Submariners

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Been watching some movies about submarines and noticed that almost all of the officers looking through a periscope turn their covers around so the bill is at the back.

 

Question: why are they wearing a cover inside anyway?  Why is anyone?

 

Cliff Hanger, or others, are invited to educate me.

[Alpo]

My first thought was that the Navy considers "indoors" to be inside a building. Not inside a boat or a ship.

 

But, as you know, the Navy does not salute indoors, and they do not salute inside a boat or a ship, which would seem to mean that that would be considered "indoors".

 

That's a good question. I await the answer like a cat eating cheese - with baited breath.

[Trailrider #896]

Might be cold, especially in those old WWII subs.  Heat leaving through your head will chill the whole body. Or. maybe just Hollyweird. 

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

 

 

[Widder, SASS #59054]

The Commander (rank) of the boat (Subs are called Boats, not ships) has to put his hat on backwards when viewing thru the periscope.

 

Another reason to have a 'cover' on the head is due to the temperatures maintained inside the sub, which is another reason you'll notice

most of the crew wearing long sleeve shirts.

 

..........Widder

 

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

 I thought that they turned their hats around "'cause that's how they do it in the movies" ........    

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

HELL BELOW

 

On Amazon Prime with Paramont+, I'm watching a 12 episode documentary on submarine warfare during World War Two.  I've watched three episodes so far.  Well done and entertaining!  Hell Below is binge watching material.

 

 

 

 

.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

The founder of my law firm, and my long-time  senior partner, was on four war patrols in the USS Pogy during the War.

 

He died at 94 a few years back, so I can't ask him the hat question. On the other hand, whether it was cold in those subs or not, he told me he was drenched in sweat after several hours in the Sea of Japan picking their way through mine cables. He said he was never as scared as that for the rest of his life.

[Cactus Jack Calder]

For Alpo,
 

Most of the time I had my ball cap stuffed in my back belt when below deck. Fold the bill onto 1/3rds and stuff it behind your webbed belt. Back in 69-70 we still wore dungarees not CAMO BDU’s. I always had it in case I had to go above deck. On a Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH), above deck was the hanger deck and higher.  Watch standing in the Engineering Spaces was always HOT so we didn’t wear a cover, even the Watch Officer. As stated the ball cap stayed put better in winds. Nothing good about loosing your White Hat over the side. 
We had a “Man Overboard” while tied up to the pier in Norfolk VA. A seaman came back from liberty drunk. Imagine that. A wind blowing across the hanger deck lifted his White Hat over the side. He jumped in to save it. At 00:30 man overboard is not a welcome alarm. 

Actually at that hour no alarm is welcome, but come on. Man Overboard while tied to the pier in Home Port,? You’ve got to be an idiot to jump in after your White Hat. Well it turns out he was. An idiot I mean.
 

CJ

[Slapshot]

Are a weird lot, oh wait we are talking about them wearing cover inside. 

 

Semper Fi

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

When I was serving, no one wore any kind of headgear, when the boat was submerged.

What you are seeing is pure hollywood, and...as usual, they are not accurate, most of the time.

Since I was not born, and serving on a boat, in world war 2, I can't say if they did back in that day, or not. 

The subs of that day and time, could and did leak, here and there, more than they do nowadays. Perhaps they wore some cover to keep the drips off their noggin. 

All I can say is, we did not, on the boat I was on. That was in the years 1970 through 1976. 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

 

 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

 

 

 

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

Maybe I can answer this from a perspective of a WW2 U Boat officer. One of my Uncles who I visited was one of the few to survive serving on a U Boat. I remember when we visited and early one morning was full of questions. One he told me was weeks that crewmen went without bathing, washing hair etc. or changing clothes.  Fresh water was a valuable commodity aboard, and as he said grinning so was fresh air. It was damp inside with water dripping. They wore caps, hats, and rags on their heads to keep their hair out of face and eyes. I'm sure the Captain was in same condition, and up=scop he turned his cap around to get as close to eyepiece as possible. 

Sorry to say, my Uncle passed away couple months after our visit.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

Notice in the pic above that MANY of those folks are wearing LONG sleeve shirts.  Looks like only a couple are wearing short sleeve

shirts.      And of course, they are all wearing undershirts.......which I think is proper dress code.

