Harlan County (LST 1196) - Naval Cruise Book

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The Hole Snipe ' s Lament Now each ofUSfrom time to time tias gazed upon the sea, and watched the warships pulling out, to keep this country free. And most of us have read a bool , or heard a lusty tale. About the men who sail these ships, through lightning, wind and hail. But there ' s a place within each ship that legend tails to teach. It ' s down below the waterline, it takes a heavy toll, A hot metal living hell that sailors coll the hole. It houses engines run by steam, that makes the shaft go round, A place of fire, noise, and heat, the beats your spirits down. Where boilers like hellish heart with blood of angry steam. Are molded Gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream. Whose threat that from fires roar is like living doubt. That any minute would with scorn, escape and crush you out. Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell. As ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell. The men who keep The fires lit and moke the engines run, Are strangers to the would of night and rarely see the sun. They have no time for fun, no tolerance for fear. Their aspect pays no living thing the tribute of a tear. For there ' s not much that men con do that these men haven ' t done. Beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engines run. For if the tires ever fail, their ship ' s a useless shell. When ships converge to have a war upon on angry sea, The men below just grimly smile at what their fate might be. They ' re locked in below like men fore doomed, who hove no battle cry. Its wellassumed that if they ' re hit the men below will die. For every day ' s a war down there when all the gauges read red. Twelve hundre d pounds of heated steam con kill you mighty dead. So if You ever write their sons or try to tell their tale. The very words would make you hear a fired furnace wail. And people as a general rule, don ' t bear of men of steel. So little ' s heard about this place that sailors calls 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. I ' ve seen these sweat soaked heroes fight in superheated air To keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows their there And thus they ' ll fight tor ages on, till warships sail no more. So when you see a ship pull out, to meet a warlike foe. Remember faintly, if you can, the men who soil below. g iSi - sJ 42 USS HARLAN COUNTY

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' . . lA M , 1 b ' Ipll m -. ' ■iiipi2 P .. .. ! 4J9 i 55 HARLAN COUNTY [ 4 J

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ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT A E Division ICl Fann EM1 King ENl Watts EM2 Amerson MR2 Patterson IC2 Trahey EM2 Ward MM3 Graziaplenia USS HABLAN COUNTY