I was posed this question by my girlfriend and suffice it to say we have a pretty decent wager that I can’t find the answer. I need your help once more, you briliiant humans.
Why do sailor pants have the buttons on the side? Is there a technical reason or is the government tailor doing low bid work.
Thanks…
Have you ever tried unbuttoning your breeches down the front with a HOOK?
When I saw the thread title, I thought the question would be something completely different…
But if there are any sailors who would like to help me out, or to get together to do some serious examination of their trouser buttons, please feel free to drop me a line 
BF maybe I’m just stupid or didn’t look carefully enough, but i couldn’t find any reference on that page as to why the buttons are on the side? Did I miss it? Where on the page is it?
And while we are at it -
Whats with the Bell Bottom pants?
“We’ve always done it this way” – or rather, at some point in the 19th Century, the real reason sailor’s pants were made with a “broadfall front” rather than a narrow fly and thus the buttons had to be on the side, was lost to history. All I know is that when they tried changing things in the 1970s it raised a bloody ruckus.
Much easier to roll up while swabbing the deck. Have you ever tried to roll up stove-pipe legged or straight leg jeans?
Aha, something I know about! 
I’m a retired USN radioman.
The word I got on the side buttons on the blues trousers was to make it quicker to remove them. What you do is grab the two upper corners and yank down HARD. That front flap unbuttons quick as heck. If you have to abandon ship by jumping overboard I think it would be better to not be wearing woolen pants. Mostly a guess there, wool soaks up water fast and becomes pretty heavy.
Far as the bell bottoms, the above post has been a standard one. There is another one and it’s similar to the one I mentioned above. The bell bottoms make it a lot easier/quicker to get them off if you have to jump overboard. If you have the time you can tie
a knot in each pant leg. Then you grab opposite sides of the wasteband and hold the pants behind your head. As you jump overboard you throw your arms foward and trap a large amount of air into the pant legs. Makes a pretty decent float! Just keep the wastband below the water and the air will stay there a long time.
While on the subject, the white hat (dixie cup hat) can be used to keep one afloat also. Holding opposite sides of the edge, bring in down quickly in an arc and it too will fill up with air. Then you hold it over your midriff as you are floating on your back. The amount of air trapped in the white hat will help you stay afloat. Or that’s what we were taught in bootcamp.