Question regarding the aft 5" mount on a Fletcher-class destroyer
All 5" mounts on a Fletcher-class used dredger hoists to move shells and powder casings up from their magazines to their upper handling rooms, except the aft Mount 55. I used the virtual tour feature available for USS Cassin Young to look around the mount's upper handling room, and it confirms what I see on the Booklet of General Plans. It looks like there's just a flush scuttle in the deck and a lifting eye welded to the overhead above it.
Can anyone help me find a source, either a document or written/oral account from actual Fletcher sailors, about how ammunition was passed up?
The simplest answer would be that the crew in the magazine just lifted them overhead through the scuttle, but I can't imagine that's the case. The shells were 55lbs each and the powder cases were 28lbs each, or 83lbs per round. For a maximum rate of fire of 15-22 rounds per minute and with several hundred rounds stored in the magazines, it seems like that would destroy the magazine crew in minutes while their counterparts in all the other 5" magazines just used powered dredger hoists.
My other thought is that the lifting eye above the scuttle is for some sort of chain hoist pulley system, the ships I served on had these to move heavy items up between decks, but I'd need some way to verify that and see/read about how it worked.
I'm writing a research paper, so any links or pointers that could be provided would be very helpful.