Got this from best friend in the Navy. We were both boilermen on the same ship:

The Men Who Sail Below

Now each one of us from time to time, has gazed upon the seas, and watched the warships pulling out, to keep this country free. And most of us have read a book, or heard of a lusty tail, about men who sail these ships, through lightning, wind, and hail. But there is a place within each ship, that legends fail to teach.

Its down below the waterline and takes a living toll….. A hot metal hell, that sailors call the hole. It houses engines run by steam, that makes the shaft go round, a place of fire, noise, and heat, that beats your spirits down. Where boilers like hellish hearts, with blood of angry steam, are molten gods with out remorse, and nightmares in a dream.

You have no time for man or god, no tolerance for fear, your aspect pays no living thing, the tribute or a tear. For there’s not much that man can do, that these men haven’t done. Beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engine run. And every hour of every day, they keep the watch in hell, for if fires ever fail, their ship’s a useless shell.

When ships converged to have a war, upon an angry seas, the men below just grimly smile, at what their fate may be. They’re locked below like men fordoomed, who hear no battle cry. It’s well assumed that if they’re hit, the men below will die. For every day’s a war down there, when gages all read red, six hundred pounds of heated steam, can kill you mighty dead.

I’ve seen these sweat soaked hero’s, fighting superheated air, to keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they are there. And thus they are for ages on, till warships sail no more, amid the boilers mighty heat, and the turbines hellish roar. So when you see these warships sail, to meet warlike foe, remember faintly, if you can, the men who sail below.

UNKNOWN AUTHOR

And here I thought you were gonna talk about sending the newspaper to sailors.

And IIRC, in WWII, the U.S. had a higher fatality rate percentage-wise among merchant seaman than among those serving on warships.

I think it takes cajones about the size of blimps to have been a boilerman on a Liberty Ship carrying a hull full of explosives, fuel, or whatever. Stuck below deck day and night, without any significant guns or other armament on the ship anywhere to protect anyone...proceeding at 10 knots or less among the wolf-packs, knowing that up to half (and sometimes more) of every convoy to either Britain or Murmansk isn't gonna make it even one way on those round trip tickets. And if you did make it, so what? That meant you got to do it all over again, and again, and again....and your widow and orphaned kids weren't gonna get any $10,000 government insurance check when you took the deep six either.

Worst part was that even if you didn't die in the first 5 minutes of being torpedoed or holed by Nazi deck gun fire, all the other ships were absolutely forbidden to slow down to pick up ANY survivors. So you were left freezing in the sea with maybe 1,000 miles to swim...

No thanks folks. As I see it, the Special Forces (SEALS, Rangers, Green Berets, Delta Force, SAS, SBS, whatever) don't have anything on those guys by way of guts.

If you're not an officially designated killer, you don't capture the popular imagination. Nobody's going to make a movie about you.

The ship don't run without the snipes. The ship don't run without a lot of people doing less than glamorous jobs. They never have and never will see a battle with their own eyes. Their entire existence is faith-based; somebody, somewhere, is doing something nasty to the enemy. If the battle's going badly, their first indication is that the engines all of a sudden stop due to the torpedo amidships. Maybe also all that water you're taking on.

If you live and have a story to tell, it's about how you couldn't save a lot of your shipmates & escaped some flaming hulk to drift on a piece of wreckage for a few days to a month. Odds are you won't last a month, what with third degree burns on your hands and fuel oil down your nose.

Romantic, no?

Maybe not, but still as Alberta Canuck says it take guts to do it.

Take the "Hard Hat Tour" on the Battleship Texas and keep these lines in mind!

quote:

Originally posted by RVL III:
Take the "Hard Hat Tour" on the Battleship Texas and keep these lines in mind!

I have, as well as the same kind of tour on other ships and on a WWII Submarine.

I think all those guys were Heroes.

The boilertender rate has been struck from the Navy list. Doesn't exit anymore. They kept the machinist mate rating. Although many of the ships have gone nuclear, they are still steam operated only difference is steam is produced with nuclear power. I believe some of the ships are gas turbine too. I wonder if anything the Navy has, commissioned, still uses the bunker oil. We use to call it NSFO...Navy Special Fuel Oil. The crap basically looked like melted tar and had a strong sulfur odor. You couldn't wash it out of your clothes either. Had to heat it to use it in the boilers at around 150 degrees F. I remember in the tropics our boiler room ran around 148 degrees. Later the control room for the newer ships was air conditioned. I remember that nearly 90 percent of the other rates aboard ship, like radarmen, boatswainmates, etc., wouldn't come down in to the "hole". They were afraid of it. They would constantly yell down the hatch for rags. We'd say "sure, come on down and get them". They'd say "forget it", but we still gave them the rags. Makes me feel ancient knowing the old bunker fuel burning boiler ships are gone.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinJ:
The boilertender rate has been struck from the Navy list. Doesn't exit anymore.

It hasn't for quite a while. During Desert Storm I the Navy had to ask for volunteer retirees to come back and show the sailors how to operate the boilers on the BBs.

Which is why I just referred to the snipes in general. The guys in engineering took some heavy casualties back in WWII; all of them, not just the boilertenders.

