We still use the "McDonald's chair" on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower today, and I'm assuming on most other modern ships as well. Ours seem to be quite old, I don't think they've been replaced since the 80s lol. Eisenhower turned 45 years old today btw.
I was on the Ike 2006-2007, as part of the air wing. Most carriers use the "McDonalds" type, but they fold up like a ping pong table, and have wheels, so they can be moved. This is because many of the mess deck areas on carriers are also ordnance handling spaces, if necessary. For offices, most carriers have either standard rolling office chairs, or those metal fixed chairs. Chairs are replaced as they wear out, so this is why you see some places with standard government chairs, and others with commercial rolling office chairs. Government furniture all has assigned stock numbers, but the style of furniture you get when you order that stock number can change, because the supplier of that item is different than the previous one. Barracks furniture changed a few styles over my 20 year career as the contract for it changed over the years.
The company that I went to work for in the early 80's as an Electronic Tech had purchased a ton of government surplus desks and chairs to outfit all the maintenance shops throughout all the facilities. It's funny to see that most of this furniture looks EXACTLY like the metal desks and chairs on the New Jersey. Especially the "tanker chair" with the green bottom/back you sat next to in this video. They were everywhere!! I think they would have been purchased in the 60's so probably some old WWII relics and we didn't realize it. Wish I had of got a few when they shut down the old factories. Oh well.......thanks for a great channel!!!
My desk when I worked at my local newspaper in the early oughties was one of those, too. We even called it "the battleship" because it was grey, metal, and weighed 45,000 tons (as we discovered when we rearranged the office). Wish I'd had the wherewithal to -steal- requisition it when we were bought out by a competing paper and shut down.
Lol when he said you’ve literally been watching a video about chairs on battleship New Jersey for 20 minutes I looked at the time and then was kind of laughing /shocked!
18:00 I was just saying the same thing to myself 😁... the fact that I actually watched nearly 20 minutes of a discussion about seating is a testament to the BB62 squad's ability to make things interesting!
I remember as a kid, we would see tons of the military surplus chairs all over the place, especially the old Steelcase chairs and desks, as Steelcase had the factory nearby. Many of my relatives also served in the military and also had many of the surplus chairs and such as I was growing up!
Ship's Photographer Probably the most underrated positions one could fill yet perhaps one of the most important since they very nearly are the vessel's only vessel of immortality...crewmen in the background included.
You know you have a super interesting channel when a 20 minute video about seating is even fascinating and already has 2.5k views 😆 well done, Ryan and Crew.
I would bet that anything with naugahyde on it was for chiefs and officers. They would probably be the most comfortable and maybe even afford a nauga nap. Having visited USS MIDWAY's CPO lounge I have seen naugahyde couches.
I worked for the Federal Government for a few years during the 80's. The building I worked in was near the Mall and was an old Depression era office building. I distinctly remember having several of those old metal tanker chairs in the back of the office suite I worked in. They kind of looked like original equipment. The eggshell chairs, usually pale orange or a schoolbus yellow color, were ubiquitous in public spaces, like the cafeteria and the HR waiting area.
Looking forward to it. A lot of people use the word pedantic in a negative way. I aspire to it. I also like chairs, I had a job delivering chairs when I was a kid.
On the Bush CVN 77 we still had a veriation on the 80-90s style mess table but they were moveable if I remember correctly. And yes we STILL have the vertually indistructable metal chairs. The chiefs mess had the brown style ones with more cusion and the officers had slightly better ones with more cusions.
On USS Tripoli/LPH-10 in the avionics shop there were bar stools to use at the radio repair work benches. The office staff had the same sort of padded swivel chairs as land bases. Then there was the ready room's fixed theater seating. The mess deck--if memory serves--used those eggshell type chairs that differed little from land based mess halls. This was for a WESPAC cruise from November 1977 to August 1978. I worried that the chairs would become missiles when weather got rough.
I've got a tanker chair and desk I use in my garage. My dad grabbed them, among other things, from his destroyer after decommissioning in the early 70's. They're durable beasts. The desk makes for a great workbench.
Well Ryan, I watched the entire video and was enthralled. Granted, chairs are not the first thing one things about when the word battleship is mentioned. But as others have said, I also worked for years in a federal civilian office. The "tanker" chairs and old steel desks were standard furniture until about 2005. Anyway ... we aways laughed and said they looked like WW II Navy surplus. Now I realize it's a good chance they actually were.
