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This is a really first-class toilet because it has modesty boards between the stalls. The first ships I went on simply had two boards running the length of the trough.
This is the high end of the trough and the big valve in the back controls how much sea water runs down the trough to carry out the waste. The smaller valve connects to two pipes, one in the front of the trough and one in the rear, to wash waste off the sides of the trough.
Water flows from the high end of the trough to the low end, then through a pipe and out the side of the ship. It flows the same in port as well as out to sea. So don’t go swimming in the harbor.
You learn pretty quickly that you want to get the seat at the high end of the trough. When all the space is taken from one end of the trough to the other, someone at or near the high end will wad up some toilet paper, light it, and drop the burning paper into the trough.
Just as soon as you smell burning hair, you had best jump up. Of course it may be your own hair that’s burning.
Directly opposite the trough you see in the picture there is another identical trough, and when both troughs are loaded with men your knees are hitting the knees of the guy across from you, so it’s pretty compact — as U.S. Navy stuff usually is.
But it’s really handy when you have new boots come aboard and they get seasick. They can sit on one trough and use the other getting relief from both ends at the same time.
Another time it’s handy is when the cooks serve some bad food that makes everybody sick.