Of course, if the ship went down quickly so did a lot of guys belowdecks who had nothing to do with engineering. Like the guys in the lower magazines sending powder bags and projectiles up to the gunners, etc.

Here is a question, where was the Batttleship Texas when Pearl Harbour was attacked.

If I remember correctly from my tour it was present at the Normandy invasion, and also at some of the Pacific Island invasions.

It was struck by one shell, which I think happened at Normandy.

My general quaters station was the thrust block. Last penetration of the hull where the screws were. Down 4 or 5 decks below the messdecks and lower than the magazines. our boilers ran @600 psi and 900 degrees superheat. Only time we saw strangers down in the hole was when the messdeck master at arms came to get all the coffee cups we "borrowed". The navy lived on coffee with a couple salt tablets thrown in. On rare occasions when we ventured above decks it was comical. We were always the whitest guys there and our clothing stained from the oil. Last year I was in we were so shorthanded we stood 6 and 6. 6 hours on watch and 6 hours either working or sleeping. Frank

N E 450 No2,

The USS Texas was conducting neutrality patrols in the Atlantic when the Japanese attacked Oahu. She was in the Atlantic Fleet from 1937 to 1944.

In addition to providing naval gunfire support at Omaha beach, she had provided the same support during the invasion of North Africa, and prior to that she had escorted troop convoys throughout the Atlantic and Carribean.

After Normandy she provided NGFS during the invasion of southern France, before heading to the Pacific in time to serve in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa operations.

Singleshotlover, we could always spot the snipes when they came topside for a smoke break. We're in the Indian Ocean in the middle of the tropical summer, and not only are they the whitest guys on the boat they're wearing P coats because they're cold.

Thanks for the info.
I went to the official Battleship Texas site.

It is worth a look. I learned a few things...

The Texas was the most powerful ship on the Planet when it was launched.

It had 10!!! 14" guns...
It was the first battleship to launch a plane.

It was the first to have Radar...

If fought from before WWI all the way to the end of WWII.

Check out the Official Web Site, it has a very unique history.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Thanks for the info.
I went to the official Battleship Texas site.

It is worth a look. I learned a few things...

The Texas was the most powerful ship on the Planet when it was launched.

It had 10!!! 14" guns...
It was the first battleship to launch a plane.

It was the first to have Radar...

If fought from before WWI all the way to the end of WWII.

Check out the Official Web Site, it has a very unique history.

"It" had 10 14" guns?

"It" was the first to have radar?

Manners, N E 450 No2, manners!

"She" Is always "she."

Even when you're talking about a ship that can deal the same whale of hurt the Texas could.

She's still a she.

You are right, I stand corrected.

She was a fine ship.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
She was a fine ship.

Yes. She was. And do you want to know what makes a fine ship?

Her crew.

Anyways, I hope you'll forgive my minor course correction. You are clearly a well-mannered and decent man who was raised right and committed, at most, a minor linguistic transgression common among those who never served in the sea services.

The USS Texas will never be an "it" to the men who lived in her, trained in her, went into battle in her and were brought back safely by her.

To them, at least, she'll always be a lady.

Along these same lines of thought, a big tribute should go out to the builders and the Seamen of the Liberty Ships.

IMHO, what really won WWII, was the capability of the USA to out produce the AXIS, in guns, bullets, planes, ships, food, etc., and to GET IT delivered to our Soldiers, as well as British and Russian Soldiers.

There was some good luck, and good Combat decisions made as well.

Merchant marines...they were heroes too. I was offered a job as a merchant marine when I was still in the Navy.

During a storm in which we had been in for several days the galley was shut down, due to the pitching and rolling of the ship. All we were served were cold cuts. I was sitting at a table with a salty Boiler Tender we called Pappy because he was in his thirties. Pappy was a carrer sailor but was constantly being busted in rank. Sea sickness was rampant. A sick looking young seaman started for an empty chair at our table. Pappy looked at the seaman and told him, "If you are going to throw up, throw up on my plate. I have not had a hot meal for three days." The sick seaman gaged and ran out of the galley. Hopefully he got to eat the next day after Pappy left the Galley.

We went through a hurricane about 280 miles out at sea southeast of the coast of NC back in 1967. The worse of was around 0200 hours. Being an old WWII tincan she leaked like a sieve and most all the compartments had deep water in them. We lost all the life rafts aboard ship and things like 2 1/2 inch fire hydrants were washed off. I remember when we came into port we came in bow down as the chain locker was flooded and they couldn't pump it out fast enough. I later found out we took a 56 degree roll and the ship design let it capsize at 60 degrees. Was probably the most frightening thing I've experienced in the Navy. I was one of three that didn't get seasick that night. Most time I'd get nausea out at sea. We didn't see the Captain or Exec Offiver for days...they were sick pretty bad. I wrote a story of it for some Destroyer site. Here it is:




Subject: DD-775
Dated: November 25, 1999, 20:19
From :Joseph XXXXXXXXXXXX

Heres a true story of what it's like to be out at sea in a hurrincane on a destroyer.

