Glory Days Revisited

Look closely at this shot and notice a few things: 1) BB-59 is not tied up at Battleship Cove, 2) She is also not covered in mothball gear to indicate that she's in storage, or on the way to/from storage, 3) This is a color photo, not a colorized reprint of a black and white.

What you're seeing is a pretty rare photo opportunity captured by photographer John Varnerin back in 1998 when BB-59 was towed up to Quincy for some hull repairs. I was trawling the web looking for more shots of the ship at various times in its existence, and I happened upon John's website (http://johnvphoto.com/). Here's a shortcut to the page on his site that has some of these shots: http://johnvphoto.com/gallery/misc.html. You'll need to scroll about half-way down to find them.

I like these shots a lot because they make the ship feel alive to me. I've always wanted to see BB-59 steaming under her own power again, and these photos make her look as though she is.


John took this shot too. It looks like an aerial recon photo to me, but it's in the water somewhere off of Chatham, MA rather than in the South Pacific.


When I contacted John about getting some of these photos, he related an interesting story to me about how he was able to get these shots. He and a friend, who happens to be a pilot, had to stalk the ship on the open sea to get these pictures. All they knew was a departure time and place, and a destination. The route and speed were unknown, so they had quite an area to search. When they finally did find the ship, it appeared gradually out of the overcast horizon, much like a ghost coming to life again. He has several more photos from this adventure that I would highly recommend. They're great prints and made a pretty cool early Christmas present for yours truly. His contact information is here: http://johnvphoto.com/contact/index.html

Living Spaces and Daily Life

Some of the areas of the ship that interest me most are what I consider to be living spaces. The way I define a "living space" is some compartment where crewmen would spend what down time they had when not at general quarters or on duty section. The Massachusetts was almost always underway with at least a full complement of crew. After the Battle of Casablanca and being assigned to patrolling the North Atlantic, she underwent a refit to increase the size of her anti-aircraft battery and was transferred to the Pacific Fleet. More AA means more crew to run it, and that meant that she had to have more racks put in to accommodate the increase in crew size. After the aforementioned refit, she was carrying more men than she was originally designed to. My point with this mini-narrative is that she was FULL of people. That leaves very little in the way of hangin' out space. On the "Gator-Navy" carrier I served on (USS Tarawa), we were crammed in pretty tight with all our fellow Marines and the sailors, though not nearly as tight as the Massachusetts' crew. On our ship, guys spent their down time in berthing sitting on racks, in passageways, on catwalks, the hangar deck, or on the mess deck. BB-59 doesn't have anything approaching the actual deck space of even a Gator Carrier (small by carrier standards), so I had to make a few educated guesses. Here we go.

This was taken up in Marine berthing on the Massachusetts. I once took a short nap in this berthing space that my fellow Marines of yesteryear occupied. Notice the proximity of the racks to each other. There is an order of desirability to each level in a stack of racks. If you have first pick (from seniority or sheer timing - i.e. you got there first), there is some thought that goes into your choice. The bottom sucks, because you end smelling everyone's nasty boots. Having been through the South Pacific and equatorial regions on a ship, I can tell you that folks' boots do smell pretty bad. The second from the bottom is my favorite for two reasons: ease of entry/exit, and you're not at head level where people talking near you are right in your face when you're trying to sleep. The selling point for the third one up is that although there are people conversing next to your face, those same people are also farting and scratching themselves near the face of the guy on the second rack up. Since farting happens less frequently than talking, I prefer the second, but that's just me. The top rack avoids all forms of human emission (talking or otherwise), but it's a royal hassle to get in, plus you tend to wake folks up during your midnight trip to the head. Berthing is tight. 'Nuff said. Also, notice that long tube in the center of the shot that opens up toward the deck. That is an air vent. More on those later.

This is the berthing area for the ordinance folks in the aft part of the ship at the end of broadway. I really like the gear stowed on the racks along with the blankets, etc. I don't know, but I'm guessing there were more racks stuffed in here originally.

