How much fuel, you might ask? Tens of thousands of gallons, at a minimum. Large ships had double-receiving stations, so two probes would be hauled aboard at once. Smaller ships, if they needed a lot of fuel, could take them at two fore-and-aft stations.
Besides the deck folks, this took a lot of people. Each tank was monitored by a sailor with sounding tapes. Sailors manned valve manifolds to direct the fuel. It was best to take fuel into a number of tanks at a time, because if too much fuel was directed into a single tank at a time, it could fill too rapidly and then bad shit could happen.
One of the lesser things in the "bad shit could happen" would be if the probe of the oiler or the drogue basket on the receiving ship were worn a bit. See, the sailors pulling the probe and hoses aboard had to slam them with some force into the basket for the probe's latches to snap into place, but not so hard as to damage things. If the probe popped out, the valve in the nose of the probe would slam shut, but the probe coming out would still spray DFM (Distillate Fuel Marine, basically diesel) all over everyone on the refueling station. Do that a few times and the sailors on the downwind side wold be soaked with DFM.
In the greater of the "bad shit" would be if so much fuel was directed into one tank so that the tank overpressurized. Since the tanks were generally surrounded by other tanks that were also laden with fuel, the weakest point was to the side of the tank with air on the other side. Which was the top. in one instance, what was above was a berthing compartment of radiomen and operations specialists (radarmen). They usually worked and lived in air-conditioned comfort, they were not at all amused to have their compartment sprayed with DFM.
The third group of sailors who almost always smelled of diesel were the sailors on non-nuclear submarines, or diesel boats. Even ashore, they smelled as though they'd bathed in the stuff.
