A poem about the boiler tenders in a navy ship

RayWohlfarth

It's not often we hear a poem about boiler techs and a friend sent me this. Hope you like it. My friend served during the Vietnam war and said his shift was 4am to 8pm

Now each of us from time to time, has gazed upon the sea.

And watched the warships pulling out, to keep this country free.

And most of us have read a book, or heard a lusty tale.

About the men who sail these ships, through lightening, wind and hail.

But there’s a place within each ship, that legend fails to teach,

Within the shell, deep down in Hell, where legend cannot reach.

It’s down below the waterline, it takes a living toil

A hot metal living hell, that sailors call the HOLE.

It houses engines run by steam, that make the shafts go round.

A place of fire and noise and heat, that beats your spirits down.

Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam

Are of molded gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream.

Whose threat that from the first roar, is life living doubt,

That any minute would with scorn, escape and crush you out.

Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell,

As ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell.

The men who keep the fires lit, and make the engine run.

Are strangers to the world of night and rarely see the sun.

They have no time for man or God, no tolerance for fear,

Their aspect pays no living thing, the tribute of a tear.

For there's not much that men can do, that these men haven't done.

Beneath the decks, deep in the holes, to make the engines run.

And every hour of every day, they keep their watch in hell,

For if the fires ever fail, their ship's a useless shell.

 

When ships converge to have a war, upon an angry sea,

The men below just grimly smile, at what their fate might be.

They're locked in below like men fore doomed, who hear no battle cry,

It's well assumed that if they're hit, the men below will die.

For every day's a war down there when the gauges all read red,

Twelve hundred pounds of superheated steam, can kill you mighty dead.

So if you ever write their sons, or try to tell their tale,

the very words would make you hear, a fired furnace's wail.

These men of steel the Public never gets to know

So little's heard about the Place, that sailors call the hole.

But I can sing about the place, and try to make you see

The hardened life of men down there, cause one of them is me.

 

I've seen these sweat soaked heroes fight, in superheated air.

To keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.

And thus they'll fight for ages on, till steamships sail no more,

Amid the boiler's mighty heat and turbines hellish roar.

 

So when you see a ship pull out to meet a warship foe.

Remember faintly, if you can, the men who sail below.

Jamie Hall

Not bad. Not bad at all… and even in the later days, of oil firing, the engine rooms weren't much fun. In early days, of stokers and trimmers and coal passers, they really were hell on earth.

Larry Weingarten

Hi, I remember visiting a Liberty Ship. Touring the engine room, it was very clear that if you planned on surviving, it was on you to stay out of the way of big, heavy, moving parts. You just hoped the ventilating system kept working! Probably not quite OSHA approved. 🤠

Yours, Larry

DanHolohan

Thanks, Ray!

RayWohlfarth

@DanHolohan welcome sir. My friend told me it was always 120 degrees there all the time so not OSHA approved @Larry Weingarten

Jamie Hall

120 degrees, @Larry Weingarten ? That was cruising! As I understand it, it could get considerably warmer if the folks topside were chasing (or running from!) something…

RascalOrnery

My wife and I toured the battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk Virginia. They took us down to the engines and I couldn't imagine the heat and claustrophobia to be down there all day. Even the Titanic burned immense amounts of coal daily, imagine the logistics to vent that heat and keep it comfortable for the passengers. I watched a movie on it once I think it was six hundred tons per day or something. And tickets to ride were tens of thousands of dollars so not like you could just tell those customers to live with it.

As my dad says "back when men were made of iron and ships were made of wood"

RayWohlfarth

I wonder how noisy it would be

retiredguy

The ship I was on from 1965 to 1967 was an LST and was powered by 2 GM 12-567 diesel engines. It also had 3 diesel powered DC generators and a 50 HP steam boiler that was used for heat, hot water and cooking. Our duty station was the Panama Canal Zone. I stood watch in the generator room and the boiler room. On one occasion, both the intake and exhaust fans quit in the boiler room and the room temp went to above 180 F. Yes, it was hot, and you could not touch anything metal. That day I suffered from heat stroke which still affects me today.

RayWohlfarth

Wow, that's scary