Word: shellback
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...white shirt and pants. As Truman chuckled gleefully, Steelman was laid out on the tin "operating table," prodded with an electrically charged knife, and given a gargle of quinine and lemon extract from a huge hypodermic syringe. Then he was plastered with paint, run through a gauntlet of shellbacks wielding stuffed canvas paddles, up steps with electrically charged handrails. After another gargle, he was pushed into a tilting chair and dumped backward into the ducking pool, where seven blackened sailors ducked him vigorously. Then he was shoved down a greased slide, belabored through another gauntlet, and pronounced a shellback...
Most of the men who go down to the sea in ships at one time or another cross the line. The line means a whole lot to these men; there is a venerable air and a patriarchal feeling that permeates the breast of an old shellback as he nears the 30th parallel...
...Each Shellback must prove his right too sit on that side. Many a genuine Shellback has been refused by his comrades simply because he could not produce his certificate or because the certificate was discredited by the high court of Shellbacks...
...carrier with its huge flight deck the Shellbacks really go to town. As you know, each pretending Shellback and each landlubber must appear before the high court. During your stay at the school, you have been warned that it would be a good thing for you to know what Knibbling Plus were. You were told that you had not reached the proper...
...N.M.U. sees in this program a direct threat to its power. Most recruits are pink-cheeked, corn-fed youngsters from the Midwest who have never seen deep water, or been exposed to unionism. They are far different from the old-line shellback malcontents who were duck soup for Curran's earlier pinko type of organizing, and they are not obliged to hold union cards. Only 1,000 to 1,500 monthly swing over to N.M.U. This percentage is not big enough if Curran is to hold his grip...