NS0307504 |
7k |
Hoggatt Bay was sponsored by Mrs. Esther Irene Sundvik, wife
of Victor Sundvik, a Vancouver Way 2 shipwright. Mrs. Sundvik was a cook at Burton Homes, and the
first sponsor chosen from among yard employees.
(From "Bo's'n's Whistle," Vol. 3, No. 23; December 9, 1943; page 6.) |
Courtesy of Ron Gough,
Bea Dee, Ltd.,
Kaiser Vancouver / Swan Island & Oregon Shipyards website |
NS0307506 |
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January 1944 port bow view of the newly commissioned USS Hoggatt Bay
(CVE-75), moored in Astoria, Oregon.
US Navy and Marine Corps Museum/Naval Aviation Museum photo (# 1996.488.034.022). Robert L. Lawson
Photograph Collection. |
Mike Green |
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"Crossing the Line" ceremony, sometime in 1944.
"[T]he granddaddy of all seagoing ceremonies [is] the shellback initiation when a ship crosses the
Equator, in which 'pollywogs' (sailors who have not previously crossed the Line) become 'shellbacks'
(fit subjects of King Neptune)."
[...]
"We won't go into detail on what occurs when Neptune and his court are piped aboard and the pollywogs
join the Order of the Shellbacks, because that's a mystery of the deep, after all. Suffice it to say,
that when the day ends, the Shellback has arrived."
"To prove it, he has a certificate of impressive size, festooned with drawings of fish, mermaids
and a trident-wielding Neptune, [...]"
(Text above quoted from "Crossing the Line,
Plank Owner and Other Unofficial Certificates Acquired by Naval Personnel.")
Photos from the collection of Pearl Harbor Survivor Dale Magnus. Dale, an RM3/c at the time, was
already a Shellback when he took the photos. |
Dale Magnus,
via Carol Edgemon Hipperson, author of "Radioman:
An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor and World War II in the Pacific." |
