Berthing On the Battleship

When I was a kid, maybe 8 years old, my father took his three sons to visit the battleship Missouri. It was in Seattle at the time. The Navy was disposing of some of the obsolete items from the ship, so Dad bought each of us a small steel box that each sailor had been given for storing his personal things. It was only about 1' square and about 8" deep. It could be locked with a pad lock. I still have mine, packed full of childhood memories.

"in the time of sailing ships, the captain usually provided his own furnishings" i'm imagining a captain getting frustrated while trying to put his ikea furniture together before putting to sea

The first stateroom he is in looks just like my stateroom on the USS Coral Sea. Was very lucky to get it assigned to me as a new ensign.

Stayed onboard the Yorktown in the scouts me & some numbnuts friends decided together we would get up in the middle of the night & go “exploring” by flashlight we went to all of the non tour spots I’ll never forget looking over her lightless flight deck at 2am.

I was in the Royal Navy , on my first ship in 1969 we still had hammocks. If you think it was tight in that bunk space you should try moving in a hammock. Hammocks are very good at sea, but you try coming back from a good run ashore and try to sling one. The leading hand of the mess had a habit in the mornings of giving you a shake and handing you a bit of rope, if you let go of said rope you would find one end of the hammock and you dropping at a fast rate. Also meals we had to go to the galley get a tray put your food on it, then take it back down the mess to eat it. Many a time in the mornings you would be sitting eating your breakfast when a foot would suddenly appear and land a the mess deck table right next to your food.it has been known to to have landed in the food. I have photos of that mess deck and I look at them and think how did we do it, but we bitched about it but just got on with it.

I loved my Coffin locker, and in heavy seas, I got rocked to sleep. I'll admit that I loved it, however, a lot of my Shipmates hated it, especially in the heavy seas! But it was home to me. I'd go back and do it all over again!

I was on a frigate in the early 1990s, and I remember the junior officer cabins. Our ship also had a 9-man “overflow” berthing for junior officers and guests that I ended up in for a couple of weeks, which really made you appreciate the cabins!

The Admirals and Captains suite accommodations is almost what normal life for me as a junior enlisted in the dorms was like in the USAF.

As a Chief Warrant Officer on the USS Sphinx (ARL-24), in 1986/87, I shared a stateroom just like the one at the beginning of the video. Sure was a change from Chief's berthing in the after part of the ship! We did have a usable porthole in the exterior bulkhead in our stateroom too!

I'm a Fire Controlman on a modern carrier and we still have communal berthing and heads. I live in a "small" compartment with 150 men and a head with 10 stalls and 8 showers. We have the same racks and lockers. Only CPOs and officers have smaller arrangements with maybe 12 and 4 reacts relatively.

My father was sent to Australia on a troop ship during WW2. His sleeping situation was 7 pipe racks suspended from the overhead. His rack was 4th or 5th up.

Wow flashbacks here. I served on a much smaller ship WW2 built but I served in the 80s. Staterooms and racks were identical. My berthing was 30 men. Folding the rack up was called "tricing up" the rack.

Usually E1 through E6 lived in the general berthing areas. Even among the racks, seniority mattered. The middle rack was the most coveted and someone senior COULD "bump" you out of your rack if they wanted. Middle/lower/upper in that order was the preference. Although I loved my top rack as I had more head room and no one was using my rack as a step. When you made chief, you then went to the "goat locker" (chiefs mess) where we had four man "staterooms" and a few two man as well. The CMC got his own. Warrants could choose either to live in the mess or go into "officers country". Most chose the officer route although we did have one W3 who stayed in the mess because he liked the atmosphere and was more one of "us" than "them"!lol! This was all back in the 80's and early 90's so I'm sure things have changed drastically....

Don’t know why I’m watching this. I lived it for 4+ years. Crew quarters 3 high racks. Pretty much a Star Trek red shirt. Didn’t meet the untimely demise but came close to being crushed by a harpoon missile that came off the rail, flew past me and rolled up the deck.

