Even in the modern Navy a lot of time at sea many divisions work a 4 hour on, 4 hour off schedule. During those 4 hours off you eat, clean, sleep, do other work ... your division may not have the numbers of sailors break things up enough to do 4 hours on and 8 hours off. In port or at sea when the ship receives high ranking visitors (officers equal in rank or higher than your C.O.) the Quarterdeck bell is rung as part of the "Honors" rendered to that officer, the number of bells received is determined by that visitors rank. Yes, the small Quarterdeck bell or a similar small bell on the Bridge when underway, not the big 'Ship's Bell.' The announcement would be broadcast over the 1MC general announcing circuit shipwide. Commander and Captain or other service equivalent receive 4 bells (DING-DING ... DING-DING) Flag officers of One or Two star rank receive 6 bells Three and Four stars receive 8 bells as do the POTUS, VPOTUS, SECDEF and SECNAV. The arrival announcement which follows the bells tells you who it is who is arriving, usually by announcing the name of ship commanded or the officer's posting, so the announcement should sound something like 'DING-DING ... DING-DING ... NEW JERSEY ... ARRIVING' for USS New Jersey's Captain, or for a Two Star Admiral 'DING-DING ... DING-DING ... DING-DING ... CRUDESGRU TWO (Cruiser Destroyer Group Two) ... ARRIVING.' Similar announcements would be made when those dignitaries left the ship with the word ARRIVING replaced (of course) with DEPARTING. If that Officer is in your chain of command, the end of the announcement would be accompanied by a single Bell or 'stinger' at the end of the arrival / departure ceremony. The East Coast battleships in the 1980s - 90s came under the command of Commander Cruiser Destroyer Group Two. His arrival would therefore sound like 'DING-DING ... DING-DING ... DING-DING ... CRUDESGRU TWO ... ARRIVING ... DING!' When I ran my Quarterdeck Watch as Officer of the Deck In Port, I would have my Petty Officer of the Watch sound the bells and make the announcement the moment I was certain it was that officer approaching my ship. We would then wait until that officer's foot hit the top of the brow or touched the deck and the PooW would then ring the 'Stinger.' I once flummoxed my Command Duty Officer when I had my PooW sound 4 bells and announce 'COLONEL, UNITED STATES ARMY ... ARRIVING.' This gent was in full dress uniform, his Eagles in plain sight on his dress coat. His arrival caught us a little by surprise, we WERE expecting him but no one expected him in his uniform (US Army Retired) and no one informed the Quarterdeck watch standers what was going on, so I fell back on my training. This Gentleman was an Uncle of the man our ship was named for and was to visit with our Captain. I had a chance to talk with him for a moment after I got off watch. He told me that my watch team and I had made his day ... he had NEVER before received Navy 'Side Honors' while visiting his nephew's namesake ship. The Side Honors we rendered were totally correct and he received similar honors when he departed in company with the Captain. The Command Duty Officer (a Lieutenant who should have known better) asked me "what the F*** did you do that for?" after my Messenger escorted the Colonel to the Captain's Inport Cabin. The Executive Officer overheard and straightened the LT out very quickly. CDO and XO had come charging out of the Wardroom when the unexpected announcement was made. I was a Petty Officer First Class at the time, with about 12 years service I had about 6 more years in than the LT did. Yeah, a long winded Sea Story, but a true one.
Spent a lot of time doing ship checks at NOB Norfolk as a civilian yardbird, almost had a chance to hear “United States, Arriving” on a carrier but the visit was delayed and I had left for the day. Missed opportunity.
Officer of the deck Underway On an LKA with our complement of 300 Marines, made this announcement at 0100 hours via the 1mc, cutting out all circuits except troop berthing. “As a thank you to our Marine riders, ice cream is served on the mess deck.” The mess deck was secured due to the hour. The thundering of hundreds of boots down p-ways and ladder wells was most impressive. After I made the announcement, the bridge watch was shocked, then we all howled with laughter. Best 1mc announcement ever. Skipper was more bemused than annoyed. Col of troops was annoyed. Great fun in the late eighties.
There were traditions of ringing the bell 12 times for the new year if I remember correctly. It usually consisted of 6 bells by the oldest man onboard followed by 6 bells by the youngest.
