Boiler Technician

Tended a ship's boilers; the direct lineal descendants of Coal Passers and Water Tenders. The "black gang" of the steam-Navy era, still operating in 1996.

The Story

1948 created the rating by merging Water Tender + Boilermaker. 1976 renamed it to "Boiler Technician." 1996 killed it. Three names, one job, dead in 48 years — and the day it died, an entire engine-room slang vocabulary went with it.