Saturday, December 7, 2019

Quick again





I wanted to try to do something about Pearl Harbor and December 7 today, possibly because today is December 7, and if my finger counting worked correctly, today is the 78th anniversary of that Day of Infamy.

But you know, stuff.

Rather than what I planned, let me just do a couple of brief things and share the wealth that John Blackshoe laid down in comments a couple of days ago in response to the UNREP video I tacked on to the end of the post at the last moment.

UNREP/RAS is not fun in heavy weather, nor is it very safe, but while you can go on short rations for a few days, the thirsty boilers insist on a steady ration of fuel. Sticky, foul NSFO (Savy standard fuel oil) during WW2 through the early 1960s, then DFM (diesel fuel marine) until boilers were abandoned in favor of jet boats which I think like JP-5 and also reduces the variety of liquid cargo needed.

Here are some links for USS DAMATO (DD-871) fueling in the North Atlantic 1971.
First two photos- ROMEO closed up, making their approach.
Third photo- click on the enlarged version and you can see that they have a shotline across to the forward fueling station on the 01 level by the torpedo tubes, and are pulling in the phone and distance line. The Bosn's mates/riggers in yellow helmets look like they have another messenger and are beginning to haul over the spanwire to connect to the white painted fittings on the bulkhead. This was before the FRAM DDs had the probe receivers, so they will have to stick the hose pigtail down the refueling trunk.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix2/0587142.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix2/0587145.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix2/0587148.jpg

Every one is hanging on, and some may have some sort of lifeline connecting them to the ship. The safety observer in white helmet is hanging onto the starboard torpedo tubes.

And, sometimes it really was too rough to do- see USS Astoria (CL-90) January 1945 attempt in an interesting newsletter:
http://www.mighty90.com/uploads/2009_Q2_Mighty_Ninety_Newsletter.pdf

But, in nice weather you can UNREP while the airdales go flying- as with this F6F taking off from USS Hancock ca 1944.
https://albumwar2.com/f6f-hellcat-fighter-takes-off-from-the-us-aircraft-carrier-hancock/

For a good history of underway replenishment 1898 to date, see:
https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/SNAME/c94aa3c4-ac81-452f-83a9-e8fdbd2e7837/UploadedFiles/SNAME_CLF%20presentation_McCarton_DEC%205%202012.pdf

John Blackshoe- when you're out of FRAMS, you're out of cans!

Here are the first three images John provided webdresses to. You can click 'em bigger.





And here's the image of the Hellcat launching from Hancock during UNREP. You can make this one bigger too.


Here is a link to the USS Astoria (CL-90) newsletter. What a great read! Halsey flinging 800 sorties against Saigon, sinking more than 40 Japanese ships. And the saga of Captain Gerry Armitage, USMC.

Here's the link to a history of underway replenishment. Fascinating. It is ever true that you can't put fused ordnance on target on time if you don't have the fuel to steam and fly, the bombs to drop and the bullets to shoot, the chow to feed Sailors and Marines, etc. And that all comes from the tail, doesn't it? And among the fascinating facts in this presentation is a little piece about USS Cyclops, which was a fleet collier. This was, obviously, during the time when the USN still had some coal fired ships along with fuel oil fired ships. In 1913 USS South Carolina (BB-26) and cyclops (AC-4) tested stores and ammunition UNREP, which was "slow but feasible." Who remembers what Cyclops is most famous for?

The thing that leaped out at me on this Pearl Harbor day is this. There was a whole Pacific war ahead of the U.S. Navy on this day 78 years ago. A couple of the untold thousands of events that followed are outlined in the Astoria newsletter.

Another of those events is enshrined in the name of the Destroyer pictured above, preparing to UNREP in the North Atlantic during operation Clean Sweep in 1971. That unassuming FRAM Can is USS Damato, DD-871, which is named for Anthony Peter Damato.
Born 28 March 1922 in Shenandoah, Pa., Anthony Peter Damato enlisted in the Marine Corps 8 January 1942. He served in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Algeria, and in the Pacific from 21 May 1943. Corporal Damato was killed in action 19 February 1944 at Eniwetok, when he threw himself on a hand grenade to save the lives of his companions. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for this heroic self-sacrifice. Photo from the USMC History Division.


It's a good day to be reminded that there are things in our national history for which adequate words have not yet been invented.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.




21 comments:

  1. And to you as well. It is good to remember those that passed before.

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    1. Agree completely. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  2. Three of the four PROTEUS class colliers vanished. CYCLOPS, PROTEUS, and HERE IS all vanished in the Caribbean. It is believed that they were lost to shifting cargo, during storms. All three were carrying bauxite at the times that vanished.