I was among the few ET's that didn't have a fear of heights so I have been to the very tip top many times. I remember getting that chit signed from the bridge down to the engine room before I went aloft. FDR CVA-42 1975.
The bell on the forecastle and the gong on the fantail (for ship lengths 100 m or greater) are used while the ship is at anchor in restricted visibility. They are sounded at 1 minute intervals (staggered a second or two each cycle as to to mask the sound of another ships sounding) in the following manner: rapid ringing of the bell for 5 seconds following by a rapid striking of the gong for 5 seconds. Have done that many times in my Navy career. The watch keeping bells are mainly for the deck watch, i.e. pilothouse/bridge watch standers including lookouts. As far as I know, that hasn't changed. It really doesn't mean much for the engineering watches or say someone in supply or admin. There has always been a disconnection for some about the purpose and scope of those bells. I have been on minimum manned ships, the FFG-7's were a great example. The Navy discovered that it really doesn't work. Not enough people to perform duties plus inadequate rest if at sea for more than a few days. I am all for given LPO's the discretion to send their charges to there racks for sleep at anytime it is necessary. I can tell you, I have been exhausted with constant 30 hour days over a deployment. Yes, I have heard the Roach Coach is making its approach...once! My favorite is liberty call, but tied is when the BMOW pipes chow (long version). QM1
Per the International Regulations for Prevention of Collision at Sea (COLREGS) Rule #35 the ships bell is only used while at anchor in reduced visibility. The bell must be placed in the "forepart" of the vessel and vessels over 100 meters long must also have a gong close to the stern (I suspect that during WWII the rules were a single bell located towards the middle of the ship, hence why NJ had 2 bells). Once every minute the ships bell is rung rapidly for 5 seconds followed immediately by the gong also ringing for 5 seconds. While navigating in the fog the ship's whistle would serve as the warning device. I've spent a lot of hours navigating in the fog, you cannot tell which way the ship is pointing by the time delay of the sound since the gong is rung after the bell, but it does tell you it's a big freaking ship ahead so go wide.
A buddy of mine told me about a very unique announcement when an Admiral came on board. The first order that he gave when he set foot on deck was to call for battlestations. Since NOBODY was expecting that to happen it took a while for everything to get 'manned and ready'. The Admiral then told the crew that he would not tolerate having the slowest ship in the Navy, but he would take it easy on the men since it was his first day in command. At 1 minute after midnight he ordered General Quarters...and every 30 minutes thereafter. It must have worked because by dawn that crew was breaking records getting to their GQ stations.
we had a ship wide announcement one by a civilian on the Nimitz in 2007 in Dubai, Steven Tyler made it and I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something to do with doing it like a sailor. .
One I will never forget is "Fire in the Mess Decks, This is NOT A DRILL" Underway in the Pacific with no other accompanying ships really is a thrill when you hear that........Jay
Another interesting tradition is that in the morning at 0800 the flag is raised on the fantail of the ship. All ships in port have to know their order of seniority. At exactly 0800 the most senior ship blows blows a regular whistle blast into the microphone of the ships 1MC and the flag detail tosses the flag into the air and they smartly haul up the flag to the peak. The next senior ship is supposed to follow with the same routine and so on down the line. Pretty cool to hear the slightly delayed whistle blasts. When you observe it the action happens so fast it looks like it is all happening at once. Some Admirals would look at all this through binoculars for ships in their squadron and take to task those CO's that couldn't get their sh*t together and do it right. One thing about the Navy, we have our traditions, some we don't even know why we do it. Just part of the sea.
My dad, a retired EOC, had a striking ship's bell clock in the house when I was a kid. I absolutely loved it. Even now I love the sound of a ship's bell clock. I'm going to miss him.
I was on the USS Coral Sea CV-43. In 1977 we were anchored off the coast of South Korea. Weather conditions prevented the liberty boats from getting between the ship and the port so we really had liberty call drills.
I hated that on a carrier. On our Med Cruise on the USS America (CV66) and even on our South America cruise, after anchoring out and putting the liberty boats in the water they started liberty call. It was like Chiefs first, then E-6 and above. Then E-5 and above. Finally it was E-4 and below. By the time the E-4's and below got to the beach the beer was warm and the 'party favors' were wore out.
