Good Morning Danny,
Your wish is my command
Originally Posted by Danny42C
No cabin for me this time, just a hammock on a mess deck. They're quite comfortable once you've worked out how to get into them. You must have a "spacer" - a strip of wood about 15 inches long to hold the top ropes apart where your pillow is going to go. As to getting in, my memory is that there was some form of handhold on the deckhead between the hammock hooks. You grabbed hold of this and hoisted yourself up into the fold of the hammock. An RN rating could give you a better description, but all I can say is that I did not fall out and slept like a log. The hammocks had to be taken down each morning ("lash up and stow"), and stowed against the ship's side, out of the way of the mess deck tables where you ate and spent most of your day. They'd also absorb the steel splinters which would be flying about if the ship were hit by gunfire.
Hopefully the red arrows mark out the spacer (stretcher) that you are describing which also does exactly what you are talking about.
The very tired looking sailors in this picture have fitted them in a different way to how we were taught, the strings (nettles) should go over the spacer (stretcher) this then helped keep the hammock from smothering you but looking at that picture the stretchers may have deliberately been fitted like they are to keep the occupants warm!!
They say a picture paints a thousand words and looking at that image I would guess this is a Second World War destroyer on active service during the war, probably deployed in either the North Atlantic or Artic convoy duties. The ship has just stood down from action stations and those off watch are attempting to grab a few minutes precious sleep. Wearing a cap on a messdeck is a very BIG no, no and I am guessing the guilty parties are far too exhausted to know what they are doing.
When the hammocks are stowed the messdeck looks similar to this...EXACT same class of ship but in peacetime and on Christmas Day, note the hammocks in their stowage area at the top right of the picture.
Danny, I trust you put in seven turns on your hammock when you stowed it and yes this is where the saying 'Lash up and stow' comes from.
The hammock would be used to 'bung up' any holes from incoming shells, shrapnel etc. plus if they are secured tight enough, it was alleged that they would float and could be used as a buoyancy aid but how they would escape from a sinking ship is beyond my imagination
I hope this picture has bought back some happy memories and I do have a copy without the red arrows
Incidentally, approximately TWENTY sailors would live in that messdeck, they lived, eat, slept and played in that confined area for weeks on end, sometimes not ever seeing the light of day until the ship arrived in harbour!
Back to your engrossing tales of yesteryear and I concur with the sentiments expressed by Chugalug.. The author of that book might well have a grudge or any of a dozen reasons for making such a silly and unsubstantiated claim. It would only need an instructor to have a pupil that might not reach the standards required and all of a sudden EVERY pilot trained at the same location as that poor student might get branded as being of the same poor standard?? YOU
KNOW DIFFERENT
and more to ,the point the free citizens of Great Britain know different. We ALL owe your generation so much and I guess I get tetchy at those who dare to criticise those that were prepared to pay that ultimate price in defending our freedom.