It was back in 1966 or 1967 don't remember the exact date. We were 280 miles off the coast of North Carolina. Actually just off Cape Haderas. We all use to just get sick to hear that name...Cape Haderas. It was never smooth sailing past that place. Well it was 0200 ( two o'clock in the moring for you civilian folks) when we hit the worse of the storm.

We had been given orders to absolutely stay off the outside maindeck to use only the inboard passage ways. The ship was really taking bad waves bouncing around like a cork in the water. She was squeaking and moaning and there were times when the complete back end was out of the water and the engines would rev really high because evem the screws were exposed. I was a boilerman in the after boiler room. It was all you could do to hold on to something to try and do your job of making steam. We took a pretty bad roll that night, in fact we almost capsized. We were told that our particular ship was designed to take a 60 degree roll before going over. We took a 56 that night!!! When you walked down the inboard passage way there were times when your feet were on the deck and times when they were on the bulkheads (walls). You had to walk with your arms out to be ready for when she took a bad roll. There was water everywhere as we were an old WWII destroyer and the hatches leaked. We had about a half a foot of water on the floor in our berthing compartment. That was one night where you definitely had to strap yourself into your bunk. Well we make it back into port at Norfolk, Va but we came in bow down as the chain locker was flooded. They couldn't pump it out as fast as it was pouring in. We lost alot of items on the outside of the ship like fire hydrants....just washed them right off the deck as they were made of paper or something. We also lost the majority of our liferafts. It was a night on a ship out at sea during a bad storm that I will never forget.

Oh by the way I usually got a little seasick in bad waters but that night I was too scared to get sick!!!!

Joseph XXXXXXXXXXXX



DD-775

DD-775 -








Letters


- DD-775

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Along these same lines of thought, a big tribute should go out to the builders and the Seamen of the Liberty Ships.

IMHO, what really won WWII, was the capability of the USA to out produce the AXIS, in guns, bullets, planes, ships, food, etc., and to GET IT delivered to our Soldiers, as well as British and Russian Soldiers.

There was some good luck, and good Combat decisions made as well.

The guys who figured out how to supply the troops won WWII. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I was reading recently about the amount of planning that went in to supplying the combat forces in the Pacific with blood.

It's mind boggling. Just that one commodity.

Then you take a step back and think about every type of supply you're going to need if you're contemplating invading the Japanese home islands?

Words rarely fail me. All I can say is, thank Gawd for the supply corps.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Along these same lines of thought, a big tribute should go out to the builders and the Seamen of the Liberty Ships.

IMHO, what really won WWII, was the capability of the USA to out produce the AXIS, in guns, bullets, planes, ships, food, etc., and to GET IT delivered to our Soldiers, as well as British and Russian Soldiers.

There was some good luck, and good Combat decisions made as well.

The guys who figured out how to supply the troops won WWII. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I was reading recently about the amount of planning that went in to supplying the combat forces in the Pacific with blood.

It's mind boggling. Just that one commodity.

Then you take a step back and think about every type of supply you're going to need if you're contemplating invading the Japanese home islands?

Words rarely fail me. All I can say is, thank Gawd for the supply corps.

Having the German codes and Japanese codes helped tremendously too. In addition to having the German decoding machine. All that was very instrumental in knocking out the German U Boats and their mother ships.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinJ:

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Along these same lines of thought, a big tribute should go out to the builders and the Seamen of the Liberty Ships.

IMHO, what really won WWII, was the capability of the USA to out produce the AXIS, in guns, bullets, planes, ships, food, etc., and to GET IT delivered to our Soldiers, as well as British and Russian Soldiers.

There was some good luck, and good Combat decisions made as well.

The guys who figured out how to supply the troops won WWII. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I was reading recently about the amount of planning that went in to supplying the combat forces in the Pacific with blood.

It's mind boggling. Just that one commodity.

Then you take a step back and think about every type of supply you're going to need if you're contemplating invading the Japanese home islands?

Words rarely fail me. All I can say is, thank Gawd for the supply corps.

Having the German codes and Japanese codes helped tremendously too. In addition to having the German decoding machine. All that was very instrumental in knocking out the German U Boats and their mother ships.

Not to belittle the contributions of the signals intelligence guys. They also serve. The guys wearing slippers and smoking jackets in the basement of CINCPACFLT made an awesome contribution to the war effort. No doubt about it.

But the guys supplying the GI's with something like 70 pounds of SPAM to every 2 pounds of crappy rice the Japanese managed to eke out to their troops also helped a lot.

One of the things I was struck by when reading Japanese accounts of the war was the imperative to conserve ammo. They weren't going to get any more. Japanese destroyer skippers were disgusted by the fact that they couldn't support their own men crossing the beach because that would have been considered a "waste" of ammo. Bracketing a target? Another "waste."

Say what you will about Admiral Jellicoe at Jutland, but he spoke the uncontrovertable truth when he declaimed, "Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery! All else is twaddle!"

Word.

But you only get that good if you've got a hefty supply of practice ammo.

I suppose I should be pleased the Japanese couldn't practice much. But it doesn't mean I can't draw a lesson from it.

