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To: Oatka
None. AFAIK, all the old fleet boat (Gato class) crew had their own bunks. Mine was in the forward room, atop a torpedo and next to the bowplane motor. Interesting times when the guy on the bowplanes put them down so much they hits the stops - big blue flash gets your attention every time.

Way back in my college days a friends father had served in a Guppy don't know which one.

From what he said it was miserable duty with more batteries and equipment crammed into what was already a cramped boat.

I presumed they had to go to hot racking for the extra manpower.

70 posted on 07/05/2018 3:02:17 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Snickering Hound
From what he said it was miserable duty with more batteries and equipment crammed into what was already a cramped boat.

Serving on the Picuda (Guppy) screwed up my hearing. One guy got a cold and it went through the boat like wildfire. Clogged me up four ways to Sunday.

We did a high-speed snorkel run and the idiots on the planes lost control and we dipped the pipe. Running full out on diesels we went below periscope depth and those engines sucked the air out of the boat in record time. Went from a surface atmosphere to 5,000' before they cut out.

There were three of us in the forward room who couldn't clear out ears in time and the others said it looked like we were marionettes - all sitting up at the same time with hands over our ears. Felt like someone shoving an ice pick my ears. There went my high frequency hearing. For the last 60 years I have had to watch peoples' lips when they talked. I could hear OK but it was gibberish.

Our radarman was having eyesight problems at the time and the running joke was that we had a blind radarman and a deaf sonar guy on board. The humor escaped me.

74 posted on 07/05/2018 6:33:40 PM PDT by Oatka
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