In Medieval days up till the
early 1800's there were no engines and no Snipes. Along about 1812 the Navy
obtained their first paddle wheel steamer named the USS Fulton. To run the
boiler and engine, men of steam were also acquired. They were not sailors but
engineers from early land based steam engines. From the beginning the sailors
did not like or appreciate these landsmen and their foul smoky plants. They were
treated with contempt and pretty much given the short end of the stick. In spite
of all this the steam engine prevailed. There were still two crews however. The
Engineers and the Deck crew. Soon an Engineer Officer was appointed to each
ship. He was the Engineer master and all the Engineers reported to him. The Deck
sailors reported to the ships master. Curiously, the two masters were on equal
footing and neither was over the other. The Deck Master though was in the best
position. He controlled the quarters and rations. The Engineers were still at
the mercy of the deck gang. By the height of the civil war, as steam was taking
over and sails were disappearing the old Admirals that controlled the Navy were
in a quandary what to do about the situation. They accomplished a couple of
things. First, they managed to make the senior Master a Captain. As Captain he
was in overall command of the ship and the Engineering officer reported to him.
Beings as how there were occasions that the Engineer master outranked the ships
master something had to be done to keep the Engineer from becoming "Captain". To
solve this problem they developed two separate Officer branches. Staff and Line.
Only Line Officers could succeed to command. Staff Officers would always be
subservient to Line Officers at sea. Staff Officers consisted of Surgeons,
Supply and yes, Engineering officers. To this day that is still true. The second
change was to make all engineers's Navy men, however they were also made junior
to all deck sailors. A petty officer machinist was junior to a deck seaman
third. All this went to make the life of the engineers even more miserable. They
could now be flogged and harassed at will by the Deck crew. Along about this
time came an Engineer Officer by the name of John Snipes. I cannot find the name
of the ship he first appeared on, but he was a different cut from the others. He
demanded sleeping accommodations, and food equal to the Deck gang. He also
declared that there would be no more harassment for his gang. When the ships
Captain laughed at him Snipes simply had his men put out the fires in the
boiler. To make a long story short, Snipes brought about the changes in the
system. In time these changes extended to the entire Naval fleet. The Engineers
became strictly "hands off" for the Deck gang. They became known as Snipe's men
and over the years as just Snipes. It is curious to investigate the history that
followed. The put down Engineering officers, now designated EDO’s or 14xx in
Navy parlance commenced retreating from the ships. They established what was to
become a huge bureaucracy known first as the Bureau of Ships and later as NAVSEA.
To fill their seagoing billets deck officers were given enough training to
become dangerous and appointed as Engineer Officers on board ships to fill their
vacated positions. To actually make the plants run senior men were elevated to
the ranks of Warrant Officer and later “Limited Duty Officer”. Note that the
term ships “Engineering Officer” is reserved for an actual EDO. A Deck officer,
Warrant Officer, or Limited Duty Officer serving as ships Engineering Officer is
officially a ships “Engineer Officer”. When I parted company with the active
duty Navy in late 1975 the only EDO’s aboard ships were on Carriers, (A
Commander’s billet), plus a handful of junior officer EDO’s that were sent to
the fleet for penance because they pissed someone off in NAVSEA by suggesting
something practical. The rest retreated to desks and offices in the Bureau or
NAVSEA, surrounded themselves with sandcrabs, (civilian employees), and wrote
volumes of conflicting catch 22 type instructions to be followed by the poor
Engineer Officer’s left to operate the plant. If the Bureau Ships Journal, as it
was called then and later NAVSEA Tech Manual were followed to the letter there
wasn’t a ship in the Navy that could have gotten underway. On the other hand
when anything went wrong at all or the plant suffered any type of casualty it
was because the Engineer Officer did not operate the plant as prescribed in the
manual. <Sigh> On the enlisted side, the Engineering gang came to be called
“Articifiers” in about 1913. They wore their rating badges on the left arm while
the deck types were right arm rates. A Motor Machinest 2/C was now senior to a
boatswain mate 3/C however he was junior to all 2/C Boatswain mates. This would
come into play when determining who was in charge of a working party or a small
boat. In 1949 this right arm, left arm stuff gave way. All petty officers wore
their rating badge on the left arm however the navy established what was known
as precedence of rate list in which all ratings were equal but some were more
equal then others! A BM2 was still senior to an MOMM2 regardless of the date of
rate. This went on until about 1966 when the order of precedence went out in
favor of the date of rate. It’s interesting to note that all this junior senior
business only went on out of the holes. As you Snipes all know our own code of
seniority was used in the machinery spaces which dealt a lot into who was
qualified to operate what. Hoping that I didn’t put a burr under the saddle of
anyone that reads this dialog. If anyone out there has some skinny on the Snipe
history that can either be documented or just sounds better please send it to
me! I’m proud to be a Snipe. The Birth of Snipes 1842 Fireman 1842 Coal Heaver
1866 Machinist 1869 Boilermaker 1871 Engineer's Force Seaman 1874 Engineer's
Yeoman 1880 Engineer's Blacksmith 1883 Electrician ² 1884 Oiler 1884 Watertender
1893 Plumber And Fitter ² 1883 USS Trenton was the first electrical ship and had
a 13.2KW generator for lighting only That's the story as I have researched it
mate.