The Japanese military also kept their people in the blind of there defeats. One news reporter who saw/knew of the Midway defeat wasn't allowed to return home to Tokyo because they feared he would get the word out about the defeat and other defeats. Had the Japanese public known how bad things were really going things may have been different.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinJ:
The Japanese military also kept their people in the blind of there defeats. One news reporter who saw/knew of the Midway defeat wasn't allowed to return home to Tokyo because they feared he would get the word out about the defeat and other defeats. Had the Japanese public known how bad things were really going things may have been different.

You can say that again. But then I grew up around Okinawans. There's no love lost between the Japanese and the Ryukyu islanders.

If you're looking for a fight, you're not going to get it from me. I am well familiar with the guys who got shipped off to the far corners of the empire to keep the truth from leaking out. They tell me that when they saw the lies in the newspapers, that's when they knew they couldn't win.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinJ:
The Japanese military also kept their people in the blind of there defeats. One news reporter who saw/knew of the Midway defeat wasn't allowed to return home to Tokyo because they feared he would get the word out about the defeat and other defeats. Had the Japanese public known how bad things were really going things may have been different.

You can say that again. But then I grew up around Okinawans. There's no love lost between the Japanese and the Ryukyu islanders.

If you're looking for a fight, you're not going to get it from me. I am well familiar with the guys who got shipped off to the far corners of the empire to keep the truth from leaking out. They tell me that when they saw the lies in the newspapers, that's when they knew they couldn't win.

No fight here, just interested in this kind of stuff. Seems more and more of the real truth is coming out too about that war.

[QUOTE]Originally posted:
Not to belittle the contributions of the signals intelligence guys. They also serve. The guys wearing slippers and smoking jackets in the basement of CINCPACFLT made an awesome contribution to the war effort. No doubt about it./QUOTE]


Agreed that almost everyone in the armed services in an all-out war against a worthy opponent has an important role to play and something vital to contribute.

But the signals & G2 guys in Honolulu at CINCPac didn't need the kind of pure guts the boiler tenders in the merchant marine required every single day at sea.

There is a hell of difference to me between working hard, long, dedicated hours far behind the front lines and almost 100% sure of not facing any overtly hostile actions, while surrounded by armed troops defending your butt, than there is when serving in a situation where your life is constantly at extreme hazard and you have virtually no way to defend yourself and often zero protection provided by anyone else either.

And at least if the CINCPac worker tripped on a rug, fell and caved his skull in on a desk, his wife and kids still got the standard Armed Forces life insurance check. The guys risking their lives every day they were at sea in the merchantmen didn't even have that to back them up.

I think we owe each and all of those civilians who were sent into harm's way unarmed & unprotected a HUGE THANK YOU, SIR!!!

SUPPLY, SUPPLY, SUPPLY...

No doubt,if you do not have the "stuff" to get the job done...

No doubt, the Combat Troops did the deed that needed to be done. Many paid the ultimate price.

But without the "stuff" nothing would/could have been done...

Bottom line is, the manufacturing capabililty of the USA is what actually won WWII

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
[QUOTE]Originally posted:
Not to belittle the contributions of the signals intelligence guys. They also serve. The guys wearing slippers and smoking jackets in the basement of CINCPACFLT made an awesome contribution to the war effort. No doubt about it./QUOTE]


Agreed that almost everyone in the armed services in an all-out war against a worthy opponent has an important role to play and something vital to contribute.

But the signals & G2 guys in Honolulu at CINCPac didn't need the kind of pure guts the boiler tenders in the merchant marine required every single day at sea.

There is a hell of difference to me between working hard, long, dedicated hours far behind the front lines and almost 100% sure of not facing any overtly hostile actions, while surrounded by armed troops defending your butt, than there is when serving in a situation where your life is constantly at extreme hazard and you have virtually no way to defend yourself and often zero protection provided by anyone else either.

And at least if the CINCPac worker tripped on a rug, fell and caved his skull in on a desk, his wife and kids still got the standard Armed Forces life insurance check. The guys risking their lives every day they were at sea in the merchantmen didn't even have that to back them up.

I think we owe each and all of those civilians who were sent into harm's way unarmed & unprotected a HUGE THANK YOU, SIR!!!

I think a some of the USN sailors who shared their fate as crewmembers belonging to the Navy's armed guard units that manned the guns we did install on former civilian merchantmen would disagree they were entirely unprotected. The later Liberty and later Victory ships were purpose-built with a variety of armament to deal with surfaced subs and aircraft.

So would the pilots of the Royal Navy's "Hurricats," sacrificial fighters that would launch from Catapult-Armed-Merchant (CAM) ships to shoot down the long-range Focke-Wulf FW200 Condor recce aircraft before they could report the convoys position to the wolfpacks. These pilots launched knowing they had no way to recover aboard. If the Condors gunners didn't get lucky and score before they themselves downed the Condor, their only option was to ditch somewhere along the convoys PIM & hope someone would fish them out of the water before they died of hypothermia.

I don't disagree with your point that these Merchant Marines showed a lot of guts just showing up for work, and that the nation owes them a debt of gratitude that it can never repay. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle of the war; it lasted the entire war. But when you look at the facts, the vast majority of German WWII submariners remain on patrol. These Merchant Marines weren't cannon fodder. Nobody in Britain, Canada, or the US was sitting on their hands, leaving their survival up to fate.

