Huh. They showed them looking at didgeridoos at a store in Perth, didn’t they?
Didn’t watch the show but have been reading some Wikipedia articles about things mentioned in this thread - what’s a smoking lamp? There’s no article for it.
(Suppose I could ask my dad, but I’ll ask you guys instead.)
The smoking lamp is the figurative device that announces whether crew can smoke or not. When the lamp is on smoking is permitted. When the smoking lamp is off, the ship is a no-smoking area. Often the smoking lamp is extinguished during fuel transfers.
When you could smoke on the ship, they would secure from smoking for various operations like fueling the boat.
They would then announce the “Smoking Lamp is out” and when done “the smoking lamp is lit”
It dates back to the days of yore when the sailing ships had designated lamps from which to light pipes and cigarettes.
Well, I would never have guessed that.
I thought the ships were no-smoking - can you smoke on deck?
The Navy only went non-smoking relatively recently. Sometime in the last 10 years.
"The smoking lamp is out throughout the ship while taking on fuel."
One of the bits of memory my dad retains from his late 50s service.
There’s a video on this page on the PBS website about the show that discusses the writing of the theme. It was specially written for the show by Edward Bilous.
Thanks! Wonder if I can find it as a single anywhere… I’ll check iTunes.
I was quite pleased to hear BOC’s “Then Came The Last Days of May” in one of the episodes. One of my all-time favorite songs.
Smoking was allowed in a designated smoking area on submarines (even when submerged) when I was aboard one back in the '90s. The smoking area was in the engine room, all the way aft and right above the bilge. You’d see a bunch of off-duty guys in there puffing away day and night.
A few years before this (late '80s), smoking was allowed throughout the ship, even in the control room.
Even when submerged, the atmosphere control equipment could handle the smoke, although the ventilation filters had to be cleaned much more often.
While the Navy strongly discourages smoking, it’s usually up to the CO whether to establish smoking areas or prohibit smoking altogether.
Even if smoking is allowed, one place that smoking is strictly regulated is above-decks at night when running dark (i.e. without running lights). A lit cigarette could give away a ship’s position at night. (Strictly speaking, running dark is against the maritime “rules of the road,” but there is nobody to enforce this with warships.)
My dad’s destroyer (USS John W. Thomasson) had another ship run into her during some kind of maneuver at night. (This was during the Korean War.) The ship’s chaplain was up there taking flash photos of the damage and the captain completely lost his shit about it. It’s funny because I’d heard this story all my life and then at one of their reunions I met this tiny, gentle old man and he said he’d been a chaplain and I just couldn’t stop “You’re the one?!” from coming out of my mouth.
Of course, the Old Man was also a tiny, gentle old man who was very sweet and regretful about not having been able to hang out with the regular enlisted guys when they all served together.
One more thing: When the smoking lamp was out, it was also supposed to forbid any spark generating evolutions, such as welding, grinding, or hammering.
OK, I’m catching up on this series on my DVR. I’m watching the “Squared Away” episode, and I have a couple of questions.
First, there was the guy who went to Captain’s Mast and got 30 days restriction after racist comments and getting drunk and into a fight on liberty in Guam. My question is what is the effect of restriction if you’re on the ship anyway (other than port calls)? Also, now that the episode is going further along, how did he manage to get himself kicked out? I thought you couldn’t get kicked out without a court martial.
Second, they had the sequence when they showed a bunch of people with petty officer insignia. All of the insignia had the “crow” and the chevrons, but they didn’t have the symbol for the particular job or rating they did between the two. I thought petty officers’ insignia had the rating symbol in the middle.
Restriction was usually held up until in port. This is really horrible on a long cruise as you end up missing all of the liberty ports. My one and only time was while in port thankfully.
The XO could give extra duty instead of restriction. This could really cut into your already short at sea sleep time, as there are extra musters and at least two extra hours of work per day. However, I am sure it was preferable to missing the overseas liberty ports.
On dress uniforms we had our rating symbol. We even had that for below E4. (PO3). The dungaree shirts just had iron on generic crows from what I can recall. We even had T-shirts with the plain crow for a while on West Pac when the ship was extra hot. I mostly wore coveralls though with the stick pin collar crows.