The Field Museum in Chicago had a tumblr blog on all the chairs of the Field Museum and they actually posted regularly for several years before they ran out of material
I did two of my cruises on the same ship (USS Stein FF1065) as part of the helo detachment. First in '79 then later in '92. First time around she had regular chairs that would slide across the mess deck in rough seas, and I believe the tables were movable also but not sure about that. By '92, and frankly other ships I was on in the 80's had the McD's style. And those "tanker chairs" as you call them (never heard that before) must have been made in the billions because they were everywhere in the military and government.
The best bridge chair I have ever sat in for watches was... From a Nissan Pulsar. Modified with an adapter plate. Except for Ralph. Who would flip the back on you while you had a sip of coffee. Miss that guy.
Although those wooden tables and benches are made from wood, when they burn, they don't outgas as many poisonous chemicals when they do burn. BTW, my Dad had one of those aluminum armchairs that he took from his ship when it went into mothballs after WWII. It's in like-new condition.
Ryan, most of our service time was ridiculous and pedantic. This is nostalgia. I spent a period of time I don't care to analyze too closely perfecting my mop skills so I didn't leave streaks. Yeah yeah, combat blah blah... how many times did you almost crash the floor buffer? That's how you know a service member lol.
I never served on a ship but those McDonalds seats and tables look like the ones we had at university lecture halls. There would be a long bench with those chairs that rocked and swung out from the bench. Great until someone would start tapping their foot, then everyone on the bench would feel the vibration. They also had a short life span. The ones that we had would be new and great one year, falling apart the next year, the chairs would be removed the next year and replaced with movable chairs that clogged up the space, and finally replaced in the fourth or fifth year. During the time that I was at university as a student, and later teaching - the bench-chairs in one building were replaced four times. With exactly the same design. Talk about slow learners. :)
Those metal tanker chairs are still a common sight on 3 carriers (cvn) and also L boats. Though I believe there are several types of the metal tanker chairs. Never knew what they were called, thanks for sharing
Great video - thank you These are the sorts of little tid-bits of information that add character or flavour to history as it tells you what it was like to live through these times and too many of the published and established stories are of Admirals and the like
My dad was in the Navy from 1944 until 1968. When we visited him on board his ships, I only remember there being the tanker style chairs (with and without arm rest). It seemed like all the tables were the fold up and put away type. He served mostly on destroyers, radar picket destroyers, and a few mine sweepers.
Great job! We have seen modern re-pop "battleship chairs". What astounds me along with the research you did is how fast things slip into oblivion. They were a major part of everyday life that is very humanizing. Chairs were almost never noticed but, boy if they were all gone one day! My grandfather was 40 when she was commissioned. And now we struggle to find details about his (and later) generations everyday life! Hard to imagine the history that dies with them. Id have watched another half hour. History took a long time to make and so it takes a long time to learn! I'm a pipe and big book by the fire kinda guy anyway. forget the pressure to rush you do great!
Those armless tanker chairs got everywhere in the civilian world, too. I assume they stamped them out by the millions during the war and then sold most of them off for surplus afterward, particularly to other government agencies. The public schools here in northern Maine, for instance, had _scads_ of them in the 1980s, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that they're still in use at my old high school today. As you note, they're basically indestructible. About the only flaw they have as a movable mass seating solution is that they're not stackable.
I remember those indestructible 1950s chairs and the giant metal desks that went with them on land. My dad bought a chair and desk set cheap from his workplace in the 60s, and it was mine for a while in the basement. They just became obsolete, not nonfunctional. Newer chairs are more comfortable but also less durable. I remember the plastic/fiberglass chairs as well. Cheap chairs have gotten worse because they’ve lost the anatomically correct compound curves in the seat and just become flat. I wonder if some of the chair changes were part of the defense spending racket. It could also be a case of too many good ideas, like the Zumwalt. Maybe they put too much cleverness into those short-lived seats in the 1960s.
First - great stuff, as always! Since you mentioned it... don't underestimate the fire load of the plastic chairs. Or the fumes from their combustion. If you get those going, they'll burn very hot and likely put out a ton of thick, toxic smoke. I'd rather deal with burning wood than burning plastic.
Our city still has layers of old chairs from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, some from the 70's and then the stuff we keep buying. Some of my co workers squierl away the old stuff as spare chairs. I even have the remains of an old oak chair that might be from the 20's. have used parts in woodworking projects. It is an interesting topic. You could do a whole interpretive exhibit on ships chairs. My favorite ships chairs are the bench seating on board Balcutha and her mess table which is fidded to keep plates on the table in rough weather.