Ha ha, when you began describing the shortened watch, I had to pay particular attention in case you referenced Jack Aubrey's best-loved joke, first spoken by his friend Stephen Maturin - and you did not disappoint, not at all! 👏 Terrific books, worth reading and re-reading. 🤩
My father, a 20 vet of the US Navy, bought an 8 bell mantle clock for our home. It got to the point we never had to look to see what time it was, we just knew.
That surprised me when I joined the Navy and my first few days onboard my first ship. At first it was just this really annoying noise which kept waking me up, but I'd say I got used to it within a week, and maybe a month or two later realized I always knew roughly what time it was without having to look at my watch or a clock, sometimes even in the middle of sleep.
My favorite shipboard announcement was when I was at NPTU Ballston Spa, a nuclear propulsion training unit. As background, we weren't allowed to smoke in the engine room. However, there was a time when we had a pretty severe condenser vacuum leak, and the mechanics couldn't find it. So the Ship Supervisor (the civilian in charge of the S8G prototype plant) got permission from the CO and made the announcement "The smoking lamp is lit in the S8G engine room". All the smokers were allowed to smoke in the engine room because the smoke would be drawn to the vacuum leak! It was sad when they found the leak and the smoking lamp was extinguished.
We were anchored in Hong Kong and a junks would stop at the ship selling about anything from souvenirs to clothing to food and snacks. The quarterdeck watch once pasted “the floating roach coach is making its approach” over the 1MC. Got a huge laugh out of guys in the berthing lounge. Only in Hong Kong B. Schmitt, HM2/USN 1984-1991
My father was an ex Royal Navy Matelot, and used to wake us every school-day with the cry: "Wakey-wakey! Rise and shine! Heave-ho, heave-ho, rise up and stow!" Even though he was 12 years out of the Navy, it was still ingrained. If we didn't get up, he'd tip our beds out on the floor.
My favorite announcement would have to be Sweepers because I actually got to announce it a couple times when I was standing Bridge Watch. "Sweepers, Sweepers. Start your brooms. Get a clean sweep down fore and aft. Sweep down all lower decks, ladders, and passageways. The fantail is open." This was in the days when trash was all dumped over the stern to be thoroughly mixed by the screws. I think this is no longer done. But, on a carrier, the fantail is closed, no on allowed back there, except watch standers, when recovering aircraft.
Good morning sir/ma'am. The officer of the deck sends his respects and wishes to inform you of the approaching hour of 12 o'clock. All reports are in hand. Respectfully request permission to strike eight bells on time.
@@ghost307 Cute. The battleships were nearly (but not quite) the noisiest ships on the water under way, only the carriers were noisier. From my destroyer we could track carriers and the Iowa using the bow sonar in 'listening' mode out to more than 50 miles on some days.
Speaking off "down time" between watches makes me wonder, with limited crew storage space onboard, how often would a crewman have to do laundry? How many duty uniforms were issued?
Serving on USS Mississippi CGN-40 in the Med at the first Gulf of Sidra incident. Got off my 0200 to 0600 EOOW watch and went to the bridge before morning mess. OOD told me to go to CIC to see what is happening because 2 F14s shot down 2 Libyan jets. In CIC, I heard the CO say "Go for it" and I started to run out of CIC because I knew the next 1MC was going to be "General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations...." Keep in mind this was at 0630 and most were just getting up. We had stations manned, Zebra set in 3 minutes!!! After 4 hours of waiting to see what the Libyan would do (nothing), we secured from GQ and went back to doing our missile exercise with 6 cruisers and destroyers plus 2 carriers.
Interesting the ship's bells are steel, rather than bronze for durability in salt air. I would hope the sailors aboard her took pride in saving that bronze for critical systems ... perhaps onboard the NJ!
"There are divers working over the side. Do not rotate screws, cycle rudders, take a suction from or discharge to the sea without first checking with the diving supervisor." That went about every 5 minutes over the loud speakers if you had divers doing something to your hull.
My father mentioned disconnecting the ships listing alarms while in the North Sea WW2. on a Heavy Cruiser. What does a Listing Alarm sound like and is there such an Alarm ? Thank you.
When the ship was underway, was "official ship's time" adjusted daily to correspond to local noon or local midnight at whatever longitude you happened to be? On transatlantic liners, there was often a master clock system on the bridge or in the chartroom that with a single adjustment reset all the linked clocks on board. Was there anything similar on warships?