Many of the best minds in all these countries were devoted to developing new tools and tactics for the new specialty of ASW; Anti-Submarine-Warfare. Such as Sonar/ASDIC, the sonobuoy, the Hedgehog, the homing torpedo. And a lot of servicemen also died to ensure the convoys got through.

As far as the WWII cryptanalysts at CINCPACFLT, or anywhere really (except Corregidor), they'd probably be the first to tell you that it didn't take guts to do their jobs. But you don't want people like that, doing work like that, on the front lines. They need robust communications and a secure infrastructure to do their lifesaving work.

But to be fair, most of them weren't at CINCPACFLT the entire duration. Many of them did come from, or transfer into, billets where it took just as much guts to remain at their station and do their jobs as any boilertender.

Unfortunately that list doesn't include CDR Rochefort, the guy who wore the smoking jacket and padded around in slippers in the basement of CINCPACFLT. He got caught up in the petty jealousies and politics between the Naval Intelligence and Naval Communications Commands, who were engaged in a pissing contest over which one should be doing cryptology. He was denied proper credit for Midway, and grew disgusted not so much with fact he wasn't credited but the stupid war being waged over lanes in the road while there was a real war raging. He requested a combat command, but the Navy insulted him by giving him command of a floating drydock. He spent the remainder of the war in the backwaters of the Pacific.

Truly a waste.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
SUPPLY, SUPPLY, SUPPLY...

No doubt,if you do not have the "stuff" to get the job done...

No doubt, the Combat Troops did the deed that needed to be done. Many paid the ultimate price.

But without the "stuff" nothing would/could have been done...

Bottom line is, the manufacturing capabililty of the USA is what actually won WWII

Combined with the experienced planning it takes to get what's needed where it's needed when it's needed.

If you're into this sort of light reading, I can highly recommend "Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the invasion of Japan, 1945-1947" by D.M. Giangreco.

It's a WWII history book unlike any other WWII history book. It goes into the planning to invade and take the southern half of Kyushu as a launching point to take Tokyo on Honshu. Giangreco also looks at the Japanese counter-planning. These people were not stupid. They had learned from the amphibious assaults on the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. They knew exactly where we'd come ashore as well as our tactics. They called the battle for Okinawa the "rain of steel." The battle for Kyushu would have been a foretaste of hell. The battle for Tokyo would have been a slaughter defying any attempt to describe it, or even the ability to imagine it. Nobody could comprehend it, it would have been so horrible beyond belief. The atomic bomb was truly a weapon of mercy.

Amongst the various considerations US planners had to account for was the supply of whole blood to US combat forces. One can only do so much with plasma. Whole blood did not have a long shelf life in the 1940s. Even now, with decades of advancements in packaging, anti-coagulants, computerized refrigeration systems, etc., whole blood will last maybe 35 days. It was considerably less in the 1940s. And shipping time was a lot longer back then as well, limiting the usefull life of the blood.

Giangreco devotes a whole chapter to the planning that went into ensuring that there could be a sufficient blood supply to the combat forces. Given the fact that every mile closer to the Japanese home islands US forces got, the casualty count went up. The Japanese weren't about to go gently. Quite the opposite.

There were especially equipped LSTs, for instance, that had refrigerated storage and crews of specialists off the invasion beaches, with the mission of delivering the blood to the field hospitals that put out a call for it.

You come away with an appreciation for how the invasion of Japan, even at Okinawa, hung by a number of slender threads. One or two of these LSTs could have been sunk, and the invasion's off.

There's a reason Eisenhower let the the Soviet's take Berlin. Let them lose soldiers in house-to-house fighting. Berlin wasn't the last capital the US Army had to take in WWII (not until the guys at Los Alamos got their act together), and the next one was going to be a real bitch. Eisenhower was going to need everyone he could put his hands on.

When you take a step back and consider that blood was just one medical supply among countless other medical supplies it takes to keep a force in the field, each with their own unique storage requirements, and that medical supplies are just one category of supply, as I said the mind boggles at the effort that went into planning the Iwo Jima operation, the Okinawa operation, and ultimately the invasion of Japan. Manufacturing capability alone won't get you there; you've got to be able to put the plan together.

I'm glad someone else had the job.

China FS

I agree with you post. I am a serious student of WWII.

The "Logistics" of WWII, not only the blood, but the food, ammo, etc. is monumental...

Also I do believe, that the use of the Atomic Bombs, saved far more lives, at least 1000%, more than they killed.

And for those of you that doubt this, I took a class in College, that studied the decision of the dropping, the results of, yes, with all the films and pictures of the results on the buildings and the people, ALL THE PICTURES OF THE RESULTS ON THE PEOPLE. as well as the forcasted figures of death and distruction on the Japs and the US soldiers if we had to invade...


We are getting away from the original post about Navy Boilerman...

Well, from what I have seen on TV [the Military and History Channel] They qualify as Heroes of the Republic, in my Book...

