One clipping room captain and four enlisted ammunition handlers manned this compartment, supplying 20mm gun crews with magazines and bringing back empty magazines to reload. The room held drum magazines and crates of ammunition for the 20mm anti-aircraft guns. Each magazine contained 60 rounds, and each gun held one magazine per barrel. Although the guns were capable of firing 450 rounds per minute, the heavy magazines could not be changed that quickly, so the average rate of fire was 250 to 350 rounds per minute. Steward's Mates manned all three clipping rooms, and during World War II Steward's Mates were African-American men. Roosevelt Flenard, a Cook 2/c transferred to the crew of the North Carolina in mid-January 1941, recalled that Negroes had only been opened to service in the Army and Navy in 1936, and in the Navy only as mess attendants. He remembered that aboard the North Carolina, mess attendants cleaned officers' staterooms, made bunks, put towels in rooms, unpacked, washed, and stored dishes, cleaned silver, cleaned the wardroom, and did anything else officers asked, including handling laundry.