The official ship's time is keep by the ship's chronometers in the charthouse. Those are started in GMT and the daily errors are recorded for correct to GMT. The mechanical chronometers had to be wound daily at 11:30 LMT. The US Navy doesn't use local apparent noon for time keeping purposes. It is used to obtain a latitude. The US Navy uses Local Mean Time, that corresponds to the Time Zone the ship is operating within. There is no master clock the resets all the clocks aboard. Depending on era, the Navy preferred sending a Clock Petty Officer around to adjust and wind the ship's clocks. Later, when the clocks became battery operated, the duty Quartermaster would do the official time check/hack from the bridge and the personnel in the space with the clocks would make their own adjustments in time. QM1
BUT WHY? Would be obvious to any shellback, but I never served on any USN ship. However, I have the utmost respect for anyone that has, and also for their traditions. I can see why there are no audible bells on subs; they're kind of noisy. But one thing I have done is skipper many sailing and power boats, generally under 30 tons, on short and long deliveries, and wouldn't think of disabling the ship's bell clock from ringing every half hour. The only times I was overruled in that decision were when the owner or his wife "couldn't sleep", and so everyone else suffered a huge loss of efficiency and routine for their sake. Preferably there was just One clock that we ran the vessel from, and that clock was a (mechanical "8-Day") Chelsea, because that meant the least amount of tinkering to keep it aligned with UTC. Yes, we kept Local time on the ship's clock, which was adjusted for our current time zone. Digression: The Worst deliveries were the ones with just two onboard, where standing 3 on 3 off meant you were pretty much a zombie by the time you arrived. The Best deliveries were certainly the ones I did alone, but watch-wise I would have to say 3 on 6 off. That's with six people aboard, two people on watch at all times, with a new person coming up every hour and a half. It was always best to let anyone that wanted to overstand their watch, or let their watchmate sleep, do that. You don't need two people to stand watch if there is not a lot of stuff to do. We generally did not employ a dogwatch, but i wouldn't criticize other vessels that did. After the second week there were sometimes watchmates who got tired of each other and it was always ok to shuffle the assignment. On larger vessels this would be disruptive, and larger crews tend to have more specialized jobs, but with six or less it worked well. The Worst number of people to have was 3, hands down. OK for a short trip, maybe, but never the best, which I would say was four. Once you have six or more aboard, it is more trouble than it is worth. Anyway, to answer the "Why": Because the 8 bell system enabled everyone to know Exactly what time it was, without wearing a watch or looking at a clock, and what was expected of them, whether they were Awake Or Asleep. Yes, this system is decipherable even when you're sleeping, which is the one thing everyone wants to do when they're not running the vessel. Thank You
Lol, "The roach coach is on approach"? Never once heard that one. I've been on a couple of ships that had a regular roach coach show up but I never heard it announced over the 1MC. Why would they? Probably the best of course is "Liberty Call" especially overseas.
I've always wondered why it's traditionally a common thing In militaries, especially those based on conscription instead of voluntary, to keep troops In a constant state of sleep deprivation even when not really necessary when one would think that well rested and alert people would do their work more efficiently and safely? Do they think guys numb with exhaustion are more likely to blindly and mechanically obey orders and less likely to question them or what? Or maybe when you're really tired you won't be so afraid for your life?
Usually they are just so strapped for man power that they have to do things that way. There are only so many beds you can fit on a ship, but there are a lot of jobs to be done.
General quarters, general quarters. All hands man your battle stations. Up and forward on your starboard side. Down and aft on your port side. General quarters.
Since you asked about asking questions here goes. I recently visited the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor. Well I couldn't help notice the access hatches on the 5" gun mounts are completely welded shut. Not only are they welded they are ground flush with the turret. I have visited several battleships and have never seen this. Can you explain this? BTW...I have tried asking Missouri but no response? Thanks.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I think that will come back to haunt them badly when deterioration from inside makes its way through the metal. Seems like a locking hasp or, if really desired, a couple of spot welds would suffice.
Many museum ships have even fewer staff than we do and just don't have the time, its a lot of work to pull this off. We will have a few guest appearances from other museums in the next few weeks though.