The Newest ship I ever sailed on was CVN65 or maybe CV67 and the Berthings looked just like this. My son is Currently ships company on the Navy's newest Destroyer and they still look the same as this. With the exception of the EEBD at your feet, its now built into the rack and the coffins are a lot deeper. The light is also now LED and he has a USB charging port and 110v plug and a upgraded Issued wool Blanket,

Love the thumbnail. The editing is getting better and better, and you're clearly more comfortable on camera than you were when you started. When I visit the east coast next, you bet that I'm hitting up the New Jersey!

The double stateroom you start with is more or less typical of those found in most USN ships of the 1970s through 90s when I served though in my first ship, destroyer Caron we had a 'bunkroom' with 8 double stack racks like these. That one was referred to as the J.O. (Junior Officer) Bunkroom and primarily was used when we had transient officers and also newly assigned Junior Officers (Ensigns primarily) for whom there was no space available in a regular officer's stateroom. Of course, more senior officers (Department Heads and the Executive Officer) had private staterooms and the XO had his own Head. All of the other Wardroom Officers had to share a common Head (toilets and showers.) The Captain had his own Stateroom and Head separate from the Wardroom, no where near as large as that in New Jersey. Wardroom and Captain's Inport Cabin were on the 0-1 deck with the Wardroom aft of the Quarterdeck area and the Captain's Inport Cabin forward. The Captain ALSO had his 'Sea Cabin' on the 0-3 level just aft of the Bridge and one deck above the Combat Information Center. While the ship was underway he would sleep there of course. He had his bunk, desk, private Head with shower and toilet plus "Squawk Box" and ships service phone for instant communications plus a compass repeater and 'Pit-log' (speedometer) repeater so he could instantly know the ship's heading and speed. He would either eat his meals with the other officers in the Wardroom or a Messman would bring his meals to the Sea Cabin or occasionally his Inport Cabin. When Caron served as the destroyer squadron Flagship, the Commodore (Navy Captain by rank) would use the COs Inport Cabin and his staff officers would (most of them) end up in the J.O. Bunkroom. Our Captain (Commander by rank usually) would berth full time in the Sea Cabin during those periods, usually while the ship was deployed. In cases of need he could be on the Bridge or in Combat within seconds if called in the middle of the night. Enlisted berthing *SERIOUS FLASHBACKS*. In Caron our racks were stacked 3 high, I started out with a top rack which I shared with the Fire Main piping. I think I've got a permanent knot on my head from that thing. Operations Berthing was on the 2nd platform deck, below the waterline, ran the full width of the ship and slept 80 men. The EEBD holders, when they were introduced were bolted right INTO the sleeping space of each bunk at the foot. Yeah, that was a pain in more ways than one. Not exactly the Hilton or Trump Tower, but it beats the hell out of sleeping bags and sleeping out in the mud in the field like the Marines and Army. We had 5 large berthing compartments and a small 'overflow' (20 bunk) space. When Caron received female crew one of the 5 large compartments was converted for them.

I worked for the board of inspection and survey back in 1992 and 93. My first at Sea was on a Knox class frigate . it had the coffin racks but someone had to teach me to roll up a blanket and wedge myself into the rack so I wouldn't fall out at sea. The best birthing spaces I found were officers quarters on the 47 class cruisers in the 51 class destroyers.

In different years, my son's Scout troop overnighted on Battleships Massachusetts and New Jersey. Massachusetts' bunks were suspended pipe racks. New Jersey had coffin racks. In the pipe racks every time somebody shifted in their sleep they creaked. The coffin racks were just a bunk bed and as long as there wasn't a snorer close by, you were good to go! The bonus was is was maybe March up in Fall River and it was cold! Only the berthing compartment was really heated and the rest of the ship was pretty brisk. There was some immense electrical contactor close by our racks and maybe every every 15 minutes all night long there was "......CLUNK!!!". -comparatively speaking, sleeping aboard New Jersey was a lot closer to being in a hotel!

Thank you for the video. It is so wonderful to see all of these spaces on the New Jersey. Please keep bringing great content like this!