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ENGINEERING
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Boiler
Technician (BT)
To provide steam to drive the ships turbines, turbo-generators and auxialiary equipment. They also provide steam for the galley, laundry and other spaces throughout the ship. |
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Damage Controlman (DC)
DCs perform the work necessary for damage control, ship stability, fire-fighting and chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) warfare defense. They instruct personnel in damage control and CBR defense and repair damage-control equipment and systems. |
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Electrician's Mate (EM)
The operation and repair of a ship's or station's electrical power plant and electrical equipment is the responsibility of EMs. They also maintain and repair power and lighting circuits, distribution switchboards, generators, motors and other electrical equipment. |
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Engineman (EN)
Internal combustion engines, diesel or gasoline, must be kept in good order. This is the responsibility of ENs. They also maintain refrigeration, air-conditioning, distilling-plant engines and compressors. |
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Hull Maintenance Technician (HT)
HTs are responsible for maintaining ships' hulls, fittings, piping systems and machinery. They install and maintain shipboard and shore based plumbing and piping systems. They also look after a vessel's safety and survival equipment and perform many tasks related to damage control. |
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Interior Communications Electrician (IC)
ICs operate and repair electronic devices used in the ship's interior communications systems, SITE TV systems, public address systems, electronic megaphones and other announcing equipment. They are also responsible for the gyrocompass systems. |
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Machinists Mate (MM)
Continuous operation of the many engines,
compressors and gears, refrigeration, air-conditioning, gas-operated
equipment and other types of machinery afloat and ashore is the
MM's job. They are also responsible for the ship's steam propulsion
and auxiliary equipment and the outside (deck) machinery. MMs
also may perform duties involving some industrial gases. |
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Machinery Repairman (MR)
MRs are skilled machine tool operators. They make replacement
parts and repair or overhaul a ship's engine auxiliary equipment,
such as evaporators, air compressors and pumps. They repair deck
equipment, including winches and hoists, condensers and heat exchange
devices. Shipboard MRs frequently operate main propulsion machinery,
besides performing machine shop and repair duties. |
SNIPE'S LAMENT
Now each of us 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,
about these men who sail these ships through lightning, wind and hail.
But there's a place within each ship that legend's fail to teach.
It's down below the water-line and it takes a living toll
- - a hot metal living hell, that sailors call the "Hole."
It houses engines run with steam that makes the shafts go round.
A place of fire, noise, and heat that beats your spirits down.
Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam,
are molded gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream.
Whose threat from the 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 fires 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 for fear,
their aspect pays no living thing a tribute of 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 they keep the watch in Hell,
for if the fires ever fail their ship's a useless shell.
When ships converge to have a war upon an angry sea,
the men below just grimly smile at what their fate will be.
They're locked below like men fore-doomed, who hear no battle cry,
it's well assumed that if they're hit men below will die.
For every day's a war down there when gauges all read red,
twelve-hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead.
So if you ever write their songs or try to tell their tale,
the very words would make you hear a fired furnace's wail.
And people as a general rule don't hear of these men of steel,
so little heard about this place that sailors call the "Hole."
But I can sing about this place and try to make you see,
the hardened life of the men down there, 'cause one of them is me.
I've seen these sweat-soaked heroes fight in superheated air,
to keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.
And thus they'll fight for ages on till warships sail no more,
amid the boiler's mighty heat and the turbine's hellish roar.
So when you see a ship pull out to meet a war-like foe,
remember faintly if you can, "The Men Who Sail Below."
-Anonymous
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