We have a few options, depending on the circumstances. If we're scaling something and can't carry gear or we hadn't planned to make a video, we use a phone that does pretty well honestly. We have a small studio on board that we shoot our comparison videos and oral histories and what not in. That thing must weigh 10 lbs, but I dont know what it is. Weve got a smaller more handheld camera that theoretically shoots in 4k but I dont love that we use for some stuff and a gopro that we use for Ryans manly feats of strength, i.e. crawling down the gun barrel.
Yeah it’s good that the Navy is trying to get our sailors sleep figured out. As a young Boatswains Mate in the early 1990’s I remember them not giving 2 shits about how much sleep we got. Like they enjoyed punishing us. I remember having the 00-0400 (balls to 4) one night and only got like 2 hours of sleep, worked all day then had the 2000-2400 watch the next night, went to bed around 0030 (1230am) then they hit us with GQ (general quarters) at 2am. Secured GQ at 4am then had to get up at 0600. That type of shit would happen ALL THE TIME.
Now hear this. Now hear this. Attention all hands. C and E and F Divisions and all pharmacist mates will air bedding today. Positively. Sweepers man your brooms. Give her a clean sweep down fore and aft. Sweep down all ladders and passageways. Do not throw trash over the fantail.
@@jamesstark8316 Looks like you are not a G&S fan. Buttercup is the name of the woman who ran the canteen vessel that serviced HMS Pinafore. See: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AoWxp4cJKLk.html or, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d6fygdSJGDQ.html or ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bTPPk198a0E.html Because sailors should never be shy!
How on Earth did people come up with the idea of 4 hours on 4 off? Is that round the clock? No 8 hours of sleep... the whole time? What was the thinking that made that the best choice?
You asked what your subscribers wanted to say about their favorite announcements over the 1 MC. One of my collateral duties onboard the USS Prairie in 1985 was as the welfare and recreation officer (I was assigned to the engineering and deck divisions). I tried very hard to get as many off-ship activities as possible scheduled for our crew. Home ported in Los Angeles, this gave me plenty of opportunities to get free tickets to concerts, movies and other social events, all free to active-duty sailors. When we were overseas, I also finagled free tickets to events. I was pretty successful! Our crew always responded to my voice over the 1 MC when I announced… “this is your welfare and recreation officer…” I was in the deck division, so I had an office on the main deck just below the bridge. Once the crew heard my voice over the Main Circuit you could hear the sound of many, many boots running toward my office, even before they heard what I was handing out for that day. When I left active duty, the wardroom asked me what I wanted on my farewell plaque. I said I wanted to be remembered as the Prairie’s best welfare and recreation officer.
One of the fascinating things is watching the interviews with veterans who served on the NJ, and watching them involuntarily stop speaking and listen to the announcements. Old habits die hard!
The 4 on 8 off plus ships work was bad enough. I preferred the mismatch and the afternoon watch. By hitting the rack just after supper I could get enough sleep to stay functional. Putting in the dog watches got my body so confused I never could figure out what part of the day was what and denied me enough REM sleep. The worst was 6 on 6 off in the fire room of a DD. 12 hours a day in a deafening sauna. After 4 days we were completely exhausted sleep deprived zombies. We could barely keep up with the engines steam demands when cruising. Maneuvering was a nightmare. Since then I have frequently been amused by the thought that some of the most complicated and lethal devices on the planet are being operated and maintained by sleep deprived very young people. I am amazed.
Agree. I hate dog watches. I actually turned down (civilian sailor) a transit because I refused to stand the ridiculous watch schedule a captain was proposing.
(Whispers "Father, forgive me for I have sinned") Puget Sound Naval Shipyard had donated to the Sea Explorers several boats and launches. I was ships Chaplain when the 1MC announced "FIRE IN THE ENGINE ROOM!" On a 35 foot boat. I had the wheel- Admiral Walker went down below with the fire extinguishers to discover that some boys had,,,,uh,,,stored their porn mags next to the ships 4 cylinder diesel "Buddha" exhaust manifold which had almost caught on fire but smoked up the boat. In the middle of winter. With 3 to 5 foot waves which were made worse by the Washington State Ferries wake. Drenched, still stayed at my station but was furious. Not because of the fire; but if they'd asked us older guys where a safe place was to store them we could have avoided this mess. That's the official story and I'm sticking to it after 50 years.
