The first photo is of the #1 3"/50-caliber mount. It is an open, pedestal-type, dual-purpose mount. The 3" refers to the inside diameter of the barrel, while the /50-caliber refers to the length of the barrel. Naval guns are classified so that 3"/50 indicates the barrel is 150" long (3x50=150). Thus, a 5"/37 would be 185" long, and so on. There were four types of rounds: common (what might be called "high explosive" today), armor-piercing, anti-aricraft, and illuminating (starshells). The dummy shell in the contraption on the left of the photo is meant to be an anti-aircraft shell, and the contraption has a crank which would set the timed fuse that would cause the shell to explode in mid-air, hopefully close enough to the target aircraft to bring it down. That is the cause of all the puffy black smoke bursts you see in old films and in the movies.
This second photo is the best one I have of the crew's berthing. This is in the forward berthing compartment, in case you have the deck plans open in another window and are following along. The crew was bunked three high, and the senior petty officers would often take the top racks. Top bunks were prime real estate, because no one was climbing over you to get to their rack, and the fans were all mounted high up on the bulkheads, so there was better air circulation up there, and thus a bit cooler. Underneath each set of three racks was a set of three lockers. Each man had this one locker to contain all of his uniforms and personal effects. If it didn't fit into the locker, it didn't come aboard with you. Unlike submarines, where each rack had two men assigned to it (one would sleep while the other was on watch), each man on DEs got their own rack.
This one is a pretty good shot of the Captain's Cabin. The term "Captain" is somewhat misleading, because DEs were commonly commanded by Lieutenant Commanders or, in some instances, Lieutenants (two and three ranks below a full Captain respectively). However, according to Naval tradition, no matter the rank of the CO, he or she is still called "Captain". Needless to say, the CO got the largest stateroom, but most of the space was crammed with logbooks, records, and technical manuals. The uniform jacket on the left of the photo is that of the CO of SLATER, Lt. Cdr. Marcel Blanc, of Louisiana. Of course, everything in these photos you can see with your own two eyes, should you find yourself in Albany. Just follow Hwy. 20 all the way down to the Hudson and follow the signs. Or, better yet, get directions off the website. But now, let me show you photos of some of the stuff that's not on the tour. At least, not until we finish fixing these spaces up...
When I first volunteered to help restore and guide tours aboard SLATER, I looked the volunteer coordinator in the eye, and told him, "Look, you realize I'm a mechanic for the Navy. Trying to keep me out of the enginerooms will be like trying to keep a preacher out of church or a wine-o out of a liquor store." I think he got the point, because Saturdays I work down in the enginerooms, and on Sundays I typically guide tours.
SLATER, like all other Cannon-class DEs, is diesel-electric powered. Four 16-cylinder GM diesels turn four generators. These generators supply power to two electric motors, which turn the two shafts that provide the ship's propulsion. This is more efficient than a straight diesel design, because, without getting into too much technical detail, there are certain ways to change the speed at which the motors rotate without having to adjust the speed of the diesels. So you can change speeds while keeping the diesels on their most fuel-efficient setting. Being diesels, and being 16-cylinder, and thus rather large, I was unable to get a full diesel in a photograph. However, this is the best one. You can see the exhaust (the large, white, insulated pipe) running up to a large muffler room, and from there to the funnel ("smokestack").Having no actual Naval experience, at least not having ever been to sea, I'm not exactly qualified to work on the diesels. Not that you wouldn't find a diesel on a nuclear-powered submarine, but that's beside the point. My first tasking was small valve repair. Not being a steam plant, there aren't as many as you might think, but with all the seawater systems, freshwater lines, fire mains, lube oil lines, fuel oil lines, exhausts, and other such plumbing, there are plenty of valves to be had. And none of them are in all that great of shape. Some of the valves are beyond repair. Just today, I put a wrench on a valve and gave it a turn, and the valve didn't come off, the pipe twisted off about two inches up from the valve. The line was so rusted through, that the valve could have been pulled out of the pipe by hand with no great effort. Other valves are so painted over that once you put the wrench on it and give it a turn, there is a small blizzard of white paint chips. After I brush the chips away, I have to adjust the crescent wrench down a little less than a quarter inch to get a good grip on the actual metal.
This valve is a gate valve in a fire main. All the valves in the enginerooms are color coded. The handwheel on this valve is, or at least was, red, which tells you it's a fire main. Green is for seawater, blue is for freshwater, yellow is lube oil, and white is for steam. (Yes, I know, I said that SLATER was not a steam ship, but steam was still used for most heating applications throughout the ship.) Now, aboard ships, firefighting water is saltwater, because if you used freshwater, it would run out long before the fire was extinguished. I decided to tackle this valve today, and knowing it one held seawater, I was expecting the worst from a corrosion standpoint. When I put my wrench on one of the bolts and began to turn; of course I expected it to be no easy task, but I was amazed that, once I put my full weight on the wrench and the nut broke free, it began to turn rather freely. For all of a quarter turn. Then, with a faint "tink", the whole bolt sheared right below the nut, and I sat there for a minute, staring dumbly at the nut with the bolt still firmly in the flange. After cursing appropriately, but not excessively, I tried another nut. However, none of the others would turn. So, temporarily stymied, I decided to take on a foe, though far from my own size, somewhat smaller.
Attacking several smaller valves, I managed to get a fairly (or barely) respectable assembly of valve parts. Due to corrosion, paint, and general stubborness of parts, this is the fruit of about 90 minutes or so of effort. I expected this to be slow work, no doubt, but this was mildly depressing. The engineroom is in sorry shape, and I am one of three volunteers in the engineering division currently working on the one engineering space that we hope to have open by September. I couldn't help thinking as I toted my bucket of valve parts up to the Machine Shop, that at this rate, it'll take the remaining five years of my enlistment to get the engineroom in presentable shape. But SLATER has been a pretty lucky ship so far, having survived not only World War II, but use as a training ship for 40 years in the Greek navy, and then barely escaping the scrapyard in Greece before returning to the US. Something has got to give, as I'm sure it will.
After having taken the valves apart and putting the individual bits to the wire wheel and/or the sandblaster, they actually began to look like servicable valves. Granted it was rather time-intensive, but they actually came out looking rather good. After a tiny bit of filing here and there, and a fair amount of loosening up, hand-working, and greasing, they were actually not bad at all. Of course, the point is not to get the valves where they'll stand pressure so much as to get them looking good for the tour; but it was a point of professional pride to take what initially looked like a bucket of junk and turn it into something that might actually be able to serve the purpose for which it was built.The first full weekend was not as successful as I had originally imagined, but it wasn't really all that bad. Of course there is plenty of work to be done, and it won't be easy work in the least, but there is one but of motivation that I have. Remember I said I'm one of three in the engineering division? The other two have been with SLATER for a while. Now, in addition to the four 16-cylinder diesels, there are two 8-cylinder diesels that turn generators to supply all the electrical loads aboard the ship. The two others have restored one of these smaller diesels. The unrestored diesel looks pretty much like the picture of the 16-cylinder diesel I showed you before. Anytime I need some reassurance that the task I'm trying to accomplish is not impossible, I go down and look at that one restored diesel. Once you take a look at it, you might be reassured yourself...
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