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
We are getting away from the original post about Navy Boilerman...

We are and and we aren't. It's a crew we're talking about. Not just a rating. They all end up shark bait if someone's not on their toes, doing their jobs.

Speaking of "logistics", just recently I ran across this (via some business contacts) and its WW2 history came to light, thoughts? Speaking of "less glamorous roles that were nonetheless important". (the word programming was coined prior to the popular computer term, and refers to "programs" in the military sense of "a program" now usually termed as a "system" or "SOP's" or whatever fad terms ).

Anyway, great thread, enjoyed reading, thanks to the contributors!

(more)

This is one man's discussion of the economic and manufacturing forces that defeated Japan.
For anyone interested in WWII in the Pacific Nippon Kaigun will be good reading.

Why Japan lost the war- at the Nippon Kaigun site.

I don't deny to anyone that a lot of people tried to protect merchantmen, and significant numbers died trying to do that.

None-the-less, early in the war, when the survival of Britain and Russia were both essential to the allied war effort, there was about half of the atlantic ocean where there was NO protection of any import. No air cover, no significant number of escort ships if any, and no onboard armament on most of the merchantmen. Later in the war things got much better, and of course the folks who made that possible all deserve full credit for their contributions.

Early in the war, though, when the merchant cargoes kept the Brits in particular able to fight, guts were about all that the merchant crews had going for them, And they had PLENTY of those.

As to who or what won the war, the answer was basically everyone, pulling together as they seldom have done since (except on 9/11/01). Corporate CEOs were serving both government and industry for $1 per year, even the knives from local bakery bread-slicing machines were donated for remelting and making armaments, and so on. Horrors!, politicians fought the Axis rather than each other (most of the time)!

I still think it appropriate to say thanks to those guys who did what today damned few would do willingly, for family, friends, and country.

You want to know what you are? You, Alberta Canuck, are a criminal.

You're complaining that nobody gives proper credit to Merchant Marine crewmen on a thread dedicated to Navy Boilermen.

How does that work?

In case it's not clear, I haven't been serious from the jump.

The Allied Merchant Navy was manned by sailors from Great Britain and the many nations which made up the British Empire -- now the British Commonwealth. In addition, countries such as Russia, the United States, and China which became Allies of Britian were also members of the Allied Merchant Navy. Other European countries like Poland, Greece and Norway, which came under German occupation, or Asian nations like the Philippines which was overrun by Japan, were also participants. Even neutral countries such as Sweden found that it was safer for their ships to sail with the Allied Merchant Navy rather than on their own. Over 12,000 merchant seamen came from my country, Canada, and from Newfoundland which at that time was not yet a Canadian province. Many joined the Merchant Navy because they were not old enough, or too old, or not physically eligible to enlist in the regular armed forces of their countries. Others joined because they felt it was the best way for them to contribute to the war effort. And although it was not common, even women served in the Allied Merchant Navy.

The merchant seamen faced the same dangers of war as the regular armed forces, but they did so as non-military citizens, or civilians. Their merchant ships were peacetime vessels which even if fitted with guns for defense, were not designed to withstand an enemy attack. The job of the Allied Merchant Navy was to carry vital troops, food, fuel and equipment to wherever they were needed in the fight against the Axis alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Although the Allied Merchant Navy participated in all the theatres of war, it is now generally accepted by historians, that their most crucial struggle was "The Battle of the Atlantic". The battle began on September 3rd, 1939, when the British passenger liner Athenia was torpedoed by a German U-boat, and it continued until Germany surrendered on May 7th, 1945.
As one by one her European allies were overrun, Britain, led from mid 1940 by Winston Churchill, stood alone against Germany, ruled by the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Britain became totally dependent on the merchant ships from North America to supply her with much of what she needed for daily survival. Without the troops, food, fuel and munitions brought to Britain by the Allied Merchant Navy, her armed forces would not have been able to fight. In Germany Rear-Admiral Karl Dönitz had believed for many years that the best weapon to use against British merchant shipping was the stealthy German submarine or U-boat. As a U-boat commander in the First World War, Dönitz had witnessed firsthand the appalling loses inflicted on British merchant shipping in that conflict, and since then he had devised new strategies which he was keen to try out. At first Hitler held off building the number of U-boats which Dönitz recommended -- 300 -- making do with the 57 already in service. But after his 1940 attempt to invade England -- "Operation Sealion" -- failed, Hitler stepped up the U-boat building program. Britain was not prepared for anti-submarine warfare, but she had learned one bitter lesson from the carnage of World War One. Unlike in that war when she had been slow to act, this time from the beginning Britain fought back against the U-boats and their deadly torpedoes by instituting the convoy system.

