2. Learn your recognition procedures cold.  Have the correct recognition equipment in perfect condition and at hand.  Effective recognition signals must be known at all times.  Remember the times of signal changes.

 

3. Get the feel of the lead line at night and be able to yell out the soundings loud and clear.

 

4. Practice your signaling, semaphore and blinker.

 

5. Learn all the charthouse jobs of the other rates.

 

6. Dry cells must be kept dry.  Some day you may have to use them to help start the generator.

 

7. All parts of the Flux Gate Compass must be insured against disturbance and moisture.  It is a magnetic compass and must be free of disturbances and loose gear such as guns and engine parts.  Check cables and plugs occasionally for corrosion.  Like the radio gear, operate it daily.  It should be operated uncaged at all times under way.

 

8. Keep binoculars in good shape.  Don’t rub off the blue tint.  It aids you in night vision.  Excessive heat is not good for this type of binocular, so keep them out of the sun.  The importance of these glasses cannot be overestimated.  From captured Japanese documents, it is clear that our glasses are better than theirs.  The Japs complain and admit in official correspondence that we saw them long before they saw us, chiefly because we have the better glasses.  Don’t give away this advantage by having dirty, wet, or shattered binoculars.  Keep them clean, dry and safe.  Clamp down on the boots who go down hatches with a binocular dangling from their necks.  Many glasses have been shattered in this way and replacements are almost unobtainable.