Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1915-09-16
NAVAL ENGINEERS
Obscure Heroes of the Warships
When a Battle RACES.
BOTTLED UP BELOW DECKS.
They Get None Of the Glory and the
Fine Thrills Of Combat, but Just
Little Harder Work Than Usual.

PerilS OF the Omcers and Stokers.
There is a man in the navy who is
too often forgotten, even by the au-
thorities, when they are "dishing OUT
rewards and praise for successful OPP
erations at sea, and that man is the
man who makes the wheels go round
inside the ship.
II the wheels stop then the modern
warship lies on the water like an arm
ed tin can, waiting for some one to sail
round it, plug it full of holes and
sink it.
A fighting ship, to put up any sort
of battle at all, must be able to get on
with it at the rate Of knots, as the sail
ors say when they mean at high speed,
and the men who make that possible
are the engineers and the stokers. The
engineer officers are highly skilled
scientists, with no use for the fear of
death.
The stoker, far below the waterline,
shovels coal, and he gathers there is a
battle on, when there is, by the fact
that he has to work twice as hard as
he thought he could, and by the infer
nal racket made by the guns, and by
the projectiles of the enemy, which
have found a new home aboard the
ship.
He has none Of the glory and the fine
thrill Of battle-Only an increase in
his ordinary work.
He works by lamplight to keep steam
up, and he knows there has been a vic
tory when some one tells him, unless
be happens to be working In his
"spare" time at the ammunition hOistS
near the roaring guns.
Even now in many ships and once in
all the engineer officers and their men
are shut down in their working place,
and they cannot get out, for it is nee
essary for them to SO be closed up. 1t Is
not, of course, necessary to keep them
there to make them do their work, but
because the ships engines run under
forced draft, and the only way to get
that Is to batten down the stokehOlds.
They become, in fact, part Of the pipe,
if one can call it that, along which the
air is pumped to the fires to make them
burn more fiercely, just as one bucks up
the kitchen range with the bellows. If
the matches leading to the upper decks
were open the air would be pumped
out through them and would not pass
through the white hot furnaces.
If she Is tOrpedOed and sinks sud-
denly down go the engineers and the
stokers without the chance Of swim
ming for it as the others have when
the order each man for himself!' Is
given by the executive officer in charge
of the vessel.
In the case of the Oil driven. war
ships there is not, it need hardly be
said, that added risk for the engine
room staff There is no need to shut
them down, and in case of sinking
they have no further risk than that
entailed by the time taken for the Or
der to get down to them and for them
to get up on deck. They are, however,
the people most likely to go to frag-
ments when torpedo comes knocking
on the ships side, or, rather, down
among her foundations.
And there are steam pipes filed with
sca1ding and sudden death, flooding the
engine room in an instant with biting,
binding, soaring fog, somewhere above
boiling point, for high, pressure steam
is hotter stuff than comes out Of the
spout of kettle. A shell through the
main steam pipes, and goOdby to those
who are near the damage.
The engineer officer knows all this
and often has seen some of the things
that can happen taking place on
small but significant scale. While the
gunners get the glory he watches the
wheels go round, listens not to the
scream of the shells or the hammer
strokes Of projectiles on armOr plate,
but to the telltale songs Of the COM
pick mechanisms over which he pre-
sides with the GOODNESS Of naval Of
fcer, the skill Of man Of science and
the tenderness Of a Red Cross nurse.
Every moment may be ,the last mo-
ment the life In his body has, but he
must not think Of that.
Down there in the bowels Of the
fighting ship he must keep his mind
clear to think Of a thousand details,
and he must do it without any Of the
exhilaration that comes from watching
the effect Of the guns on the enemy's
ships.
He never sees a shot go home; he
never sees an enemy's flag pulled down
In defeat.
He sees only his engines and the men
tending them.
If all goes well and the enemy runs
or strikes the engineer commander
hears all about it at mess. II things
90 wrong he feels it quite unmistak-
ably in his person.
Get one unlucky shot into the engine
room and 1t is up to him, SO long as
volition is left to him, to put that thing
right, and he must not draw fires until
there is not another thing he can: do
first. In battle so long as there Is. a
logs chance to do so he must keep