USS Spangler DE-696 |
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"This initiation started like everything else . . . with a lot of scuttlebutt. It was to he the death of all Pollywogs! Someone had us eating alum, others had glue smeared under each armpit and a diesel oil bath to boot. Thank good we all lived through it! Granted there was a dash of pain mixed with a pint of grit and a gallon of fright envolved in the passing of these few hours of fun for the salty Shellbacks but believe me, they didn't get in all of the swacks because we Pollywogs managed to pull a few pants down and give a few baths ourselves on "free day". (The day before the crossing). Of course, this could have been sealing our own death warrant because those Shellbacks proved to be vindictive when the next day arrived. Touche! (Ref: Spangler 1957 Cruise Book)"
If I recall correctly, J. M. Morris was one of the Pollywogs having fun and doused a few of the Shellbacks with a water hose and those guys paid him back with vengence on Shellback Day!
"The day of initiation started with an impressive ceremony that brought Davy Jones, King Rex's scribe, out of the deep onto the forecastle where he was met by the Captain. The ol' man,' being a Shellback himself, had no mercy for we slimy Pollywogs and gave Davy full run of the ship and use of the intercon to call us a few names and warn us that his All Mighty was coming aboard to clean us of our nasty habits before entering his great domain."
"Not long after Jones had made himself to home on our ship we were herded to the forecastle. The dreaded moment was near! And no sooner said than done. The ol' wiry joker came aboard escorted by his complete staff and family. The Queen, the Royal Baby, Royal judge, Royal Police Royal this and that. Everyone was Regal!"
The initiation began with the pollywogs being forced to crawl through a gauntlet. This is a 30-foot long canvas bag sized just big enough to fit your body in if you were laying flat on your stomach. The bag was filled with slime of some kind of slime, naturally, and concrete sacks were placed under the bag and spaced about five to six feet apart to add humps and make the going as rough as possible.
Shellbacks stood along both sides of the gauntlet paddling the daylights out of you with one-quarter inch thick canvas paddles (soaked in sea water and dried to make them stiff) as you tried to work your way through the gauntlet.
"Hurry up! Hurry up! Damn it don’t stop, move on! Hey! Quit pushing me from behind!"
And so it went, as each pollywog crawled and slipped along the way crying out in pain as each strap slapped the top of the bag. You kept hoping and praying the entire distance that the guy in front of you didn’t pause, the faster he moved the faster you moved, and the less whacks you got. Unfortunately, unless you were the first guy through, you always had someone crawling through ahead of you and someone pushing you from behind.
When you finally worked your way free of gauntlet you were hoping and praying that was it for a while, only to get slammed in the face and body with a water hose. And it wasn’t the garden hose variety, either; a three-inch diameter fire hose was more like it!
From there you were forced to crawl on your hands and to the ships fantail where you were then forced you to kneel before the Judge in King Neptune’s Court. But depending on how poorly you had progressed, of if some sadistic shellback didn’t like you might be unlucky enough to your hands and neck locked in a yoke while being struck on the butt with an electric cow prod.
Typically, for initiations on most ships, King Neptune is the biggest, ugliest guy aboard. In our case he was big ol' Moore, the Capitan’s cook. He definately wasn’t the ugliest guy on the ship, not by a long sho, but he was definitely the biggest. He was also one of the nicest guys aboard, except on this day! His tummy looked like he was ready to birth an elephant, it was that big. And right in the center was a "big" bulls-eye. Your job was to kiss it!
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The royal barber came next! He had electric sheers to aid in sprucing you up a little, like giving you a G.I. haircut, cut by a sadist! After that came the 'Royal Bath' preceded by being fed a "Royal Oyster"
I lucked out in the barber’s chair, my hair was chopped up a little in the back but otherwise not too bad, unlike Joe Mitchell’s hair which was shaved in a slice from the front to the back of his head. Poor guy ended up having to visit the ship’s barber and having his head shaved or very close to it.
So, anyway, they cut my hair, then force my mouth open and jam in the largest oyster I had ever seen in my life, and then gave me shove backwards into the Royal Bath. Yuk! The bottom of that thing was full of oysters guys had spit out, along with mine!
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So concluded out initiation! I was now officially a "Shellback!" My certificate was made of parchment paper and has sadly become worn and battered over the years. We were told at the time that if we ever ventured into King Neptunus Rex's Domain again we would need proof of a prior visit, or suffer the initiation all over again. So I carried my certificate card in my billfold for years, long after leaving the Navy. Suffering through the initiation once in a lifetime is enough!