A North Atlantic convoy consisted of a group of merchant ships or merchantmen which would be loaded up with their precious goods in North American ports, and then cross together to Britain under the protection of naval warships known as escort vessels. Before the United States entered the war, the main port of assembly for the North Atlantic convoys was the Canadian city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In August 1940 Sydney, Nova Scotia, became the assembly port for the older, slower merchant vessels. Under normal conditions many of the old ships would have been retired, but, at that stage of the war Britain was so short of merchantmen that even lakers and coasters never intended for the open sea and dilapidated old "tramps" were hastily fitted with whatever guns could be found, and pressed into service. After the USA joined the war in December 1941, New York became the main assembly port for the fast convoys. New York also took over the assemblage of the slow convoys for a time, but after March 1943 they were delegated back to Sydney. The convoy system operated under the theory that if there were enough merchant ships, although some would be sunk, others would get through with their desperately needed troops and supplies.
The task of protecting the vulnerable merchantmen on the North Atlantic was mainly shared by the Canadian Navy -- the RCN -- and the British Navy -- the RN. Although, at the beginning of the war, both navies' resources were too spread out to provide proper protection all the way across, ideally, a convoy's escorts would consist of 2 powerful destroyers -- one in front and the other in the the rear -- assisted by a mix of 5 smaller escorts such as corvettes, sloops and frigates which would keep watch along the sides and end of the formation. Air planes were also a crucial component in protecting the convoys. Allied air forces -- the Canadian RCAF, the British RAF, and later, the American USAAF -- searched for U-boats and fought off planes of the German airforce or Luftwaffe, which menaced convoys off the coast of Europe. After the Fall of France in 1940, Dönitz quickly established U-boat bases on the Bay of Biscay on France's west coast. From the new bases, the ever-growing U-boat fleet was able to range farther into the Atlantic into new areas where Allied escort protection was at its weakest. During the summer and fall of 1940 it was so easy for the U-boats to pick off merchant ships at will, that their crews called this period the "Happy Time". Dönitz eventually began to concentrate his U-boats in a 300 mile-wide area in the middle of the Atlantic which was so far from land that the Allied planes then available could not cover it. This huge section of ocean in which many merchant ships and their crews were lost, came to be known as the "Black Pit".

During the early years of the war the U-boats, unless they were caught by surprise on the surface by an airplane or speedy destroyer, had little to fear from the Allies' fire-power. On the other hand even a well-armed merchant vessel which might have had some protection against an enemy aircraft or a surfaced U-boat, was still nothing more than a "sitting duck" for U-boat torpedoes. The early hard-pressed escort ships were not much better off. In order for them to detect the submarines, which usually shadowed the convoy just out of sight by day and attacked on the surface at night, the escorts needed two new technologies -- asdic and radar. Asdic, (later called Sonar), which the British had been secretly working on since WWI, used sound waves to spot the U- boats when they were submerged. In the decades before the war, the Royal Navy had thought that Asdic would make any threat from U-boats obsolete, but Dönitz and his U-boats had soon shown that Asdic needed to be improved upon. Radar, a discovery of Scottish scientist Dr. Robert Watson-Watt, used radio waves to locate subs on the surface, but, although from early on Radar showed great potential, like Asdic, it too needed refinement. Another early problem at sea was that Allied resources were stretched so thinly, that to start, only a few destroyers could be fitted with Radar.

In early 1941, a new type of anti-submarine ship, the corvette, began swelling the ranks of the RCN and RN. Although the corvettes were never designed with deep-ocean service in mind, they were desperately needed and found themselves pressed into service as oceangoing escorts. The first corvettes were outfitted with asdic and a special armament for attacking submerged subs-- the depth charge -- but, they were not equipped with radar right away. Although radar was eventually added to the corvettes, the first sets were inaccurate, and even though improvements were soon developed, it took time for the new technology to be added to the RCN escorts. As a result, during that period of time the ability of the Canadian ships to detect and fight the U-boats was severely hampered.
Along with the problems involved in detecting the presence of U-boats, the Allies suffered another major disadvantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. Both Germany and Britain had special codes which they used to send secret messages to their navies. The German Navy, or Kriegsmarine, was able to decode the British naval code, and, thereby, know exactly where a convoy was going to travel. On the other hand, the British code-breakers, located at Bletchley Park in England, were not able to consistently crack the notoriously difficult Enigma code which was used by the U-boats. During the times that the Enigma code couldn't be broken, the Allies could not steer their convoys around the waiting enemy. Consequently, the heavily-laden ships were easy prey for the German U-Boats, which zeroed in on their hapless victims in highly organized groups known as wolf packs. Merchant ship losses were astronomical. In comparison, the Allies sank only a small number of U-boats, which Germany could easily replace.