Just for fun, I thought I would post the junior officer quarters. This is an actual room with eight bunks. These are the Ensigns, Lieutenant JG's, and they sleep with a sink, mirror, and private entrance. These spaces are referred to as state rooms, not berthing. I had to visit a major or two while aboard ship, and I can tell you that they sleep, at max, two per ward room, and they get such amenities as a desk and drawers.

The Task Force commanding officer, an Admiral, got these luxurious accommodations. It includes a private head (bathroom) with shower, and a large conference room with couches and port holes to look out of. The Flag officer living quarters of the ship I was on were like staying at a motel. TV, stationary bike, couch, large desk, carpet, etc. It floored me when I saw it, but hey, he has to go down with the ship, right?


The mess deck. That round bulkhead in the center of the shot is the barbett for the #3 turret. The beginning of the port side chow line is on the left in this shot. That ladder leads up to the main deck. Back behind the ladder in the color picture is a hatch(hard to see here) that leads to what used to be the extension of the mess deck where the enlisted crew sat down to eat (those seats around the barbett were likely for early or late chow). With the lines what they are for chow, I'm guessing that the crew spent a fair amount of time here, when not defending the ship from attacking aircraft, bombarding shore installations, or lobbing death upon enemy ships.

An example of an enlisted head. One shower at the back, on the right. The thinking man takes care of business when everyone else is sleeping. Shower at midnight (if you're not on night watch), but water rationing and combat probably limited how often they got to take showers. You have to be careful about hygiene on a ship though, because once disease sets in with a few, it spreads very quickly in such a compressed situation. When the health of the men in a unit takes a dive, morale, then unit effectiveness takes an even bigger dive.



Broadway. Long, straight passageway leading from the bow to the aft of the ship. It's about 3 decks down from the main deck. A lot of traffic here I'm sure, which made it a likely spot to bump into a buddy from another division and get news or trash talk. Look hard; broadway goes even further back than these shots show, as there is a z-bend in the middle.

Where all the sick-call commandos hang out. Medical is all the way at the end of broadway, and that's the #2 barbett on the right.

This is an air conditioning vent. This is like gold in the central and south pacific. Fights develop over these things. Typically, the vent in your compartment is usually branched off of a air line that is shared by several other compartments. If you modify your vent by enlarging it, or opening another vent in the section of the line that goes through your compartment, the air pressure in all the vents after your drops - big time. We punched a huge additional hole in our air vent line, but our neighbors in the ordinance dept got no air, so they sent their Gunnery Sergeant over to chew our buts and order us to seal up the hole.

Everybody needs a haircut from time to time. Most Marines I knew just got a haircut from one of the guys in their unit who happened to know how to cut hair. This type of facility was mainly for sailors. Funny thing is that the guys who "worked" in the barber shop were just other guys who knew how to cut hair (sort of). I would never trust anybody that cut my hair to give me a shave with a straight razor. Fuhgettaboutit.

Food prep area. Most units on a ship have to cough up a guy each month to work in some area of the ship that sucks to work in. Usually service related, like laundry, the mess deck, or supply. You haul stuff, stack stuff, and handle nasty food prep related duties... even haul and dispose of trash. The last one is really nasty. Here's where guys had to peel potatoes. I had to work on the mess deck when my unit pimped me out to ship's company. The chief messman loved to screw the Marines he got sent, but I made some good friends on the mess deck that made sure I was fed a lot of the time when good food got scarce. Great guys. Shared suffering builds really strong bonds.

This catwalk is behind the port side 5" gun battery. It always feels to me like a place I would hang out on my down time, especially when the ship is hitting speeds in the high 20 knots range. You can quickly get to the mess deck from here, officers go the opposite direction to get to their quarters, and there's a great view of the water and other ships.

It would be great to ask one of the vets who still volunteer on the ship where they spent their down time. If I find someone who'll tell me, I'll post it here.

