[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I read, years ago, that what destroyed the destroyers at Savo Island was - Linoleum. In the battles it caught on fire destroying the destroyers.

After the battle, all ships were ripping out their linoleum flooring and dumping it into the sea.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Another fire hazard left over from the peacetime Navy was coat after coat of paint on the ships, forming a thick layer that was ready fuel for any fire, releasing toxic fumes as it burned. When that was realized there was a mass effort all through the fleets to chip & sand that stuff off.

 

 

[rlmorel]

It wasn’t only linoleum. They had fat, stuffed couches and such. I forget where I read it, it might have been Samuel Eliot Morison’s description in “The Two Ocean Navy” of the sound of the US Navy for the remainder of 1942 was the chipping of paint.