.
MM2. 99 - 06. LSD37 and CVN73. OIF. OEF. It’s kinda scary when you hear General Quarters for real when your down there. Definitely gets the blood pumping. Reminder: the poem was written by an unknown snipe, most likely during WW2, before women were allowed certain jobs or even allowed in the Navy, hence the gender specific language.