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    1. Ha-ha-ha! I thought I was being a clever know-it-all, but I didn't even come close, did I? Sometimes I wish I had a spare brain to dedicate to reading and learning. It would probably spend all its time ordering gadgets from nozama though, so just as well I don't.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting Scott!

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  3. NEREUS, not here is. I loathe autocorrect.

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    1. Same here. The boogle al-gore-ithms seem to be getting dumber and dumber all the time.

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  4. Frams were part submarine... sigh... NEVER envied those folks on the cans. And UNREP is an impressive evolution, and one the US pioneered and is the best in the world at!

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    1. I managed to spend a bit of time here and there aboard a selection of DD's, DDG's, FF's, and FFG's. My total time underway in smallboys is circa 30 days. Compared to me and my life on the birdfarms, those guys are SAILORS! As for USN UNREP, I agree. A major reason we're a (the) superpower and just really amazing we can do it so cheap. But we'll be on shaky ground if we try to get cheaper at the expense of those hard won skills and institutional competence.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  5. Logistics. Without logistics you have idle hardware and starving personnel.

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    1. Well said and spot on.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  6. This is one of the books Badgers prize on Fleet Train Stuff.
    https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/b/beans-bullets-black-oil.html

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    1. O.M.G. I'm not sure I could get out of there alive! I believe it'll take some years...

      Thanks for sharing that Scott!

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  7. Thanks for the education and making known to me that fine American. Sorry I missed this yesterday; but ( here comes a poor excuse ), I was napping when you posted so that I would be up for a birthday dinner with my family. A good time was had by all, so it was worth it.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. Naps and family come well before any interwebz blog foolishness!

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting Paul. But no one's keeping score! ;-)

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  8. Missed my Blooger fix yesterday [that's how I spell it].
    I feel fortunate that I the unreps I witnessed were in relatively calm seas, with one exception.
    Transiting from Conus to WestPac we had to divert because of a typhoon.
    The extra time steaming required a rendezvous with the oiler.
    The connection and refueling went without incident until the very end.
    When we disconnected there was still that black tar coming through the hoses.
    We spent the rest of the day scrubbing the port side above decks and the first day in Yokosuka scrubbing the port side of the hull.
    The snipes said if we hadn't broken the connection when we did, there'd have been a major cleanup below decks.
    The oiler evidently set a new record for refueling a tin can.

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    1. Blooger!

      Yikes. It was all DFM by my time, at least on the ships I sailed in. How do you tell the difference between a nuke and conventional carrier? On a nuke the water tastes of JP-5. On a conventional it tastes of DFM.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  9. "On a nuke the water tastes of JP-5. On a conventional it tastes of DFM."

    When you have the time, would you please elaborate on that for us non sailor types. I know what JP-5 is, the Navy version of jet go juice, but I'm not sure about DFM and why the drinking water aboard should taste of either.

    Thanks,
    Paul

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    1. DFM is Diesel Fuel, Marine, universally used by ships that have small to humongous diesel engines- fishing boats to super tankers. It is cheaper than any of the jet fuels, probably a lesser grade in many of the details, but similar in consistency to JP4/5. It is available in most shipping ports, and worked fine in the Navy's 600 and 1200 PSI boilers. Basically the shift from sticky, gooey Navy Standard Fuel Oil in the boilers only needed different size sprayer plates in the burners (like the orfice in paint sprayers to spray in a mist for better combustion than just pumping a solid stream in). DFM also eliminated the need for fuel oil heaters to raise the temp of NSFO so it would pump easily and could be sprayed. Of course, all the fuel tanks and piping had to be flushed clean of the NSFO crud, but that was a one time deal when a ship converted from NSFO to DFM. Use of DFM also changed the interval for time between cleaning the fire side of the boiler tubes (an especially nasty, dirty job requiring cooling of the boiler for a couple of days, then BTs (Boiler Technicians, an ancient Navy rating with scrapers and wire brushes to manually remove all the accumulated scaly oil residue from the outside of the tubes, accessible from the cramped firebox of the boiler, and there were several hundred tubes in each boiler. The cleaning interval went from something like 300 hours with NSFO to 2,000 hours with DFM.
      Excess crud on the outside of the tubes reduced the heat transfer to the water inside the tubes which generated the steam, and also posed potential danger of creating hot spots which might burn thru a tube.
      John Blackshoe

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    2. What John said. You man now go down to engineering and collect a bt punch. Regarding water flavor, there was not infrequently fuel in the potable water supply. DFM has a much more pungent odor than jape, so you only tasted jape on the nukes where DFM was absent. On conventionals the DFM masked the flavor of jape although both were present. At a slight tangent, you should have seen the oil slick that followed CV-43 around.

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  10. Excellent post. 'Tis well we remember.

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    1. Thanks Sarge, and thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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