Dear Ryan, i admire Your passion for history. New research is illuminating and refreshing! i have a passion for deep dives into odd topics. i would enjoy seeing Your ongoing research. You taught me something today that in retrospect i should have known. i have seen or sat in most of those types of heavy, nearly indestructible seats. In 60 years i never knew they were called tanker chairs! Thanks Ryan !:-)
At 6:20 you are sitting next to a steel, square tube, chair. If I recall, there was a video on the design, manufacture and use of those chairs. I wish I could find it again! The film went into some detail on the chairs and there was some very interesting history on their use by not only the navy but many federal agencies and even private industry and schools. As you said, they are solid and don't fail.
I have sat in one of those green tanker chairs many times and that was in the University of Minnesota. Maybe they were ex-military or ex-US civil government.
On the Dixie when I first came aboard in 1977 we had the stackable chairs in the mess deck but after the yard period we had McDonalds seating. That went over pretty good with the crew.
The old "tanker chairs" must of been a "low bid" item for the government. I saw tons of those old chairs all over air bases in the Air Force from the late 1970's until I was medically disqualified in 1991. I served 7 years active in the Air Force and 7 years Air Force Reserves. The biggest areas for those old "tanker chairs" was the chow halls and the airman's and NCO clubs. Area conference rooms and even my desk in transportation had those chairs.
When there are worries about burning wooden benches then I think plastic chairs are also not something you want on your ship in wartime. So then it makes sense that they only are coming on board during decommissioning.
"because when this ship was in mothballs, other ships came along and took them off". not entirely true, both the Jersey and Missouri gave away tons of stuff to the other ships in long beach when they were decomming. i know being a WCS on a different ship at the time, i was told if i needed anything, they were handing out stuff that wasnt bolted down, go get what you need.
I don’t think he meant that in terms of outright theft, just that their original installment of chairs ended up transferred other ships. Because it sounds like your ship would’ve taken some stuff off NJ or MO too if you needed
I served on USS Stoddard DD 566, 67-68. Ya know, I can't remember for the life of me what we had in the mess deck! Swing out chairs, benches - no clue. All I can remember is in the boatswain's locker we'd sit around on anything we could find, usually trash cans or paint buckets. The DD's were certainly more austere than a battlewagon, and the Fletchers got little in the way of modernization after Korea. I was hoping your treatise would spark more memories, but no such luck - sorry!
I was on r07 a illustrious class carrier in uk, the galley had the stackable chair like 69 and table foldable I think . Was always clear for action station.
The Emeco model 1006 anodized aluminum chairs, made from aluminum, were used a lot by the U.S. military and government from 1944 onwards. They went out of production in the 1970s, but were guaranteed to last 150 years.
I think it's worth noting that the period from the mid-40s to the 1970s actually saw a revolution in furniture design. No, really. We mostly know this in terms of the artistic movement, recently re-popularized, called Mid-Century Modern. But that movement was itself kicked off by an increased availability of, and willingness to work with, new materials and especially structural metals which were themselves more widely available as a result of the war. In fact, one of the most iconic MCM chairs, the EMECO 1006, is also known as the "Navy Chair". The stacking chairs you show at one point are another result of that movement. In that context, it's possible the frequent changes to seating reflect the changing expectations, significant improvements in what was available (more compact, more durable, less flammable), and just different options available on the market at the time.
FYI: the video's Thumbnail, is a photo of Admiral Halsey (Leaning backwards) and Admiral McCain in 1944. McCain grandfather of the late senator McCain.
I also remember 'tanker chairs' ... and green seat steel chairs attached to the Air Force in the late 60s and working in a lab furnished with surplus purchases in the 70s. I was unable to destroy mine so I did not get 'upgraded' until I went to another company. Perhaps the Navy had a chair logistics center and swapped out chairs until the music stopped.
"I can't believe you made it through this video on chairs..." Yeah, but Ryan (not me Ryan, you, Battleship NJ Ryan), chairs are a not-insignificant part of life on board the ship. People relaxed in those chairs. Laughed in those chairs. Cried in those chairs. It only doesn't seem important because we usually take chairs for granted. However, if I start to think about all the bits of people's lives those chairs have seen, I start to appreciate them differently. They aren't quite as mundane an object as they may seem. But that's just my two cents.
