Don Cleavin – Part Three Examination

We went to sea, and of course the first three months at sea you were doing what they called your Part 3 training.

It’s when you visit various parts of the boat, find out how all the different bits worked. Not necessarily your own branch, your own Department, but everything else so you knew about it.

Basically, information about them, how they worked. But also, at the same time you’ve got to learn your own job as well, which is a very intense three months.

At the end of three months, you do a tour through the boat with a First Lieutenant, and he just shoots questions at you. ‘What’s that?’, ‘How does that work?’ it’s not easy.

You get confused you see.

Anyway, I passed my Part 3 examination.