WHERE THERE IS NO GLORY
EVERY TURN of a ship's propeller marks the heartbeat of a floating community.
Nurturing those vital hearts are hovering men, men of the Black Gang!
These men know that engines can't rest.
A day has twenty four hours; a week has 168, but neither the end of a day nor terminus of a week brings surcease to the engines which do drive, drive our ships of war.
Engines drive ships to the distressed mariner; Engines drive the ships that protect the waters of our homeland. Those engines cannot fail. For if they fail some poor soul would lose their life to the sea, our countries way of life and citizens safety would be jeopardized.
Deep in the bowels of Coast Guard ships, grim men in their midst, the reek of oil, the stench of diesel and the ceaseless chatter of mechanical power and ruggedness in motion. Machinery, men.
There's little glory for the Engineers. These grimy working jockeys of machinery have never been considered good "copy" by reporters and photographers. When duty calls, when our enemies attack, the Engineers scurry to their battle stations far below decks where, like, weird subterranean, gnomes. They wrestle with, the combustion and electricity and machinery that KEEPS THE SHIP ALIVE.
When the "Skipper" on the bridge calls for "Full Speed Ahead" to answer the call it's the Black Gang that sends the ship cleaving through the water like a greyhound. Let the Black Gang go down on their assignment and. . . . .
Neither in life nor in death is there anything neat and clean about the Engineers. Theirs is an existence of sweat and grime and toil, plus a superior knowledge of marine engineering. A death in the midst of oil, diesel, shafts and machinery is not nice to think about but it is the price which has been by many Engineers who have been at their below-water posts when tragedy struck.
There's a peculiar pride about Engineers, a pride difficult to be understood by persons who have not known the thrill of commanding. Controlling, directing and maintaining the loud thunder of the mains and the bright lightning of man-made electricity.
When the history of our proud service is eventually written, there will surely be a special chapter devoted to recounting the miracles of marine engineering performed by men of the Black Gang who have coddled all manner of machinery and kept propellers turning with monotonous regularity and dependability.
Theirs is an assignment of anonymity,-as can be observed by the absence of names of engineering officers and enlisted engineers from the majority of stories coming from Search and Rescue cases and battle zones. With a modest touch of humor, men of the Black Gang have said, "Oh, we just go along for the ride." But no one needs be told that, if it were not for the Black Gang, there'd be no ride!
From the lowly fireman cleaning bilges under the watchful eye of his supervisor to the engineering officer aboard our largest Homeland Security Cutter there is a bond of common pride and respect. They keep the propellers turning!
They control the mechanical power of Search and Rescue Boats, they keep Helo’s aloft and they maintain the power plants at our great shore installations.
They are THE ENGINEERS!
THE SNIPE’S LAMENT
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 lightning, wind and hail. But there’s a place within each ship that legend fails to teach. It’s down below the waterline, it takes a living toll, A hot metal living hell, that sailors call the Hole. It houses engines run by steam, which make the shafts go round, A place of fire and noise and heat, that bears you spirit down. Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam, Are as molded gods with out remorse, and nightmares in a dream. Whose threat that from the fires roar, is like a 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 engines 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 hole, to make the engines run. And every hour of every day, they keep watch in hell, For if the fires ever fail, their ship’s a useless shell. When ships converge to have a war, upon the angry sea, The men below just grimly smile, at what their fate might be. Their locked in below, like men fore doomed, who hear no battle cry, It’s well assumed that if their hit, the men below will die. For every day’s a war down there, where the gages all read red, Twelve hundred pounds of heated steam, can kill you mighty dead. So if you write their song, or tell their tale, The very words would make you hear, a fired furnace’s wail. And people as a general rule, don’t hear of men of steel below, So little’s heard about this place, that sailors call the Hole. But I can sing about this 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, through no one knows they’re there. And thus they’ll fight for ages on, till warships sail no more, Amid the boiler’s mighty heat, and the turbine’s hellish roar. So when you see a ship pull out, to meet a warlike foe, Remember faintly, if you can, “THE MEN WHO SAIL BELOW.”
-CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER H.S. WALKER, Ship Repair Detachment, New Orleans