Once torpedoed, the odds of a merchant seaman surviving and being rescued were poor. Those who were not killed outright in the explosion, were often badly injured. Many drowned, suffocated by oil, and paralyzed from the cold of the the frigid North Atlantic waters. Others who did manage to make it to a lifeboat or raft, were often left behind as it was too dangerous for another ship to stop and pick them up. The survivors faced a slow, horrible death from starvation and exposure. In 1941 Britain began to provide specially outfitted vessels called Rescue Ships which, when available, travelled behind a convoy to pick up survivors. The little ships had an incredibly dangerous job for they had to stop dead in the water to perform a rescue and that meant that they provided an ideal target for the German torpedoes. The brave naval escorts also did their best to help in rescue efforts, but, their first priority was to try and locate the U-boats and prevent any further torpedoings. These harrowing conditions meant that during some periods of the war less than half of all merchant seamen survived the sinking of their ships.
In the early years of the war, so many merchant ships were sunk that the losses became almost unsustainable -- merchant ships were being sunk faster than Allied shipyards could replace them. In 1942, even after the USA, under the leadership of President Franklin Roosevelt was drawn into the war, the situation actually worsened. The American navy -- the USN -- which had been unofficially helping out with the North Atlantic convoys since September 1941, sent most of its warships to the Pacific, and then delayed in setting up a convoy system on the Eastern seaboard. Just at that same time Dönitz dispatched a few of his rapidly growing fleet of U-boats to the waters off North America and they decimated merchant ships all along the coast from Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence down to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, where they singled out the oil and aviation fuel tankers so essential to Britain's survival. For the German U-boat crews this period was their "Second Happy Time". Eventually, the USA fought back by returning some of their warships to the Atlantic and organizing their rapidly expanding fleet of newly-built, defensively-armed Liberty Ships into properly guarded convoys. Yet, these measures almost seemed to come too late. During the bitter winter of 1942-43, merchant shipping losses escalated and the Allies were faced with the real possibility that Britain would be forced to capitulate to Germany. Then in the Spring of 1943, the situation changed almost overnight.

Several things came together to cause this change. To begin with, continual improvements in air cover -- aircraft-equipped Catapult-Armed Merchantmen (CAMs) and Merchant Aircraft Carriers (MACs), Escort Carriers, and finally land-based American Very-Long-Range Liberator bombers made it possible for Allied aircraft to provide continuous protection for the convoys all the way across the ocean. The deadly Black Pit gap was finally closed. Secondly, more escorts ships and better-trained men, including those of the highly-trained support groups which were free to concentrate on finding and destroying U-boats, became available. By mid-1943 the RCN, tiny and ill-equipped at the beginning of the war, had grown into a first-rate naval force which, along with the RN, now excelled at the skilled teamwork necessary to both protect the convoys and hunt the U-boats. Thirdly, the Allied ships and planes were equipped with better weapons and equipment such as the High Frequency Direction Finder (HF/DF) or Huff-Duff, improved asdic/ sonar, and a new type of depth charge called Hedgehog. Most importantly, a more precise radar, from which the U-boats could no longer hide, was fitted on both the Allied planes and escort ships. Fourthly, the incredibly difficult Enigma U-boat codes began to be steadily broken by the dedicated Bletchley Park cryptanalysts. Lastly, the overwhelming output of speedily-built Liberty Ships from American shipyards, meant that merchant ships were no longer being sunk faster than they could be replaced. Slowly the tide of war began to turn in favour of the Allies. Although the U-boats would remain a deadly threat to Allied shipping right up to the last day of the war, by May 1943, the Allies were finally starting to win the Battle of the Atlantic.
The merchant seamen contributed enormously to the final victorious outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic, and without their amazing world-wide contribution to the war effort, final victories over the Axis powers would not have been possible. The price was incredibly high -- over 50,000 Allied and neutral merchant seamen lost their lives keeping the Atlantic life-line to Britain intact. In addition to those who died on the "high seas" of the North Atlantic -- and the South Atlantic which was the favoured haunt of Italian submarines -- many other merchant seamen faced death while serving in dangerous "coastal" waters such as the Gulf of St.Lawrence, the Caribbean Sea and the highly strategic and fiercely contested Mediterranean Sea. Throughout the far reaches of the Indian and Pacific Oceans merchant seamen fell victim to marauding German surface raiders and vicious Japanese submarines. Still others paid the ultimate price while keeping the life-line to Russia intact on the vital Murmansk--Archangel convoy routes of the frigid Arctic Ocean. Even after crossing the oceans safely and reaching Britain's coastal waters, merchant seamen still faced the hazards of deadly mines and savage aircraft attacks -- there were no "safe waters" for merchant seamen. Today, we must remember how much we owe those brave civilians who risked so much in the cause of Freedom, and who for so many years have received so little recognition.

I'll see your Donitz. Raise you a Nimitz. And I'll throw in an Eisenhower.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:
I'll see your Donitz. Raise you a Nimitz. And I'll throw in an Eisenhower.

I'll see that and and raise a Churchhill, and throw in a Patton and Montgomery.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:
You want to know what you are? You, Alberta Canuck, are a criminal.

You're complaining that nobody gives proper credit to Merchant Marine crewmen on a thread dedicated to Navy Boilermen.

How does that work?

In case it's not clear, I haven't been serious from the jump.

I am a CRIMINAL?

And exactly where did I complain that no one gives credit to merchant seaman? I simply reminded those who may not know or did not remember, that the merchantmen were very brave folks who showed as much guts, or possibly even sometimes more, than those folks who were in tough places also, but had the wherewithal to at least fight back.

If that makes me a criminal, I am proud to be one.

I don't think it is too much a presumption or a big crime to remember those who did so much for us, even if they weren't invading islands or Omaha Beach, or bombing Berlin.

So, I take it as humour, and hope dearly that it is so, your line that says you aren't really serious.

I try to respect everyone's view. As a survivor of WWII, I just try to remember and honour ALL those whom I owe.