Hamner (DD 718) - Naval Cruise Book

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if 42,7 FORWARD FIREROOM-Front Row: THEBO, SESSIONS, MENDIOLA, DVORAK, RUDD. Back Row: BELL, M. B., CLOWER, MAXEY, E. F., SZAFRANIEC, BOHN, STEWART, J. C., FRANKLIN, FUQUA, ALLEN, 1. H. Missing: HENDRICKSON. BOILERMEN Have you ever felt the suffocating heat in the HAMNER'S central passageway, spent hours wiping a thin coat of carbon off all topside areas, noticed foot prints of oil across the Boatswain's freshly swabbed decks or been a victim to the grimy sprinkle of black soot falling lazily from the after stack while standing on the quarterdeck in dress whites awaiting -a liberty boat? lf your answer is anything short of a vivid AFFlRlVlATlVE, you aren't a veteran of the HAMNER. With a devious smile and a mischievous gleam in our eyes, we BT's host the uncontested honor of providing HAMNERites with these readily available, highly unpopular services in conjunction with our duties of steaming any to all of the HANlNER's four powerful 850 F, 600 psi M type boilers which with their associated pumps and piping fill the two spaces known as the forward and after firerooms. Every watt of power used aboard the HAMNER, excepting that generated by the seldom used diesels, originates in the combustion of pressure sprayed fuel oil with supercharged air inside our insulation brick lined fireboxes to produce high temperature steam by heating the longitudinal rows of water filled generating tubes to well over 10000 Fahrenheit. Using little of this steam ourselves, we send it through large well insulated steam lines to the Machinist's Mates in the enginerooms for their use and further distribution. We've produced the steam to complete our job, what they do with it now is their business. Regardless of the ship's general watch rotation, underway we BT's are always on one in three, For eight hours daily we live by our boilers regulating the water level in the water drum, cutting in or out additional burners, changing sprayer 4' I' if

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ELECTRONIC TECHNICIANS-Front Row: MILLER, COCKE: Back Row: FLETCHER, HOWERTON, BROWN, Missing: EDMUNDSON. Qc Dil T'-X Q iii f 4 ELECTRONICS ET 1 V my re TECHNICIANS YOMEN AND PERSONNEL MEN From our small 8x12 foot filing cabinet and desk crammed office and seemingly lost under the stacks of incoming and outgoing mail, the multitudes of untyped correspondence, the score of thick volumes containing the thousands of Navy directives, instructions and notices, the uncounted pamphlets and publi- cations dealing with everything from enlisted men's schools to wardroom etiquette, stacks of personnel records requiring entries, the tape recordings, crumpled shorthand sheets and fine legal papers of the various courts martials, the transfer orders, the special request chits, etc., etc., etc., we yeomen and personnel men utter our cry for recognition. For in manning our typewriters, smooth talking ourselves out of squeeze situations arising from the demands of the various officers and, based upon our scanning knowledge of the many Navy instructions, pulling solutions out of the clear blue sky to the various leave, transfer, schooling, etc., problems of the multitudes of ship's company constantly beating down the path to and through our door, we of the ship's office KNOW that the timely and efficient accomplishment of the HAMNER's administrative paper work, the leg work associated thereto, and many of the minor decisions rest solely with our initiative, endurance, and above all, PATIENCE! WOW, enough said!! The duty ET of our Electronics Technicians gang may only be a crumpled dozing figure on the work- bench or the hard rubber deck matting of the ET shop, but the loud buzz of the JX circuit, indicating that the RDS and RMs are having electronic troubles, snaps him quickly to his feet to answer the cry for an ET. We ETs pride ourselves at being the only highly skilled technicians aboard able to cope with and especially keyed to the needs of the HAMNER's radio and search radar equipment, whether it be a quick job of replacing fuses or a major repair to a transmitter or radar that everybody from the Captain on down must have for use ASAP. Unlike fire control gear, our communication or search radar equipment must be in use 24 hours daily, and we know repairs have to be initiated immediately and completed as soon as possible without regard to our own requirements of sleep, cleanliness, or, occasionally, even food though the repair period may drag out for hours or days, It is while underway and during those fateful and unpredictable periods when electronics casualties seem to multiply one after another that lull periods find the ET shop a dark sleepy hallow where grizzly fatigued fully clothed ETs, a foul weather jacket for a pillow, grab those few precious winks of sleep before the JX buzz announces more trouble. X aagx PNFYN X efgefiiizf l ss? fN l fig' kfflil if w it -If-Jia-J ,,,e I YEOMAN AND PERSONNELMEN-Front Row: FOSS, WILSON, I. F.: Back Row: WEBB, R. W., GERKEN, DE SORMIER, STANEKQ Missing: CHAPOOSE.

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tips and varying the fuel oil pressure to tightly control the volume of steam generated and, by watching the color of exhaust gases through the periscope above the economizers, controlling the intake air pressure to insure efficient combustion and clear stacks. In port there is normally one boiler due for interior cleaning of firesides, water- sides, or both to keep half our crew busy on an around the clock schedule. For the other half there are always cuts to be taken on leaking steam or water valves, gaskets to be renewed, insulation patched up, scrub brushes for taking off the fuel oil spillage from the boiler fronts and slippery deck plates, and plenty of paint brushes for applying blue tinted white paint over our yellow stained bulkheads. We're used to being HOT and HUMID, and the day has not passed yet that our hands, arms and faces are not stained with the oil and soot of our boilers. Our dungarees, when pur- chased, were regulation, but, with the passage of time and close association with the fuel oil and combusion soot, our dungarees shirts are general- ly discarded in favor of worn discolored T shirts, the pants become black, the shoes oil soaked, and the hats turned down, frayed, stained and greyed. We make some of the thickest, blackets coffee ever brewed and for certain untold reasons, left- overs such as pies, roast beef, bread, etc., seem- ingly misplaced from the galley, normally make their last appearance in our firerooms. Having all of the ship's water tanks padding the sides of our firerooms and conveniently spaced with depth testing spigots provides assurance that we boiler- men will never be thirsty during water hours! AFTER FiREnooM-from Row: HELMS w. H., ESPINOZA, MOLES, GREENE, CAMPBELL .l. M. Back Row: COURTNEY, LYONS, RANDT, JENKINS, H. S., MACREADY, ALLEN, J. R., KANAE, GUPTILL, JOSEPHSON. Missing: NU'lTALL, PIKE, PHILLIPS. .. ,. ..