Shipboard Memories - Locker Space

I'm using the towel as an example of our tight quarters and lack of personal space onboard a Navy ship in the early 1970's. I doubt things have changed since then but I'm only speaking to my experience.

All of your belongings were stored under your bunk. That included all your uniforms, underwear, towels, toiletries and personal belongings. Your towels were a good example of the sacrifices made for space. Our towels were very small and closer to the size of a hand towel. They certainly were not the size of a bath towel. They taught us in boot camp to use your hands to remove water drops from your body before using a towel because you didn't have much of a towel. I still do that today with my hands to shake off most of the water before using my towel.

A major change to our use of personal storage space in 1971 when Admiral Zumwalt, the Chief of Naval Operations, announced that Navy personal would be allowed to have civilian clothes onboard their ships to be used on liberty when in port. This was a big deal. Nobody had civilian clothes on a ship before this order was given to the fleet. Of course that meant you needed to give up something in your locker space because everyone always had used their lockers to capacity. Now suddenly you could have shirts, pants, jackets and shoes that were not part of your uniform but you still needed to have the same amount of uniforms you had before the order. The space available did not change.

Having the option to wear civilian clothes on liberty while away from the ship was a game changer although we still looked like a group of American sailors wandering around a foreign city looking for a bar. Before the change we would all be wearing our uniforms in foreign ports.

There used to be businesses located outside of Navy bases that had lockers for rent where you could store civilian clothes. You would leave the ship, walk down to the locker place and change into your civvies before going out on the town.  You then had to go back there and change into your uniform to get back onboard the ship. Suddenly all that changed and those places went out of business.

Laundry was regularly done on the ship including your civvies. We had these mesh laundry bags that kept all your stuff together in the laundry. You never lost anything because it was all washed and dried in the mesh bag. Towels, uniforms, underwear, civilian clothes all went into the bag.