Favorite Shots

Now I never claim to be a photographer, nor do I make any claims about my eye for photography. However, of the shots I've taken, these are my favorites. I'll try to explain why under each one. Thanks for humoring me. Most of these are black and whites, because I like seeing the ship in a way that makes me think it's still in service.

This makes me think of guys in air defense watching for low flying aircraft.

This is not all that artistic, but it was the one time I got a chance to see the view from air defense.

This made me think of working the deck when the ship was about to get underway.

I like the light here, because it hides some of the imperfections and looks like some of the historical photos I like.

Again, I like the light... feels like I should see a gun crew running this 40mm mount.

I got the curator to let me into his gun pit. It's the restored stbd side gun in turret 3. No plexiglass to screw up the shot!

I like the angle here, because it makes the shells look as big as they feel when you stand next to them.

I admit, I'm not sure why I like this picture. Something about the distortion of the shape of the conn view port.

I like shots of the main deck that make me think of working on the deck while underway.

I like seeing the gun barrel lowered here because it looks like the turret is being trained.

I like the 20mm guns in the foreground with the superstructure in the background. A bit like the chihuahua sidekick for the pitbull.

The stern plate with the flag is great. I wish there were fewer things to clutter the shot.

This is plain, I know. However, the everyday shots of the ship are great for me because it makes me think of the guys that worked in these everyday spaces.

I know my photo editing is bad, but I love seeing the ship without the bridge in the background.

There are so many 40mm mounts that it's easy to find a good shot of them.

Restricted Spaces in the #3 Turret

I took a "hard hat" tour with the curator today through the #3 turret. The #3 gun house is accessible from the main deck, where you can see the gun pits and the rifle breeches, as well as locally controlled targeting equipment. What I've always wanted to see was down inside the turret and in the gun pits, where the gun crews worked. The #2 turret is largely opened to the public (with the exception of the gun pits and center spaces). However, during the last hard hat tour I took with the curator, he mentioned that the #3 was a bit different than that the #1 turret that we visited. The main difference was the powder handling space had a fairly low overhead and the turret was generally more compact. Right then I chalked that up for a future tour.

I lifted this diagram from Wikipedia to better show where we went. Unfortunately, the labeling didn't come out very well. The gun house is what you see on deck with the 16" rifles mounted in them. The turret is the whole assembly that fits down into the barbett, which is a heavily-armored conical fitting built into the ship's construction to support the massive weight of the turret assembly. The turrets sit on roller bearings and are driven by electric motors. I've seen it written that the 16/45 turret assembly weighs 565 tons, so just the main battery accounts for almost 5% of the ships unloaded weight. Interesting side note; when battleships are sunk in deep water and capsize, the turrets usually fall out of the ship.

I arrived a little early so I could wander around before I met with him, but I bumped into him in the ship store, so we just started early. Getting to the #3 turret is a lot more difficult than the forward turrets. The forward turrets are accessed by simply doing down three decks and walking forward a ways. Not so for the aft. We went down about two decks, then down broadway to the ordi-folks' berthing under the enlisted galley. That was the easy part.

Once we got to aft berthing, he opened a hatch and we climbed straight down three more decks through this deck hatch. The ladders a are bit precarious in the dark, and a little oily too. I pulled an idiot move and forgot my flashlight in the car. Thankfully the curator loaned me one.

After climbing over a giant knee-knocker, we were in the #3 turret powder handling space. He wasn't kidding about the low overhead.

Notice how much lower it is in comparison to even the #1 turret powder handling space (shown above). For reference, compare the distance between the overhead to the powder hoist doors. The #2 turret powder handling space (not shown in this post, but can be seen here) is luxury condo by comparison.


To get to the lower shell handling space in the #2 turret, you climb up an inclined ladder. In the #3 turret, you climb this. This ladder is inside the tubular center compartment where a good portion of the machinery for rotating the shell hoist ring and parbuckling capstans is located. The curator said that those ladders in #2 were not original and were put in to help tourists get in there. I can see why.