"The roach coach is on approach" was always one of my favorites but....... the top one is, "Liberty call, Liberty call. Liberty call for section.... to expire onboard....." Loved that announcement. Also, "Underway. Shift colors". Thanks for the video. Senior chief, retired.
was crew member of dd986 senior I remember them too lol.Do they still use the bell for time on todays new ships idk myself but sure worked old days when over the side painting an u took ur watch off not to mess it up
Ahoy Senior! There are two overlooked announcements: Rope Yarn and Splice the Main Brace! I was on one ship, I think the USS O'Bannon, where Rope Yarn was every Wednesday afternoon, the noon meal would be slider followed by rope yarn. Three times I have enjoyed splice the main brace twice on USS Forrestal and once on the USS Nicholson. QM1
Sweepers, sweepers man your brooms. All hands living aft, sweep forward, all hands living forward, sweep aft. All hands living amidships, direct trafficking.
My favorite 1MC announcement was made by a civilian VIP. Our submarine was doing a VIP day cruise, and a VIP was given the opportunity to call "Collision Imminent" on the 1MC for fun during a casualty drill. Except he said "Collision in a minute". My favorite 4MC (damage control circuit) announcement is "Flooding in the torpedo room", while the sub was in dry dock.
Due to lack of Manning, my division was put on 5 and dimes watch. Not fun when chief denied late sleepers, and we still had a normal work day. Made deployment go by faster though. Everyone was a zombie and didn’t know what day it was 😆
*1mc* "Free pizza & ice cream is now being offered at the mess hall" *stampede* 5 minutes later... *1mc* "Deployment has been extended indefinitely until further notice."
Could you do a video on the ships 1MC, GQ alarm/lights and salvo alarm? On how they work, what the crew would experience and if they changed during the ships career.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Ahh ok. Then what were the other numbers for, if there were any. BTW, I was in the Army ( Artillery) and we had strange customs also LOL. I've learned a lot about the Navy from your channel.More so than anything else out there. GOOD WORK!
I always wanted to serve on submarines. But I must admit there's one announcement on the 1MC I'd never want to hear on any surface ship: "Battlestations- submerged!"
On the subject of the “gong” - it sounds like it could be renamed the “gonk”. As far as the bells you believed to be the same: as a musician with good relative pitch, I agree, they certainly SOUND the same.
Except of course engineers. We were 6 and 6 most of the time. We did a few stints of 6 and 6 with full workdays underway. Basically 18 hours of work/watch. 6 hours to eat/shower/sleep. Those were the days.
Ryan, there is also a bell mount on the O4 level port side next to the 1MC for ringing the bell every half hour while at sea. We also found a bell mount in the aft gangway shack next to the the 1MC in addition to the one in the forward gangway shack. Chris Barker GRG Battleship IOWA
I feel that keeping with the traditions of the Navy helps new recruits to more easily become part of something larger, more meaningful and develop a sense of pride as they follow in the footsteps of those who came before.
Yeah, but you can't do to the new boots now what we did to them back when. We sent them up to the QM's for some relative bearing grease, to the BM's for some waterline, and then send them down to boiler room for the always enjoyable 'BT' punch. Now days this is considered hazing.
On subs we never used bells...Watches were normally six hours each. Unfortunately, when the nuke carriers started coming out in the early 70's they sucked up a lot of the nuke personnel and many subs were robbed of their reactor operators. Some subs couldn't leave the dock as they only had one RO. I did more than a few patrols in port-starboard watches because we only had two qualified reactor operators on board.
Rumor had it entire class before mine went to Big E for refueling overhaul, fortunately I did get subs. I heard thru grapevine some Nucs never left shipyard in Norfolk and enlistment ended.
I'm not sure that viewers understand that in addition to standing watch, most of the crew still had their regular 8 hour/day job to do. Six days per week. Normally had Sundays off, except that you still had to stand watches. Off course the pay was $300/month, so that made it all worthwhile.
Not just watch standing and maintenance, but throw in doing your quals. for DC plus your watchstations. Then throw in drills, field day...ad nauseum. Twenty years later, my sleep patterns are still screwed up. Being on five and dimes in the machinery spaces, I switched to a 30 hour day: five hours of watch, ten hours of everything else, five more hours of watch, and then trying to squeeze in some sleep in the last ten hours. Thank God we were all youngsters back then. I'm, not sure how the Goat Locker and the older guys in the O-Gang did it.
