Five Bells And All’s Well
It’s 1:00 PM – 1300 in military parlance – on a Saturday. Beautiful afternoon. Bright sunshine, cool breeze… and a group of Battleship IOWA crew members has gathered near the structure that supports the radio antenna on the foredeck.
Beneath that antenna hangs a bell. It’s not the ship’s original bell. That one’s got a place of distinction down in the museum. It used to hang in the superstructure, but when new regulations came into play, IOWA’s needs changed.
The revised regs called for her to sport a bell and a gong – bell up front and gong in the back. The idea was (still is) to have distinctly different sounds at each end of the vessel to help other mariners distinguish the length of the behemoth sitting in the water in conditions of low visibility.
The 1943 bell – a massive 900 pound giant – was chrome plated in the 1980s and put on display in the officers’ wardroom, and a smaller replacement bell, originally from USS ASTORIA (CL-90), was fixed under the antenna. It remains to this day and is still rung for ceremonies and special occasions – for example, one toll for each name of the IOWA 47 every April 19th and yearly on December 7th, once for each ship hit in the 1941 attack.
Ringing the bell is considered both honor and privilege, and once a quarter, that privilege is bestowed upon some deserving individuals: volunteers who have reached milestone hours of service to the ship, marked in the mind-blowing increment of one thousand hours.
When you reach 1,000 hours, you are invited to ring the bell in front of your shipmates. 1,000, 2,000, 3,000… the increments keep increasing. We have volunteers who have accumulated over 13,000! You read that right: thirteen THOUSAND hours.
There’s an extra perk that goes with your first thousand hours: a custom embroidered jacket that cannot be purchased. It must be earned. Most volunteers take years to reach these milestones.
Every time a “bell ringing ceremony” takes place, first-timers join old hands in flinging around the fancy bellrope. The newbies tend to be tentative initially, not realizing both bell and clapper are substantial pieces of metal. The veterans get up there and crank the rope with gusto. Each person gets to send five peals reverberating over the ship’s foredeck.
“Ringing the enormous bell, even in front of a crowd, is very personal and quite moving,” says IOWA volunteer manager Sue Schmidt, one of the originators of the tradition. “Getting to do so five times gives each volunteer the opportunity to relish their accomplishment in a visceral way, literally feeling the sound and deep resonance down to their toes. It feels significant – and it is.”
On this particular July Saturday, fourteen crew members – including four who have achieved their first thousand hours and the venerable CAPT Rich Abele with a whopping nine-thousand hours – clang the bell. One of the rookies is in for a second surprise.
Sue steps up to announce the volunteer of the quarter. It’s Alison Spack – one of the newbies. She’s just rung the bell for her first thousand hours.
“She’s one of those ‘unsung heroes’ who generally works below the radar, quietly benefitting the ship and crew in myriad ways,” Sue says with a knowing smile. “She is an absolutely delightful, thoughtful, talented, and proactive person who goes above and beyond to ‘fill in the gaps,’ and she was recommended overwhelmingly by the staff and her shipmates in multiple departments.”
Alison is known for thoroughness and attention to detail. She looks for jobs that need to be done and completes them. She adds quality to the experience of visiting the ship by attending to the little things. You might think sweeping a remote corner, shining some brass or stainless steel, or repairing a fraying corner on a signal flag isn’t important in the grand scheme, but minutiae make the difference between a good experience and five star excellence.
Congratulations to Alison and all our volunteers. Recognizing you is a pleasure. You are what makes the ship special.
This quarter’s bell ringers:
1,000 hours:
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- Jerry Berry
- Dale Chitwood
- Don McMackin
- Don Norton
- Alison Spack
2,000 hours:
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- Ed Nystrom
3,000 hours:
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- Joyce Smith
4,000 hours:
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- Orlo Brown
5,000 hours:
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- Battleship Larry
- Doug Johnson
6,000 hours:
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- Forrest Hippensteel
- Dan Smith
- Paul Wooldridge
9,000 hours:
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- Rich Abele
Want to hang out with cool kids like Alison? Join our volunteer crew! Who knows. A thousand hours might go by in a flash and you’ll find yourself the proud owner of an exclusive new jacket, eating a piece of cake with your name on it.
But that’s only after the immense satisfaction that comes with being a part of a simply extraordinary team.
