Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ever serve on a submarine?

There was one time at Pearl when a boat came in (not ours) and the topside San 2 connection wasn't put on properly. First time they went to blow the connection came off under pressure and blew 600 gallons all over topside and the pier. Not a good day for someone I am sure.

I can just hear a panicked topside watch screaming "SECURE BLOWING SANITARIES, SECURE BLOWING SANITARIES!!!"

Then there is the 20 ft skidmark painted on the side of the tender when someone screws up the valve lineup.

I retired from subs having served on the USS Baton Rouge, USS Shark, USS Newport News, and USS Tennessee. Also watched people work on them at TRF Kings Bay.
As an ELT, I got to see all parts of the boat, with the exception of sanitary tanks.

We were outboard another boat at Kings Bay once, and they had disconnected us from the sanitary connection so they could use it without telling us, and just left our hose laying on their missile deck. Their CO was making a tour topside when we let 'er rip. Their A-Div. officer had to buy him a new pair of shoes. Even our CO couldn't stop laughing at that one.

EXACTLY!!

Yep.. 'Blowing sanitary 2' during the midwatch on deck when tied to the pier in SD was always a 'clothespin-on-the-nose' affair..

Ew...


I was stationed in the after torp room - and the #3 crapper was in that room.. When some nub (newbie) came on board either I, or the other two TMs in the room would 'load' that tank with just enough air to cause a nice, violent uprising of (whatever) was in the bowl when he'd try to flush it..

Never ceased to give us a good round of uproarious laughter..

I'd like to take this opportunity to speak for the entire community of submarine veterans and apologize for this thread. All the non-bubbleheads are peeking in here to see stories about sneaking up to the pier in Murmansk at periscope depth and stealing Brezhnev's fishing gear. And we're fixated on pressurized poop. We apologize. But we're probably not going to be able to stop.

Well, ya gotta admit it was very cheap (and lively) entertainment when a normal day cruising can be rather boring..

I never made it inside the RC, even though I did get to take a peek inside it once. Most other places you can go in or on a fast attack boat I have been since I was on board during part of our reactor refueling. Inside ballast tanks, free floods, torpedo tubes, potable water tanks, you name it. Being a junior QA officer gets you into lots of places you didn't really want to go.

It did have its benefits though. I knew that boat like the back of my hand. It was an everyday thing for Chiefs and Officers to tell nubs, "Petty Officer Powell is standing watch down in Machinery 1. If you can get him to initial XX system/block on your ships qual card I will sign it off." They knew I was bored down there and would actually teach it, and they would know it when I was done.

Reading this brings back memories of when a local guy was killed aboard the USS Medregal on July 1, 1968 outside of SVN....a sad day for our little community...I believe he was electrocuted while repairing something...Charles Howard...

Kind of surprised none of you old guys have mentioned service aboard the Hunley...

I once motorboated the wife underwater in the pool. Then I farted. Does that count as submarinering with a sanitary blow?

I worked on an AFDM in Guam when I was in the Navy (AFDM-8). Been in a few, never wished to spend months in one.

Being in something long, tubular, black, hard and full of seamen not my cup of tea.

My Grandpa was on the USS Seafox SS-402 toward the end of WWII. He said they were off the Japanese coast. He was 5'11 when he went in, 6'4 by the end - said they told him he was the tallest guy ever assigned to a sub.

He told a harrowing story about being (not sure what the proper term is) on the very top of the sub - outside the hatch, when a Japanese plane dove out of the sky and started shooting at them. Him diving in the hatch and an emergency dive. It sounded like something out of a movie.

But he could have been embellishing a little as he also told me that MacArthur asked to borrow his pen to sign the treaty on the Missouri!

Got underway on an attack sub for some torpedo tests when I was first on active duty. 30 days under water was enough to convince me that the surface navy was probably the way to go.

One of my classmates in Sub School (Groton) was assigned to the Seafox.. He came from Clover Valley, MT and his high school senior class had 8 members - 4 boys/4 girls.. I have NO idea why I remember THAT..and yet right now I can't recall his name.. Geez.

Capt. on Redfish would hold drills to see how fast the lookouts and OOD could get down the hatch and dog it down before the water got up to the bridge.. IIRC, the fastest time we logged was around 12-13 seconds.. Guys who've been on the diesels know that when one guy hits the ladder and slides he better be damn quick about gettin' outta the way 'cause the next man was probably within a foot or two of him just above and comin' FAST..

Ha,did quite a few North Atlantic runs.Listen,listen ,listen.Our sonar man knew every ship by its screw noise!!!

Maybe,were there any turds involved???

no. it was sanitary....

a guy moved in close to me that served on one for 18 months. i think he banged his head on one to many steel door ways.he's about batshit crazy.

I was on three boomers. Did 3 patrols on the first one, about a year in the yards (EB Groton) on the second and a yards (Portsmouth NH) and sea trials and a patrol on the third.

I did NOT blow the $hitter$ on myself but I did manage to paint over the starboard dog-house window on the first boat.

It was basically impossible to see out of one that WASN'T painted over so I don't think you did any damage.