Onboard every U.S. Navy ship, there are things they call engineering drills. They are put in place for different reasons, 1) The prevention of damage to equipment and sailors, 2) To teach the Sailors who are engineers how to react to causalities sin the engineering plant and prevent further damage to the boilers, engines and associated equipment. Every ship in the U.S. Navy back in the days I served had to go thru this training, in Cuba, and the watch teams had to qualify and pass these drills to be certified to run the engineering plants. We had Engineering manuals and drills and operating procedures all over the spaces, plus Personal Qualification Standards for each Watch Station and individual.
So, as a engineer aboard a Naval ship, we engineers had times we hated more then others for sure. Especially when these periods of drills and qualifications would come up at least once a year for us. We knew what it would mean for us, long hours in a hot engineering plant, sweating away and practicing drills will wear any man down for sure. But the U.S. Navy pushes these things to points beyond compare and the sailors who man these positions get injured at times, tired at times and angry too. The anticipation of these drills build from the moment the ships schedule is set to participate in them. Each sailor aboard the ship knows it leads them to Cuba, hot climates , high temperature work and very long hours. Yeah, being a sailor is not always a fun time, but being a naval engineer is worse then the rest of them. We were always the first to report for duty when getting underway and the last to leave when coming home to home port. It is a part of Navy history that engineers aboard our ships give that extra because they have to.
One year aboard a ship I was assigned to, U.S.S Pounce LPD 15 out of Norfolk, Virginia, these drills for engineers came up. The plant was old as was the ship, yet it still needed to be run correctly and the watch teams certified to run it. We were scheduled for Cuba and Engineering Trials and Training in August of that year. We all were not looking forward to visiting Cuba again, first off for engineers the liberty there sucked, and the hours became long drawn out, sweaty work days of 18 hours or more.
As we arrived in Cuba that year, we had a younger crew then normal onboard and knew it was to be a challenge to say the least, for these watch teams to be trained correctly. I was assigned at the time to the Engineering Casualty Control Team or ECCT as I called it. These are the senior Petty Officers and offices aboard a ship who have run Naval Engineering Plants for years and know the drills and procedures well. Our main purpose is to help qualify the watch teams and get us out of Cuba and back into service at sea as fast as possible and in a correct manner.
During this trip[ to Cuba, as I said the watch teams were made up of younger sailors who just came out of engineering schools from the Navy, Their experience levels were lower then most and as we started the drills I knew we were going to be in Cuba for a while for sure. The days grew longer and longer and our period of stay in Cuba grew longer too, the temperatures kept rising, in the engineering plants and we sweat through two or three sets of uniforms a day doing drills. We ran through all the drills once, and we failed to get certified, due to foolish mistakes. SO we did them again, then again and again. The ship had to be certified to operate the plant, or we could not be sent on missions.
Well after so many times and a long period of time in Cuba that was well over a month longer then normally scheduled we did finally pass the certification and we were sent home to Norfolk, Virginia our home port. The revenge the engineers came up with happened, on our next mission and voyage into the North Atlantic Ocean and the freezing temperatures. Our mission was sin the cold waters up north and the engineers were still tired of being pushed.
One day in the fire room, the Captain came down and didn’t like what he saw some of his sailors doing. So as a punishment he went back to his stateroom and called in his Chief Engineer. He set up more engineering drills to take place right there on that cruise in the North Atlantic. man, did this make us engineers mad. But, like all good sailors and military men, we did the drills he wanted done, as quick as humanly possible because we now knew them by heart.
Once completed, a boiler man, in our forward fire room decided he had enough of these drills. and He was tired of us all being pushed so relentlessly. His solution would make the Captain think twice, before ever doing such a thing to his crew again. He found the steam valve that controlled the steam to the Captains steam heaters in his stateroom. laughing!. Slowly each day a quarter turn at a time he slowly shut the valve down, Ultimately he cut the steam off to the Captain’s state room making the Captain freeze in the North Atlantic Ocean’s cold waters in November. The valve controlling this steam, was located in a very out of the way place in the overhead of the fire room and could only be operated by a hinged reach rod. To insure no one could open the valve and give the Captain his heat back the sailor destroyed the reach rod!.
When the Captain called down about his heat missing we sent him to another division an told him all was fine in the fire room, this went on for one week in the North Atlantic Ocean in freezing temperatures. Finally the Captain sent the Chief Engineer to find the problem, and he located the valve but not the reach rod to open it with. In the end a new one had to be created. The Captain learned a lesson, he now knew not to over push. The cold revenge of his engineers against him cost the Captain a few weeks of very sick time. Talk about cold revenge being the sweetest!. Of course ultimately the Captain never found out who did it and life went on.
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