1/6/44: Adverse Sea Conditions

6 JAN 44

4, 5 and 6 January would find Princeton “steaming singly as before en route Pearl Harbor” at roughly 20 knots on a base course of southwest, with intermittent intvervals of “zigzagging in accordance with Plan 6.” At 1900 on the 4th she changed to the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT, also known in the US military as “Zulu” time) +8 1/2 time zone and by the same hour on the 5th, she crossed to Zulu +9.

The morning of 5 January, commencing at 0739 and continuing for 19 minutes, included the test firing of some of Princeton’s sixteen 20mm and twenty-four 40mm anti-aircraft gun batteries.

At 1045 the ship “exercised crew at fire drills.” I can tell you from personal experience that fire drills, especially when underway, are consistent and routine, and for good reason. On any naval vessel of this era one would find marine fuel oil, aircraft gasoline, bombs, bullets, boilers, spark-generating maintenance equipment, miles of electrical wiring, combustion engine-driven vehicles and aircraft engines. Additionally, during my early years in the Navy and I would assume it to be the same in 1944, a pervasive personal smoking habit* among the crew existed. All these ingredients of the fire triangle were, by necessity, within close proximity to one another. Through the decades many of the Navy’s worst disasters have been the result not of battle, but fiery conflagrations during peacetime. The moral of the story is that firefighting drills were, and remain, at least as important as training for combat.

At 1638 on January 6th, Princeton changed base course to 250˚ and reduced speed to 18 knots “because of adverse sea conditions.”

At 1745 the ship’s War Diary reports:

“…changed course right to 040˚ and changed speed to 15 knots, to recover man reported overboard. Discovered man in refuge in gear locker on forecastle and slowed to 5 knots to permit recovering him. At 1751 man was recovered, uninjured.” The forecastle, or “foc’sle”, is located below the flight deck on the forward end, or bow, of the ship. It is a relatively large (compared to the rest of the compartments on any ship), open space where the anchor chains are located. Often used for ceremonies (promotions, chapel services, etc.) parts of it, by virtue of the fact that the massive anchor chains require an opening from which to be lowered, are exposed to the sea. Being located at the head of the ship, one can imagine that this could, and does, allow an angry ocean to have its way with the gear lockers and equipment stored in the foc’sle. Which is what appears to be the case here. I can imaging this young Sailor being essentially trapped in a gear locker and unable to extricate himself due to the unrelenting pounding of waves breaking on the bow.

At 2010, Princeton resumed a southwesterly base course, the “sea having subsided slightly.” The last entry of the day’s War Diary, typed seemingly as a routine afterthought, noted:

“Maximum observed roll this date was 27˚ to port and 18˚ to starboard on inclinometer in chart house.”

To which my response is, WHUT!?!?

😳

Now, 27˚ degrees may not sound like much but I am here to tell you, on a boat with 30-40 aircraft, various vehicles and other equipment on its flight deck (F6F Hellcat empty weight 9,238 pounds, TBM Avenger 15,536 pounds), all requiring multiple tiedown chains, to say nothing of all the interior spaces with heavy tools, furniture, manuals, stored ammunition and bombs, the galley and it’s cooking equipment, etc., any and all of which becomes a potential sliding or flying hazard, a 27˚ roll is anything but routine.

For perspective, in 1988 USS Midway, experienced a 26˚ degree roll that was the talk of Naval Aviation at the time, and is still discussed today. There are a number of reasons Midway became unstable (explained here: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/02/10/Heavy-seas-cause-aircraft-carrier-to-roll-dangerously/5031539931600/) and it is my understanding that airplanes broke their tiedown chains and careened about the deck doing considerable damage. Like the incredible sporting event attended by millions more than a stadium can actually hold, there are a lot of Sailors who claim they were aboard Midway that day. And there are photos:

And in fine Naval tradition, they even made a patch:

The LSO School has it's own patch also:

Just for kicks, here’s a photo I took in 1999. I edited it to show what an exact 26˚ roll would look like when sitting on the catapult.

Again … 😳 ... It seems to me a 26˚ roll might get one's attention.

* The Navy banned smoking on Submarines in 2010. On surface ships smoking is still allowed in designated areas, and then only at very limited designated times. I have to admit that, when the “smoking lamp is lit,” I have enjoyed the occasional cigar with squadron brothers out on the “smoking sponson.” This tradition has at times been revived when visiting each other in laters years (both hairless, one of us a retired Admiral):

While the Navy has come a long way in it’s effort to make the service “smoke free,” in my day, the “smoking lamp” general PA announcements were a thing. The Naval Heritage and History Command explains how smoking was allowed, but mitigated, going all the way back to the 1500’s:

Smoking lamp - The exact date and origin of the smoking lamp has been lost. However, it probably came into use during the 16th Century when seamen began smoking on board vessels. The smoking lamp was a safety measure. It was devised mainly to keep the fire hazard away from highly combustible woodwork and gunpowder. Most navies established regulations restricting smoking to certain areas. Usually, the lamp was located in the forecastle or the area directly surrounding the galley indicting that smoking was permitted in this area. Even after the invention of matches in the 1830s, the lamp was an item of convenience to the smoker. When particularly hazardous operations or work required that smoking be curtailed, the unlighted lamp relayed the message. "The smoking lamp is lighted" or "the smoking lamp is out' were the expressions indicating that smoking was permitted or forbidden.

The smoking lamp has survived only as a figure of speech. When the officer of the deck says "the smoking lamp is out" before drills, refueling or taking ammunition, that is the Navy's way of saying "cease smoking."