Sierra (AD 18) - Naval Cruise Book

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CIARPENTERS' SHOP BQILER SHOP INSPECTING A CASTING IN THE FOUNDRY

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UUE SERVTEES .TU THE ELEET The USS Sierra is a destroyer tender designed to supply all the wants and needs of her brood of destroyers. However, due to the shortage of ade- quate repair facilities during the strikes on Palau, Leyte, lwo lima, Okin- awa, and the lapanese homeland, our ship found herself tending not only de- stroyers, but also battleships, cruisers, carriers, minesweepers, every kind of landing craft, and even merchant ships. This is the story of our services to the fleet. Repair Department - The repair department of the USS Sierra can be compared on a small scale to the industrial organizations of any modern city. lts facilities consist of over thirty shops. Each of these shops would be a small business of its own in a city, but combined into one department of the Sierra's organization, they make up a force that is capable of repairing almost anything. lt has shops that can repair broken down batteries, boilers, or bulkheads. A black- smith shop that has never shod a horse nevertheless has an electric furnace to do heat treating and the customary forges, tool slabs, and anvils for hand work. The optical shop fixes binoculars, telescopes, and all kinds of naviga- tional instruments. The watch and typewriter shops repair and overhaul in- struments as their names imply. The carpenters' shop does all kinds of re- pair work and construction in woodwork. When a casting job comes in, there is the pattern shop to make the necessary pattern for the foundry. The foun- dry is equipped with two electric arc furnaces which make it possible to manufacture castings of iron, brass, aluminum, and zinc usually required by destroyers. The largest of all the shops is the machine shop. lt is equipped with all modern machines, including lathes, grinders, milling machines, a 60-ton horizontal-vertical hydraulic press, and various other machines which make up a shop capable of turning out all types of machine shop jobs. The shipfitters' shop can handle all kinds of hull repairs and general structural work. There is a shop to repair radio, radar, underwater sound, and other electronic equipment. This activity also makes installations when necessary. lf it's plumbing or pipe work needed, then the pipe and coppersmith shop is available to do the work. The sheetmetal shop can perform all kinds of sheetmetal work, including the manufacture of cabinets and light bulkheads. Electrical repairs, such as rewinding motors and generators, and electrical installations, such as installing a cable or an electric searchlight, are han- dled by the electrical shop. Also in the electrical line but under the heading of instrument shop is the place to have ohmeters, voltmeters, and meggers tested and repaired. lf the gyrocompass of a ship fails to work properly, a man from the gyro shop takes a trip over to check it and remedy the trouble.

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Small boats have engines which from time to time need repairs, and there is the boat engine shop to do this type of work. ln addition to those already mentioned, there are several other shops: the print shop, the photo shop, the welding shop, the refrigeration repair shop, and the sail locker. The repair department of the Sierra accomplishes for ships of the fleet work which cannot be done by the ship itself for lack of equipment, mate- rial, or trained personnel. Whe'ther or not a ship comes alongside is deter- mined by the size of the job and the number of jobs to be done. Duringha period of nineteen months more than 250 ships have been tied up alongside our ship for repair work, and more than 500 have been tended in other berths. Those tied up alongside have ranged from little LCl's and YMS,' which were dwarfed by the huge Sierra, to the USS California. As the sizes of the vessels tended have varied, so have the jobs. lt might be turning out a small gear in the machine shop, or it might be lifting the stack off one de- stroyer and setting it down on another, and that stack switchingjob was ac- tually done by this department. lt isn't just the fine tools and equipment that makes the repair department a going concern, it's the men using them that count. Quite often during the war these men worked round the clock in shifts in order to put a combat ship back on the firing line. Seven days a week they worked, and there was no time and a half for overtime or double time for Sundays. The USS ,Sierra operated in the Pacific Ocean areas with the assigned task of repairing ships that needed it. She can report to the world at large- Mission accomplished. 1 Communications Department The communications department of the USS Sierra has given valuable service not only to our brood of ships, but also to the staffs which have had their headquarters on board this ship. Our signal bridge and radio room, as well as the coding room, worked night and day sending, receiving, coding, and decoding messages not only for our own ship, but also for all ships alongside. ln addition the men of the communications department daily edited and mimeographed the press news for distribution around the Sierra and all ships alongside. At one time our signal bridge handled an average of l50 messages a day, and twice that number of messages were handled in one record 24-hour period. Our general message center played a very large part during the war in supplying small craft with back copies of general messages. During a period of twelve months over one million copies were mimeographed and distributed. The post office was another function of the communications department handling a large volume of mail, as well as selling money orders and stamps. Every Sunday church services are held either on the boat deck or in the mess hall, and our schedule of religious services was sent to all the ships nearby, so that they could attend. When there was a Catholic chaplain in