Speaking of the USS Forrestal, that was one of many times that Senator John McCaine narrowly avoided being killed in an aviation-related incident. The fire was started when a short circuit caused a rocket to be launched from another plane on the deck, hitting the fuel tank of McCaine’s plane. He climbed out of his cockpit and jumped clear of the plane only a few moments before the first bomb exploded.
Corned beef sandwiches [RN] were prepared, if action was anticipated. No hot food while it lasts.
Well, if the battle is so horrible that all the cooks have been killed or wounded, most of the other crew will have been killed too. And the ship is very likely to be sinking. So the survivors are gonna be abandoning ship rather than sitting in the mess hall with forlorn expressins. In the off chance that every cook has been killed but the ship is still floating, how hard can it be to make a few sandwiches? You think opening cans is an esoteric art?
Hey, have YOU ever tried finding your way around someone else’s kitchen? 
Actually almost every enlisted person goes through 1-3 months of what is called Mess Cranking or detached duty to the galley. There are exceptions, but out of an entire ship, there will be a goodly number that could step in and make chow.
When I was mess cranking, I pulled night shift. I was an E3 and one night the Mess cook went AWOL. The other mess cook looked panicked and went off to find help. The mess cranks were all that were left. I took charge by simply asking who else worked at a fast food joint before joining. I worked as a Wendy’s grill guy as a 17 year old and another crank had worked McDonald’s. We assigned 4 people to burger prep. Drill them in how. Put two more guys on fries and we handled the grill for two hours. We kept up with demand and everyone got their mid-rats that needed them. The panicked looking mess cook came back about half way through and just took charge of keeping this supplied.
We got complements on the best hamburgers the Forward Galley ever cooked. The Mess Cooks usually cooked everything ahead of time and put them on warming trays. Thus Navy Burgers are universally known as sliders and occasionally used as hockey pucks. That night, the crew had Fast Food style, fresh of the grill burgers. There was much rejoicing. No, really, it does not take much to make a guy stuck on duty on a Friday night, a little happier.
Jim
That’s not the way it works in the US Navy. Cooks, storekeepers, etc. are assigned to their Battle Stations just as any other Sailor is. Generally (on an aircraft carrier), the MS (Mess Management Specialists) were assigned to the Mess Decks. Other personnel not directly related to firing weapons were assigned to the various Repair Lockers. I was a Personnelman (similar to Yeoman) and was assigned to a Repair Locker on the Hangar Deck.
Our Navy has Hospital Corpsmen (the only Enlisted Corps in the Navy). Those are the individuals assigned as medics either in the Repair Lockers or the Medical Department. Of course, there are a few medical doctors aboard and they’re assigned to the Medical Department.
Our boarding parties are composed of individuals whose ratings include those duties.
Again, not in the US Navy. Our damage control crews are the individuals assigned to the Repair Lockers, individuals from very many ratings.
The Repair Lockers include an excellent layout of the ship and the damage control crews are expected to be very familiar with their locker’s area. Even the flight crew are required to pass a damage control test for the ship to which they’re assigned.
On my first ship, the USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70), an aircraft carrier, part of the damage control qualification was to get from a randomly assigned space to a designated debarkation area while blindfolded. Another part was to get from one randomly assigned space to another randomly assigned space on the ship within 5 minutes.
A further note on the Air Wing: the aircraft assigned to the carrier are the carrier’s defensive cover. All personnel assigned to the Air Wing are at their battle stations when doing their thing (launching aircraft, recovering aircraft, fueling aircraft, coordinating movement of aircraft, etc.) with the Air Wing.
Another poster mentioned “thousands of men.” Yes, a USN aircraft carrier can have approximately six thousand Sailors aboard.
Looks like ‘big ships little ships’ routine to me.
On frigates and destroyers the disposition of ratings is differant compared to carriers.
On smaller vessels, the maintenance crews comprise a large percentage of the complement, the flight crew are only a small part, there are more secretariat than flight.
The secretariat will be trained in first aid to a fairly high level, and they will come under the full time Medical staff, they will recover the injured from the rescue post, basicaly the damage control team extract the injured to a safer location and the medics move them on from there.
Its not unusual to see them on boarding parties, especially on the very small ships like patrol vessels and sweepers.
It also means that there is a lot of doubling up, you don’t get assigned one role at a time, you have several at once.
