> "six of its eight ovens were out of action, and sailors were barred by contract from fixing them themselves" The Government person who signed this contract s

> "six of its eight ovens were out of action, and sailors were barred by contract from fixing them themselves" The Government person who signed this contract should be fired. While this is somewhat forgivable on fixed bases where the company maintains a support office and can have people on site to fix problems, for a ship that might be at sea for months this is an outright travesty. This goes double when you consider that it might be wartime and the ship could be suffering battle damage. Even if the captain decides "screw the contract, we need to feed the sailors", if they have no parts and no manuals that decision may be moot. Ships need to be self sufficient to a large degree and a part of that is being able to maintain and repair the equipment on board. Large ships have extensive machine shops for a reason.