In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 11 (Jam Dive)

Once we finished the certification, we had to go and load all of our live Torpedoes back onto the ship. No fun, of course. This time I was carrying the Belly Bands from the Torpedo Room up topside, which sucked ass. The trip up the mid-ship hatch was a bitch.

We were given another night off and wound up back at the same strip joint. The next day we set to Sea again. As we left I got to watch the Space Shuttle take off, through the Periscope. It was very cool to see and the shuttle moves much faster than you perceive when watching it on TV.

We were soon in deep enough water to submerge, to the hideous sound of the Dive Alarm. http://www.policeinterceptor.com/sounds/688dive2.wav

On the trip back I was training on the FT watch and learned a lot about what to do when. I actually spent most of the time running for Coffee, for anyone who needed it in the Control Room. One Chief wanted 6 packs of sugar in his Coffee, so I decided to test him and only put in 5. He cussed me out after he tasted it, because there was not enough sugar in it. “Dump this shit and go get another one”, he ordered. That is what the life of the messenger is like. I was just filling in, because I was the new guy.

Later I was sitting there behind the Dive (the guys who are driving the Boat), just taking in everything, quizzing the Chief of the Watch (COW, and is rarely a Chief) about his console, when the Executive Officer (XO) walked into the Control Room from the forward door.

Without a word, the XO walked around the dive station, to right in front of me and lifted a foot and pinned the dive plane control all the way down. All he said was “Dive?” What he was doing was initiating a realistic drill. It is something every Boat has to work on, a case where the Dive planes control hydraulics jam and the ship is lurched downward. Obviously a bad thing!

Downward the nose of the Boat went, quickly too. We were angling down in seconds. “Jam Dive” went out over the 1MC. The Officer of the Deck (a-hole Weps) starts barking out commands… “All back full!”

The Helmsman sets a controller to what the Dive Officer orders. This info gets sent back to the Engine Room and they “answer” by setting the control on their end to what was ordered, then a red indicator in the Control Room moves to the spot they answered, so we up in the Control Room know they are making the change. All back full is a pretty intense thing for a Sub to do when it’s moving along at 20+ knots.

Back aft, maneuvering are disengaging the shaft and applying the brakes. Once it’s stopped, they can reengage and start the reverse. The Boat shutters and shakes once they start the reverse. We were at a precarious angle at this point and everyone was just holding on so they wouldn’t go flying across the room.

Meanwhile, on the mess deck, the fried chicken that was sitting in a pool of it’s own grease in the ovens, slid forward because of the sharp angle, and sent a shower of grease right into the convection fans, inside the oven. This caused a fine spray of grease to hit the heating elements in the oven. Guess what?

“Fire in the Galley, fire in the Galley!” came over the 1MC (the main communication circuit for the whole boat). The XO actually kept his foot on the Dive planes, until the Captain walked into the Control Room. It was no joke; smoke was filtering into the Control Room. The Boat was on fire, at least part of it. The COW sounded the General Alarm (a bute!) http://www.policeinterceptor.com/sounds/688GQ.WAV and repeated “Fire in the Galley” on the 1MC.

The General Alarm wakes up everyone on the Boat. Everyone has something to do, even me. I headed to the Torpedo Room, my station, which was not easy because the Boat was still pitched downward. With a General Alarm, you are not sure what the problem is until it’s announced (in this case I knew), but you don’t think and just get to where you are supposed to be, period. There were just lots of people running around, zipping up zippers as they hurried along, having just gotten out of the bunk.

The fire went out on it’s own after a minute or two (the smoke used up all of the oxygen in the oven). The Damage Control (DC) teams were still rigging hoses when the Galley reported the fire was out. Greasy smoke hung in the air for the rest of the day; it was not bad enough to surface the Boat and snorkel to remove the smoke.

That night we actually ate the charred Chicken, with rice. There was nothing else prepared. I think it was JT who came up with the name of the dish, “Jam Chicken!”