US NAVY MACHINE SHOP

[pflaming]

Today at Lion's Club the speaker told us that his father, an ace machinist, joined the navy in WW II. He was assigned to a ship which sailed with a fleet of ships. His ship had five floors of machine shops and they built parts for ships, airplane, vehicles whatever they needed that was not in stock, they make it from raw material. I find that to be very practical and very interesting. So many things happened in WW II that the public knows litlle or nothing about.

Got an item you want to add? Tell us about it.

[TrampSteer]

My Dad was Navy - used to take boats full of scientists out to set up instruments and blow stuff up. When we pressed him further for details we discovered it was the Atomic tests in the bikini islands. Daaaad!

 He said when the nukes went off he was below decks, below water, his back to the site and his eyes closed. He still saw a flash.

[Dan Hiebert]

One of my uncles was a Navy frogman during WWII.  He died two years ago.  My favorite "little known" activity he'd tell stories about was when they would have submarines drop them off outside Japanese held harbors.  They'd swim into the harbors and place limpet mines on ships to damage or sink them.  On the occasions the Japanese caught on to their presence, they'd shoot into the water.  The bullets couldn't reach the divers at the bottom of the lagoon, but the divers would swim face-up and catch the falling bullets in their teeth.  Whoever came back with the most bullets "won" that sortie.  If they threw grenades, the divers were in trouble, but he said those tended to go off too shallow. He had several small jars with varying amounts of rusty old bullets in them, each jar was from a mission.  We got the story when we asked about those jars of bullets, which he would tell with a certain amount of glee.  I don't recall that all of his screws were tight......

[casper50]

I've seen the machine shops on the USS Missouri.  impressive.

[Bobacuda]

My dad was an infantryman from South Texas and he saw time in North Africa, Italy and finally in Europe.  He was one of the men in his unit assigned a BAR rifle.  His unit was primarily made up of boys of Hispanic or Polish ancestry, except for him and two others.  He used to laugh and tell us that his sergeant could never pronounce the Hispanic or Polish names, so whenever he needed someone fast, he always called for "Hall, Smith or Nelson."  Then he would get kind of quiet and tell us that by the time they got through Italy, Smith and Nelson were dead and he pretty much figured his time was coming.

[Dave72dt]

My father said very little about his war experience and spent much of it stationed at Pearl.  The few bits and pieces he ever mentioned may have only been clues to a larger picture that I can only guess at.  I do know he was not at Pearl when the bombing occurred and arrived very shortly after, arrival date unknown  I know he was one of only two radiomen who took code that only the top general was allowed to see.  He knew Doolittle and was once required to maintain his post for several days without sleep which could have easily been during Doolittle's raid or one of the major island invasions, unknown again.  I know he spent time at Diamond Head's military base and Ford Island and got a chance to see some of natures' wonders of Hawaii.  I don't know what he heard or saw while over there. I can only imagine.   Any secrets he knew went with him.

[Dan Hiebert]

I'll throw another "little known" into the hat to keep this going.  Another uncle was also in the Navy during WW2 (both on my mom's side) this one was a fighter pilot and ended up retiring from the Navy as a Rear Admiral.  He had enlisted before the war broke out.  He didn't talk about his combat experiences, but talked a lot about shipboard life.  My brother and I were/are WW2 airplane nuts and always pestered him about what he flew, hoping for some sexy high-speed-low-drag stories, or tales of daring-do.  What we always got was how unglamorous flying the fighters was if you were the wing-man, or weren't flying off one of the fleet carriers.  He flew F4F Wildcats and F6F Hellcats off of escort carriers, and mainly flew ground support, but would only say that you really couldn't see anything out of those small windows in the belly of the Wildcat.  He also would tell us that although Spam (the unwanted canned meat, not the unwanted advertising) may have helped win the war, it was the only meat they'd get for months on end, and after the war he could barely even look at it. 

[William Davey]

My father served in the Navy as a PT boat mechanic in the Philippines.  He told of the many times they would make parts to get the boats back in the water because replacements were not available.  In their down time they made jewelry from left over pieces of Monel from the propeller shafts of the PT boats.  He had several nice rings and the start of a wrist bracelet in his box of mementos from the war.  Almost like trench art.

[Jeff Balazs]

Up through the mid 90's I did a lot of engineering work on Navy fueling systems inside the sub base at Pt. Loma.

Much of the WWII era machinery and equipment was still in use at the fuel farm and many other facilities when I working there. You guy's would have loved it. Walking into the various shops you could tell that little had changed since the war. Sure there might be a few pieces of modern machinery........but it was almost always surrounded by old stuff........most of which still functioned to some degree and was in use.

 

I will never forget my first tour of the the main tank farm. We had just been awarded the Fuel System engineering contract and they were most anxious to get us started. Our first tasks were to evaluate the facilities and prepare budgetary requests for modernization. I was expecting to find 60's or 70's era equipment and controls. Well boy was I in for a surprise. What I found instead was a system that had obviously been "upgraded" in a hurry......and probably right after Pearl Harbor. OMG!!!!!

The main pump house had 4 old pumps with vintage 30's open frame motors and hand mitered pipe fittings. Gas welded no less. All the seals were leaking like crazy including the block valves...... with no spill containment......and at least a 1/2" of fuel on the floor. I couldn't believe my eyes. If this had belonged to one of our Oil Company clients it would have been on the 5 O'clock news and all involved promptly crucified.

 

Thank god they were not storing or shipping Av gas any longer. Just DFM and JP5 these days. But for years they were the terminus for avgas and how they keep from having a major disaster is beyond me. Two of the pumps still had the Av gas labels on them. I couldn't get out of this old pump house fast enough. Things got better though. We needed to do a major assessment of the Fuel Pier. Surely this would not be too out of date.....after all it is right near the entrance to San Diego Harbor and is out in the open for everyone to see, Well OMG x 2! The pier itself had started off life as a whaling pier in the very early 1900's. It had then been taken over by the navy and cobbled together to serve the fleet. It did have some 60's vintage fueling arms but again much of the piping etc....was pretty darn old. They had a rudimentary spill boom which could be deployed manually with a Boston whaler. And next to no clean up equipment. Nothing at all resembling a normal marine terminal.

Tied up and taking on fuel that day was a truly ancient fleet oiler that made the African Queen look like a yacht. I just wish I had some photos to share with you. All I can say was it was an eye opening experience. My first up close view of how the Feds live by a different set of laws than the rest of us.

 

Jeff

Edited October 11, 2014 by Jeff Balazs