Electricians will be damage control, fire fighters and may well be involved in operating weapons systems, you tend to move from one section to another, for six months you might be on machinery space maintenance - and that means you get firefighting during the normal routine, with damage control+firefighting during action stations, but later you could be shifted on to one of the main weapon maintenance sections, so you end up with fire fighting during normal ship running and weapons crew during action stations.
All RN personnel are trained fire-fighters, all have to keep within date, but some do it much more than others, carriers also have more highly trained firefighters for immediate response but they are backed up by the damage conrtol parties for secondary response, and if the incident is serious enough, then it will drag in other staff, but priorities have to be set and it depends upon the situation as to which incident you deal with first, since in wartime a fire is likely to be accompanied by other problems, such as battle damage, loss of electrical power and loss of main engines.
Most of the detection and fire control and EW is operated by the ‘deck apes’, who during their working day will be used on upper deck maintenance, things like bringing the ship alongside, small boat maintenance, rigging stuff, they will form the main part of boarding parties, shore ops, and use most of the shooting bits of the weapons sytems.(as opposed to the loading and setting parts)
Another of my famous sidebar questions: What do embarked Marines do in these situations? Would they just help with the extra-hands side of damage control and first aid?
I have to ask…how does someone go AWOL on a ship???
He’s using it metaphorically, i.e.: not at the appointed place of duty=AWOL.
A quite common expression among military folk.
In the Navy, failure to be at your appointed station on a ship (especially underway) is called Failure to Repair. It is possible to be AWOL from a ship–ships are known to be in port from time to time.
These are the categories of UA (Unauthorized Absence) on the Page Six:
[ul][li]UA Over Liberty[/li][li]UA Over Leave[/li][*]AWOL[/ul]
We were in port, I used AWOL as most people know the term as opposed to UA (unauthorized absense).
Raguleader: On the Carrier, the Marines broke out weapons and secured certain upper deck areas. I do not know the details as I was a Snipe, I was below the waterline more often than not and always below the hanger bay level.
Jim
heh - I have a retired buddy who lost his stateroom in the '78 incident. Luckily he was on watch, but the friend in the next stateroom wasn’t quite so lucky. He does have a few burn scars from the mess. They occasionally show that footage.
He doensnt like fires now and refuses to use charcoal or gas BBQ, only electric. Don’t blame him one.
What was the '78 incident? This is a new one to me.
According to the Wikipedia article, it was when an A-7 Corsair attack jet, suffering from a radio failure, crashed into a group of planes sitting on the carrier deck while trying to land. Seems that the “Ball”, a visual landing aid for pilots landing on carriers, was lit up, which would normally indicate that the pilot could safely land.
Just quick shout out to the USN’rs here…Monty I was on USS Virginia CGN-38 we used to tie up next to the Vincent CVN-70 in Hampton Roads…
Any of ya’ll do a Gitmo Tour…we did alomost 4 straight weeks of training there…it SUCKED…day after day of constant GQ…then i got umm detained by shore patrol (I was TOTALLY innocent) after a brwal broke out in EM’s club…it was Over the 1982 world series…go detained a second time (guilty) for cliff diving…
Thanks for the memories…Bong Bong Bong general Quarters General Quarters ALL hands man your battle stations, this IS NOT a drill…bong bong bong…
tsfr
oh ftr…FTG3…MK86 (mod1) GFCS…
sorry bout the typos…
tsfr
Since I can’t see that anyone’s mentioned submarines yet…
While technically we do have a battlestations watchbill, we don’t have the personnel, space, or access to have individuals specifically designated to hose teams or damage control parties. Organization is built more around the concept the off-going, on-coming, and on-watch personnel being assigned different duties by watchstation. So if a casualty occurs on your off-going time, you’ll be expected to be in a different place than if it happens during your on-coming. If unassigned, you go to crews mess and stand-by to assist as needed.
Nothing particularly interesting happens as far as the state of the ship is concerned. Between the conditions we have to meet for nuclear containment and rig-for-dive, there’s not much that needs to be changed.
One time DC2 (sw) here.
Going from a Carrier, Kitty Hawk to a Ammo/Oiler *USS Detroit * was a culture shock. On the carrier my damage control parties were almost exclusively manned by engineering types. On the *Detroit * we had a mis-mash of all ratings. Some days I felt like I was hearding cats.
What Exit made a very valid point. The* Forrestal * fire changed everything frome firefighting training to flight deck procedures.
I was on the Vinson (correct name of the ship) when it was homeported in Alameda.