Except for muster following a night of good liberty it was difficult to be late for anything aboard ship. Never did get the hang of it, hear the bells, look at my watch. Does anyone have fond memories of 'lost' bugle calls? At the very beginning of my career there was a call for everything. Mail call and payday were favs. After the payday call we mustered at our assigned table and got paid in cash, $400 a month back then.
I would like to see a day in the life series where you start off at the bunk and follow a crewmember or officer as they go about their daily duties while including breaks/ meals. Each episode can end back at the bunk.
Shortly after I reported aboard a supply ship on the west coast I was sitting in the wardroom on a duty evening after quarters, when suddenly the 1MC crackled to life with a very non-standard but much-beloved call: "The roach coach is making its approach!". At this the CDO (Command Duty Officer - the CO's designated stand-in) grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the quarterdeck and proceeded to chew the tail off the poor schlub who was standing duty as officer-of-the-deck, and shortly afterwards the 1MC came back to life: "Correction: the Navy Exchange mobile canteen is now on the pier". The next day I talked to the supply JO who'd been the OOD when this occurred, and his comment was, "My petty officer of the watch asked if he could pass the word that way, but I didn't actually think he'd do it!". This stood me in good stead a while later when I was on watch and an eager young petty officer asked, "Sir - can I pass the word that the roach coach is alongside?". I looked him straight in the face and said, "You may pass the word that the Navy Exchange mobile canteen is now on the pier". I got a disappointed look - but I didn't get a personalized butt-chewing from the CDO.
Having been moored just across the pier from New Jersey in the 1980s, I can confirm her quarterdeck bell. Missouri had one also. From reveille until taps, we sounded the time every half hour over the 1MC with the bell on the quarterdeck or the bridge, and we announced every event with a boatswain's pipe and, often, a recorded bugle call. Missouri had the large bells and gong in the same locations for fog signals.
"Sweepers, Sweepers, man your brooms! Give the ship a good, clean sweep down, both fore and aft! Sweep down all lower decks, ladderwells, and passageways! Dump all garbage clear of the fantail!" I first heard this on the USS Guam during Mardi Gras in NOLA in 1991. I stayed there in crew berthing as a guest all week. What a fun experience that was!
"Roach Coach !" Un Oh, That's no good. One sailor aboard our ship announced that on the ships PA. Needless to say he was told never to do that again. Although everybody aboard the ship referred to the chow wagon as the Roach Coach, I guess our captain was not happy hearing it? "Sweepers Sweepers, man your brooms......" I can hear it now. How many times does the gong ring for general quarters? I have NEVER heard it done correctly in any movie I have watched. I've heard under the count, but lots went over the count. I wish movies would pay more attention to detail. Watches: We stood 4 on and 4 off. We also stood 6 on and 6 off but we never had what you referred to as a, "Dog Watch. " I never heard of that before. But once underway and we did not run split plant (only one boiler) aboard our destroyer, we went to three sections since we then had extra men. Now that we liked. 4 on and 8 off, much better, but you still have your normal work day. In the Persian Gulf we did go to tropical hours so were could knock off early. Barry PS......Again, very good video. Really enjoyed it.
What really sucked is when you are tied up 3 or 4 abrest and you are the outboard ship and order a pizza. Four quarterdecks and you were lucky to make it back with any pizza at all.
Thank you for an excellent & informative video. Having worked 4 hour watches at sea, I never felt fully rested. 8 hours rest is never enough because you can subtract breakfast/shower time off of that as well as the time taken to un-wind after a busy watch. It often only equated to 6 hours sleep. The 8 to 12 is the best but the 12 to 4 was always a killer because you had to sleep when everyone else was awake, when the sun was out & on a stomach full of stodgy breakfast.
Funny story about bells... I worked on a schooner that had two ship's clocks with bells below decks - one in the chart house and one in the galley, and for a while they were slightly out of sync. If I woke up in the middle of the night and wondered how much time was left till my watch, in theory I should've been able to listen for bells and know. Problem was, my rack was between the two clocks. One would start to ring, I'd start to count, then the other would start and completely destroy my count.