Jim
That makes some sense, but what about the young woman in an earlier episode who was calling her dad to say she had restriction until June 18 (or some date). She missed Hong Kong, but it seemed like she’d make some later ports.
Also, did you understand why they guy got out of the navy?
Now that I think about it, they were all working uniforms, either light blue shirts with the crows on the sleeves or dark blue coveralls with the collar insignia (though it looked like they were mostly patches, not pins).
Different XOs and COs handle thing differently. I am guessing her punishment meant extra duty and no liberty ports until her time was done. If she was a pencil pusher type rate, the extra duty probably meant more than it would to a snipe. If you give snipes extra duty and extra musters, it just cuts into our work hours. Sometimes the extra duty is actually easier than what we were working on.
On how the bigot got drummed out, but I though the CO did that. He would have the authority. I believe the sailor would have the right to request a Court Martial but a Court Martial is not a requirement. However, on this part, I am out of my depth. **Mr. Moto ** or **ChiefScott ** can probably give you the facts and not my half-assed memories.
I had one friend that got separated finally for his alcoholism, but that was medical and took about 6 months to process through, including a stay at the Navy Hospital in San Diego.
I don’t know anyone else that got drummed out after bootcamp. For the Bootcamper it is a completely different situation and they are just separate. It is not dishonorable or even other than honorable. Basically you just have an official notice you washed out.
I noticed they had something different on their coveralls than what we used on the USS Ranger in the late 80s. I have no clue if that is a Navy wide or a shipboard decision. I liked my Crow pins, I think I gave one to my son recently when I found it in a draw.
Jim
We had the chambray (light blue) shirts with iron on crows. our names were stencilled above the left pocket. The crows were generic, i.e. no rating designation. Now Sailors wear chambray shirts with embroidered patch crows. Also names are emboidered and now “U.S. Navy” is embroidered above the right pocket.
On the coveralls, sailors sport ebroidered crows on the lapels (With U.S. Navy and their last names embroidered over the right and left pockets respectively). The chevrons (the V’s) are red, uless you have 12 years of good conduct and then they’re gold. E-6 and below were black belts with the coveralls
Chiefs and officers wear an embroidered patch of the appropriate fouled anchor or officer device on the collars of their coveralls with khaki belts.
The stick pin silver crows are now worn only on the Ike jacket, and raincoat lapels.
Nice job, guys. I found this thread thoroughly interesting (particularly ChiefScott’s Shellback Ceremony story) and I’d love to read more stories. I married a former submariner but still can’t get enough stories. 
I just finished watching the entire show on the PBS website and thought it was particularly well-done, although they did leave some questions. I, too, am wondering why it seemed so easy for that idiot bigot to get out and why he didn’t take a more severe punishment for his behavior which seems really destructive to morale and team-building. What a jerk. How bad is it getting an other than honorable discharge?
I’ve gotten through the first five episodes, and I’m really enjoying it. I do have a few questions, and was hoping some of the Navy vets here might be willing to enlighten me:
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The section on the gay sailors surprised me. Not that I’m surprised there are gay people in the Navy, but I thought that the “dont ask, don’t tell” policy would require them to be very discreet. The show gave me the impression that there were a significant number of people aboard who were pretty open about being gay, stopping just short of saying, “I’m gay.” Is that impression correct? If so, how likely is it that they’ll eventually get into trouble when they (perhaps inevitably) run into someone who really has it in for homosexuals?
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It looked like everyone wore civilian clothes when they left the ship on leave. I’ve always had mental images of sailors walking around in uniform while on leave; is that just a misconception from the movies? Or, has something changed recently? I wondered if it was an effort to blend in and avoid being targeted.
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I was surprised when that pilot lost his flight status, and had his career put in jeopardy, over the incident where he ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing in Baghdad. I expected him to take some flak over it, but I didn’t think it would be that severe. Obviously, running dangerously low on fuel is a bad thing, but was it really that big a blunder? Or is it more likely that he had a history of problems, and this was the “last straw”?