The most forward compartment in this area is the Anchor Windlass Room. This is the equipment that moves the anchor up and down. Each anchor weighs 30,000 lbs and has 187 fathoms of chain, or 1,122 feet. Several decks under this room, the chain is piled in the Chain Locker.

Imagine this berthing compartment filled with off-duty sailors. These two rooms housed nearly 120 total sailors. Each sailor had one bunk and one locker as their only personal space. The bunks are enclosed on three sides, with a little curtain to close them in completely. Remind you of anything? We call them coffin racks for a reason. These bunks may seem small but they’re almost luxurious compared to the enlisted berthing or racks of earlier eras. Before 1982 the racks were made of pipe frames suspended from the overhead by chains and didn’t have storage underneath.

In World War II the crew was around 2,800 men, but in the 1980’s it shrank to roughly 1600. You’ll pass through many berthing spaces on your visit today, but there are many more elsewhere. If you’re wondering about spaces behind locked doors or roped off passageways, oftentimes, the answer is more beds like these. The spaces currently used as exhibit spaces used to be berthing spaces too.

Sailors usually berthed with other sailors in the same division, or other men who did similar jobs to them. This space was used by the Boatswains. Boatswains were in charge of the anchors and lines around the ship. For many men that meant that they worked very close to where they slept. You might notice that there aren’t separate berthing spaces for women on board. Women were able to serve on board navy ships by the end of New Jersey’s career but this ship was never modified with separate facilities for female sailors.

While there were no designed spaces for women on board, in the first years of this ship’s history, the navy was segregated and Black sailors, as well as other non-white sailors, were relegated to certain jobs and thus their living spaces were separated from the white sailors. For example, the black sailors who worked in the ship’s galley in World War II stayed in the berthing compartment directly underneath this one. By the late 1940’s this practice had been ended and Black sailors served in all capacities on this ship, including as Battleship New Jersey’s final admiral, Admiral J. Paul Reason.

Look for some of the art that the boatswains left around the space. As you walk around the museum today you’ll see sailor art in many forms. Some of it will be like this and be large fairly professional art. Some of it will be simpler or informational about the space. All of the sailor art you see today likely dates to the end of the ship’s career when it was permitted if an officer approved the design.

Feel free to try out one of the bunks to get an idea of how the sailors slept while on board. Don’t forget, the ship was always moving! While a ship of this size didn’t rock too much in normal conditions, the front of the ship where we are now moved the most. Do you think you’d get sea sick on board?

You could experience a night aboard the Battleship and sleep in similar bunks with our overnight Encampment Program.