Some ships now run on nuclear power. I understand they can go for years without refueling. What a fine thing. It's wonderful to know that you're living on a floating prison that doesn't need to see civilization for hundreds and hundreds of days.
My ship and most others during my enlistment ran on fuel oil. We had to basically gas up every now and then. I assume that, when the arrow started getting near the E mark then we'd start wondering what we would need to do to keep doing. Since there are few gas stations in the middle of the oceans, we had to get some floating ones to come out to us when we needed a fillup. These floating gas stations were tankers, or maybe they were fuelers, shoot I don't remember. All I remember is thanking God that I wasn't stationed on one of those. One little fire and you just might never return. On second thought, I suppose there is no such thing as a little fire on a tanker. Any fire would be pretty important.
Anyway, here we were a danged five story aircraft carrier full of planes and bombs and sailor dudes and we would need to pull up next to a huge tanker ship full to the brim with fuel oil and jet fuel. We'd have to line up side by side and pass hoses across and then pump highly volatile fuel from the tanker to our thirsty tanks and still try to keep from slamming into each other because of the rolling waves that are often out there in the sea.
I didn't do this work. I rarely did anything dangerous. I say 'we' because I belonged to ship's company during that time and anything ship's company did was to my credit. We (the guys in my division) would sit down below and play with computers or games and wait to see if anything exploded. That never happened.
UNREF is what they called it. Underway refueling. Most of the work to refuel was done outside on the weather decks. Hoses would come across, sailor dudes would rush around and talk on radios, boatswains (that's bos'n Barry, not boat swain) would announce key points on the loudspeaker. Lots of action topside. But that's not all. There was action down below too. There was often action right inside our living quarters.
You see, my group, S-7 division, lived in a space that was below the forward mess deck. Above that was the hangar deck. Hanger deck is where they work on the planes and it's below the flight deck. Ok so, you would go toward the front of the ship and through the forward mess and come out into a usually empty area where the ordinance people worked on bombs. Right there in the bomb arming area there was a hole in the floor with a ladder going down. Follow that ladder down and you would arrive at my house. That's where my division had a sitting area with a closed-circuit T.V. in one room and then a bunch of racks in the other part of the space.
Racks were where we slept. You might call them beds if you have never slept in one.
Well, there on the floor of our living space were things. Those things must have been some kind of oil checking holes. While underway refueling was going on, dirty filthy seamen would lie on our floor and talk on a radio while running what I think were extremely long dip sticks down into the tanks while they were filling up. When these oil checking holes were open, it stunk to low hell in our living space. Smelled like an unclean and unkempt garage. Smelled a lot like the kid who was lying there on the floor checking our oil. But that wasn't the real problem.
It seems like just about every time they filled up these tanks that were under our living space filled with jet fuel or fuel oil of some kind - it seemed like almost every time - the seamen lying on the floor checking the gauges would screw up. They'd get to talking with other people in our division and not pay attention to what they were doing. Either that or they'd just be ignorant of the importance of their jobs. Whatever, the tanks would get too full before anyone noticed and, since the people topside were pumping a lot of fuel in a hurry, and since the tanks got full, the only place the excess fuel could go would be out those little holes through which the seamen were checking the oil. Remember, those were the holes that were located in our living space. Way too many times we had oil in everything in our living space.
Boy would that stink.
Boy was that a drag.
Boy. Was that a drag.
My ship and most others during my enlistment ran on fuel oil. We had to basically gas up every now and then. I assume that, when the arrow started getting near the E mark then we'd start wondering what we would need to do to keep doing. Since there are few gas stations in the middle of the oceans, we had to get some floating ones to come out to us when we needed a fillup. These floating gas stations were tankers, or maybe they were fuelers, shoot I don't remember. All I remember is thanking God that I wasn't stationed on one of those. One little fire and you just might never return. On second thought, I suppose there is no such thing as a little fire on a tanker. Any fire would be pretty important.
Anyway, here we were a danged five story aircraft carrier full of planes and bombs and sailor dudes and we would need to pull up next to a huge tanker ship full to the brim with fuel oil and jet fuel. We'd have to line up side by side and pass hoses across and then pump highly volatile fuel from the tanker to our thirsty tanks and still try to keep from slamming into each other because of the rolling waves that are often out there in the sea.
I didn't do this work. I rarely did anything dangerous. I say 'we' because I belonged to ship's company during that time and anything ship's company did was to my credit. We (the guys in my division) would sit down below and play with computers or games and wait to see if anything exploded. That never happened.
UNREF is what they called it. Underway refueling. Most of the work to refuel was done outside on the weather decks. Hoses would come across, sailor dudes would rush around and talk on radios, boatswains (that's bos'n Barry, not boat swain) would announce key points on the loudspeaker. Lots of action topside. But that's not all. There was action down below too. There was often action right inside our living quarters.
You see, my group, S-7 division, lived in a space that was below the forward mess deck. Above that was the hangar deck. Hanger deck is where they work on the planes and it's below the flight deck. Ok so, you would go toward the front of the ship and through the forward mess and come out into a usually empty area where the ordinance people worked on bombs. Right there in the bomb arming area there was a hole in the floor with a ladder going down. Follow that ladder down and you would arrive at my house. That's where my division had a sitting area with a closed-circuit T.V. in one room and then a bunch of racks in the other part of the space.
Racks were where we slept. You might call them beds if you have never slept in one.
Well, there on the floor of our living space were things. Those things must have been some kind of oil checking holes. While underway refueling was going on, dirty filthy seamen would lie on our floor and talk on a radio while running what I think were extremely long dip sticks down into the tanks while they were filling up. When these oil checking holes were open, it stunk to low hell in our living space. Smelled like an unclean and unkempt garage. Smelled a lot like the kid who was lying there on the floor checking our oil. But that wasn't the real problem.
It seems like just about every time they filled up these tanks that were under our living space filled with jet fuel or fuel oil of some kind - it seemed like almost every time - the seamen lying on the floor checking the gauges would screw up. They'd get to talking with other people in our division and not pay attention to what they were doing. Either that or they'd just be ignorant of the importance of their jobs. Whatever, the tanks would get too full before anyone noticed and, since the people topside were pumping a lot of fuel in a hurry, and since the tanks got full, the only place the excess fuel could go would be out those little holes through which the seamen were checking the oil. Remember, those were the holes that were located in our living space. Way too many times we had oil in everything in our living space.
Boy would that stink.
Boy was that a drag.
Boy. Was that a drag.
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