 

 

..........Widder

 

[Trailrider #896]

1 hour ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

 

 

The danger of liquid propellant ballistic missiles, even so-called "storable liquids", hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide is graphically illustrated by several accidents aboard Soviet boomers, including K-19, and K-219, the latter of which was lost when the launch tube cover seal leaked and a simultaneous leak in the N2O4 tank on one missile, caused an explosion, that resulted in deadly nitric acid fumes throughout the boat.  They couldn't even "scram" (shut down) the reactor, and it was in danger of causing a meltdown.  A young Russian sailor, Sergei Preminin, went into the reactor room and shut it down manually using a large wrench. Between running out of oxygen canisters and the radiation, he died, but probably saved an environmental disaster from occurring along the East Coast of the United States. (See "Hostile Waters" by Peter Huchthausen, Igor Kurdin, and R. Alan White).  Subsequently, K-219 sank, though most of its crew were taken off by a Russian freighter. 

 

The U.S. Navy wanted no part of liquids. Fortunately, developments in solid propellant technology enabled safe storage of ballistic missiles for use in both submarines and land-based Minuteman ICBM's.  While arms limitation treaties have reduced the number of warheads on Minuteman III to a single one, U.S. boomers still have three on Trident II birds. Some of the Ohio class subs have been converted from Trident II to Tomahawk cruise missile launchers, capable of either conventional or nuclear warheads. 

 

Note on the loss of the U.S.S. Scorpion:  There is some speculation that the sub did NOT sink because of mechanical problems, but that it was sunk by a torpedo launched by a Russian sub in May 1968! Neither the Russians nor the U.S. Navy will talk about the sinking, even after five decades, and the collapse of the Soviet Union! (See "Scorpion Down" by Ed Offley.) One published photo of the wreck shows the sail lying on the ocean floor, with a sizable hole that could have come from an explosion caused by a torpedo!  RIP Scorpion  

[Imis Twohofon,SASS # 46646]

Maybe my Uncle,  Deadwood Miner will come along. He was on diesel boats.

 Joe, where yo at?

Imis

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

4 hours ago, Marshal Dan Troop 70448 said:

Maybe I can answer this from a perspective of a WW2 U Boat officer. One of my Uncles who I visited was one of the few to survive serving on a U Boat. I remember when we visited and early one morning was full of questions. One he told me was weeks that crewmen went without bathing, washing hair etc. or changing clothes.  Fresh water was a valuable commodity aboard, and as he said grinning so was fresh air. It was damp inside with water dripping. They wore caps, hats, and rags on their heads to keep their hair out of face and eyes. I'm sure the Captain was in same condition, and up=scop he turned his cap around to get as close to eyepiece as possible. 

Sorry to say, my Uncle passed away couple months after our visit.

 

Interesting. My aforesaid senior partner, who was on four Pacific war patrols, commented when I asked him about the movie Das Boot that the US subs were nothing like the German U-boats as shown in the movie, and as your uncle described in some respects. He said our boats were much more orderly than the U-boats, at least as portrayed.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

One of my dad's old uniforms.  He worked his way up thrugh the ranks so he had silver and gold dolphins.  I'd ask him but he is long gone.  His birthday was December 7.  He was at the recruiting station on December 8. 1941.

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Still not answering my question.  Why would anyone wear a rigid top, stiff brim hat of any description on a submarine with the close spaces and all manner of stuff on the overheads, bulkheads, and just poking up all over.? Why not something like a watch cap to keep your head warm and your hair our of your eyes?  Even a baseball cap makes more sense.

 

You don't see tankers wearing that sort of thing, or aircrews with their tight spaces, people in galleys or machine shops, or other close spaces.  As some one mentioned above everybody on a sub should know who the officers are anyway, and no one is going to be any sort of parade or formation.

 

If necessary( for some reason) keep one in your locker for when you return to port and go out on  a weather deck or go ashore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bgavin]

We tuned into my daughter Change of Command ceremony in Guam yesterday.
All uniformed personnel were told to wear their covers even though indoors.

A few years back, we visited Annapolis where her hubby was giving one of his men a promotion.
He was grateful to finally get indoors... wearing out his arm with outside salutes.