HT Hull Technician Navy Rating Patch

The HT rating mark carries three tools, a maul, an axe and a carpenter's square, and each one is a job a Hull Technician still does. The maul is the heavy hammer of metal work. The axe is firefighting and damage control. The square is the craftsman who can lay out and build whatever the ship needs, whether or not the supply system has it. Put the three together and you have the sailor the whole crew calls when something breaks.

The Navy created the Hull Maintenance Technician rating in 1972, folding shipfitter, metalsmith, pipefitter and plumber work into one rate, and the line runs back to the carpenter's mates of 1797. For years after 1972 HTs carried the damage controlman's work too, until DC was set apart again as its own rating. HTs weld, braze and cut, fabricate sheet metal, and keep the piping, valves and marine sanitation systems running. They repair small boats, maintain ballast control systems and run the non-destructive testing that checks the welds. New HTs go through Basic Engineering Common Core and then HT A school at Naval Station Great Lakes, where the training sites from Pennsylvania and California were combined in 1995.

The patch is 4.5 inches wide by 3.25 inches tall, a wide panel with notched corners and a navy blue merrowed edge rolled all the way around. Gold bands run across the top and bottom, with UNITED STATES NAVY in navy blue letters above and HULL TECHNICIAN below. The navy blue center carries a big white H and T on either side of the crossed red maul and axe over the red carpenter's square. A small red, white and blue striped bar sits just under the tools. It reads at a glance from across a mess deck, which is the point of a rating patch.

An HT shop is where a ship goes when the part does not exist anywhere but in somebody's head and a sheet of steel. The same sailors who spend the day on pipe and welds are the ones in the repair lockers when general quarters sounds and the damage control drills turn real. Shipmates in every department learn fast who can fix a leaking valve at two in the morning. That trust is the reputation the rate has carried since 1972. The tools on this patch are a fair summary of a long career in the hull.

This patch has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on, which holds up better on a jacket that will see years of wear. Mount it in a shadow box with your ship patches and a cruise book photo, or sew it on the vest you wear to a ship reunion. It also makes a good gift for a son or daughter who just made HT. The rate says it plainly: hull, axe and steel.