This is the lower shell stowage space. Look closely and you'll pick out a few features. First, notice the three rings that make up the deck. The innermost ring (in the left of the picture) rotates with the turret when it trains the guns. Next, the center ring, which has the bell-shaped parbuckling capstan, rotates independently and is also where the shell hoists are attached. These hoists could be rotated to pick the next shell from either the inner or outer shell ring. The outer ring was stationary. Parbuckling is what maneuvering the shell is called. It's done by means of a line around the shell that is also partially wound around the capstan on the deck. The capstan turns to pull the shell while the gun crew would manually guide it to where it needed to go. Those shells weighed about 2k lbs a piece. Watch your feet!

Back up that center ladder and into the upper shell handling space. Looks a lot like the lower shell handling space, but here we saw some really interesting things. Notice the ladder on the center ring. Problem was, there are three of them, so figuring out which one took us to the gun pits was a challenge. There was also a small hatch on the outer bulkhead, that allowed access to...

...this! You're looking at the space IN BETWEEN the turret and the barbette. It goes up a whole lot further than this picture makes it look. The flash just didn't cut it here. Those bolt heads on the right (the silver ones) are larger than the span of my hand.

This was great too. What you're looking at is one of the training gears that turns the turret assembly. Like most things responsible moving that much weight, it's really big. The nuts shown here are also about the size of my open hand. You have to look hard to discern what you're looking at, but just above the large nuts is the gear. The flash reflected off of one of the teeth on the turret ring (top of picture, just left of center) that the gear meshes with.

Back up the center space ladder, to see what we could see. We saw an operator station, and it wasn't readily apparent what it is was for. I was coming through a couple of pretty tight spaces to get there, so this low angle seemed like it gave the best perspective for size and space. We got twisted around a bit, but it turns out we were in the mechanical deck just below the gun pits. It was really tight and dark, so I'm guessing doing maintenance down here would have been pretty rough.

We went back down into the upper shell handling space, climbed up one of the ladders on the center ring and into another tight space that connected all three gun pits. The first one we crawled up into was the port side gun pit.

He let me go first, and when I shined my light up, I was shocked by what I saw. So far, this trip had been a little like cave exploring; working through small spaces that open up into giant caverns. Coming into the bottom of a gun pit felt much the same. The breech end of the gun is massive, and it's tough to tell from this shot how big it really is.

Looking backward from where I was, I could see the top of the shell hoist, as indicated by the folded spanner tray (at the top, and to the left of the ladder), along which the shell and powder are rammed into the breech.

I climbed up to look around, and I saw down the shell hoist. This leads down to the shell handling space(s) on that center ring.

Here's the rammer operator's station. He stands a few inches from the gun when it recoils.


Looking down from the the gun captain's position. That hatch at the bottom of the ladder (look hard, it's waaay down there) is where we came through. Notice the red line marked on the left bulkhead. That marks the arc the end of gun takes when it recoils. If it had gone off when I came through, I'd be all done.

This shot is taken STANDING ON TOP OF THE GUN. That was really cool to see. You can see the shell hoist (the tube in the center), the powder car door is on the right, and the rammer operator's station to the right of the shell hoist. Also, there is a hatch on the upper left of the shot that allows access from the gun house.

Here's a shot showing the space where I was standing. Notice the opening on the left. Saw something interesting in there, but I've been sworn to secrecy. Sorry.

We worked our way all the way down to the powder handling space and back up to the main deck to get into the gun house. Seemed like the scenic route for sure, but I can't complain about seeing more of the ship.

He let me into the restored starboard side gun pit, where I got a couple of shots that the plexiglass usually ruins, but I really liked this one.

I spent most of the rest of the day on the ship, but this was definitely the highlight of my time there. It was great getting to check out the nuts n' bolts that kept the aft "three fingers of death" operating.