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A sea story thread. When I served on USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20), female officer berthing was directly below the fo’c’sle—a space where the anchor chains & capstans are located, “owned” by the boatswain’s mates (aka “Deck Apes). 1/ taskandpurpose.com/hidden-camera-…
One night, as I lay in the upper berth staring at the overhead (ceiling) and pondering the Great Mysteries of Life, as one is wont to do at sea, I noticed a pinprick of light. I slipped out of my rack, dressed, & went up to the next deck. 2/
Sure enough, someone had left the lights on in the fo’c’sle. The frames of a ship are numbered, forward to aft, & I was able to locate the section of deck in the fo’c’sle directly over my stateroom. And the 3/16” peephole that some enterprising boatswain’s mate had drilled— 3/
in the deck, invisible to a casual observer unless 1 of the 2 compartments was illuminated & the other dark. There was no way of knowing how long it had been there; I hadn’t seen any dust pile on the deck in my stateroom, but the mess cranks kept officers’ staterooms 4/
quite clean & I might not have known. Or it could’ve been drilled when the 1st women were able to “ride” MTW a couple of decades before, & never used since. Being one of the 1st women assigned to a naval combatant, I didn’t want to raise hell about it. 5/
I figured that if the current boatswains were drilling peepholes, they were more likely looking for the stateroom temporarily occupied by a statuesque Barbie doll of a Norwegian liaison officer, who was rumored... 6/
...to sleep nude, & to provide quite a show when she climbed into the top rack. Not me. (And if they were looking at ME? Nothing anybody could do would help those poor boys.) Digital cameras & the Internet were in their infancy in 1995-6. No worries there. 7/
So at lunch the next day, I pulled the First Lieutenant (the officer in charge of the fo’c’sle & all the boatswain’s mates, & a fellow O-3) aside & took out my fid, an awl-like tool used in rope & line work. I owned one b/c I lived aboard a sailboat. 8/
I told him about the peephole, & said that if he didn’t get it fixed that day, I’d wait underneath it & put out the eye of the 1st boatswain’s mate I caught taking a look w/my fid. /9
There were other things I could’ve said or done, of course. But given my 1st 6 years in the Navy, & having stood quarterdeck watch w/boatswain’s mates for a few months by then, that seemed to be the most effective course of action. /10
The peephole disappeared & I never saw that light again. It shouldn’t have been or even seemed necessary to threaten my shipmates (I really did love the boatswain’s mates!) w/physical harm to make that happen. This should not still be going on. 11/x
