This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Marie Ramirez, DK2
to remember
Banks, William, MMCS.
If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Lakeside, California
Last Address LAKESIDE, CA
Date of Passing Feb 18, 2022
Location of Interment Miramar National Cemetery (VA) - San Diego, California
Started a towing company. BILL'S GOING TOWING Inc.
Other Comments:
The Snipes Lament
Now each of us from time to time, has gazed upon the sea,
and watched the warships pulling out, to keep this country free.
And most of us have read a book; or heard a lusty tale,
about the men who sail these ships, through lightin', wind and hail.
But there's a place within each ship, that legend fails to teach,
it's down below the water line; and takes a living toll;
a heated metal living hell,
that sailors call 'the hole".
It houses engines, ran by steam; that makes the shaft go 'round.
A place of fire, noise and heat, that beats your spirits down.
Where boilers are the hellish heart, with blood of angry steam,
are molded gods without remorse, and nightmares in a dream.
The roaring fires pose a threat, like living life in doubt,
for any minute without scorn, could escape and crush you out.
Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell,
with orders from somewhere above, they answer every bell.
The men who keep these fires lit, and make the engines run,
are strangers to the world of light, and rarely see the sun.
They have no time for man or God, no tolerance for fear;
their aspect pays no living thing, the tribute of a tear.
There is little that men can do, that these men haven't done,
beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engines run.
And every hour of every day, they keep their watch in hell,
for if the fires ever fail, their ships' a useless shell.
When ships converge, to have a war, upon an angry sea,
the men below just grimly smile, at what their fate might be.
They're locked below, like men 'for doomed, who hear no battle cry.
It's well assumed that if they're hit, the men below will die.
For every day's a war down there, when the gages all read red
twelve-hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead.
So if you ever write their son's, or even try to tell their tale,
the very words will make you hear, the fired furnace wail.
These "Men of steel" they are the best, though the public never gets to know.
So little's known about the place that sailors call the hole.
But I can sing about this place, and try and make you see,
the hardened life of men down there, 'cause one of them is me.
I've seen those sweat soaked heroes fight, in superheated air,
to keep the ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.
And thus they'll fight for ages on, 'till steamships sail no more,
amid the boilers mighty heat and the turbines hellish roar.
So when you see a ship pull out, to meet a warlike foe,
remember faintly, if you can, the men who sail below.
Best Moment Working on a broke booster pump Nr-1 Eng Rm drinking Ice Tea Made by Skelton out of the DFT
Worst Moment The runs after drinking the ice tea
Other Memories 2nd Fleet Flag always down town parking Med Moor. We went to Amsterdam September 1967. We were on a 3 month North Atlantic Cruise showing the flag. Skelton and I being our unruly selves were out soaking up the suds in town. Now we are comming back in a cab we come upon a accident so we stop to help. Well guess who, its the XO and the Navigator and a some other guy with one woman. I think they were drunker then we were. I started laughing and Skelton is trying to drag me away and I keep laughing and pointing and these guys are trying to act like nothing is going on. Next day we are underway and we have a zone inspection. Our inspector is the Navigator and he sure does not inspect to long in Main Control Engineroom.