If so, I would love to hear about the circumstances and the initiation. Unless, of course, you were sworn to never repeat it on an anonymous message board.
I’m not, but dad was. I have some great 8mm footage.
First, the Pollywogs were in their skivvies. They bowed before the Royal Procession and were made to say ‘Hail Davy Jones!’ Dad must have misunderstood, since he kept shouting ‘To Hell with Davy Jones!’ He got special treatment in the form of a raw egg in his mouth. Occasionally someone would accidentally break the egg, apologise, and give him a fresh one. A fat Chief (The Royal Baby) would smear a mixture of alum and other things on his belly and the Pollywogs had to kiss his belly. But the 'wogs were allowed to forego shaving. Dad said they used up three Royal Babies that day as they dragged their whiskers across his stomach.
The Shellbacks had ‘shillelaghs’. These were lengths of firehose soaked in salt water. They were rough enough to abrade the skin with a gentle slap. They’d give the Pollywogs taps as the initiates crawled the length of the ship on their hands and knees.
The Royal Barber would snip some hair and put it in their mouths, then tip them backwards into a pool. Some strong Shellbacks would ask them, ‘Are you a Shellback?’ Regardless of the answer the Pollywogs would get harshly dunked.
A raw oyster was tied to a string and forced down people’s throats and pulled back up. Somewhere along the line the string got lost, but the oyster tended to come up on its own.
Then there was The Coffin. This was a box with a hole in each end. The initiate would be locked in the box and a firehose would be turned on in one of the holes. Water drained out of the other hole, but there were only a few inches of air. So you’re in a dark box with the fear of drowning. And the Shelbacks would pound on the box with their shillelaghs.
Garbage had been saved up for a couple of weeks. This was shoveled into tubular chutes that were too small to crawl through. You had to slide through on your belly. Not so bad for the first ones through, but later people had to slide through vomit as well as garbage.
That’s all I can remember right now. The rest of the footage shows Naval exercises including a fly-by of F-4s, an F-8 flying a loop and dropping flash bombs (used for photo recon), and a launch of a Talos missile. Dad shot it at 64fps so it’s nice and slow. The film ends with my dad, the Communications Officer and in the Army Signal Corps 15 years earlier, semiphoring T-H-E–E-N-D. (He was a Shellback then, and had cleaned up from his ordeal and changed out of his skivvies and into his khakis.)
I had to look it up. I was wondering what the hell this was all about.
My dad says he and his friends did a similar thing when they were teenagers, but without the water, and with a cardboard box, and stabbing the box with switchblades instead of banging on it. But they weren’t in the navy, they were just insane punk kids.
Thanks, Johnny L.A. I had thought there might be someone here with direct experience, but that was a good description.
Most honorable trusty and crusty Shellback ChiefScott reporting aboard!
I entered the grand and exhalted realm of Neptunus Rex for the first time in 1983… whaddaya wanna know?
Spy magazine ran an article about thisd way back when, with pictures. And there’s a pretty complete description in one of William Pounstone’s Big Secrets books.
I crossed in the Indian Ocean approx 600 miles west of Singapore in 1987
The night before, each division of the ship sends a representative as a contestant in a drag-queen beauty cotnest. The winner gets to be King Neptune’s consort during the ceremony the next day.
You wear your underwear outside your uniform and line up with the rest of the wogs on hands and knees as shellbacks come along and swat you on the butt. or dump garbage on you.
The fattest cheif gets to play the baby. His belly is smeared with thick, black engine lubricant. you have to suck a raisin out of it. :eek:
You slide thorugh a chute filled with garbage, then get dunked in a tank of saltwater.
For some reason, this ceremony really, really brings out the latent homoerotic sadomasochism among the Marines. They made a lot of gay-culture references during the spankings and ordered Marine wogs to dry hump eachother.
Having been duly ordained in the Mysteries of The Briny Deep by King Neptune Himself, Ruler of the Raging Main, Honorable Shellback reporting as ordered.
I crossed the line on a Nimitz-Class Attack Aircraft carrier. Two and a half days of mass brutality. I had an inkling that something was going on when I was headed up to the flight deck for an Unrep. I was the P&D line gunner, which meant that I had an M-14 with a cannister of shot line. My job was to shoot a projectile over to the other ship, so that we could pull back the phone/distance cables.
On the way up, I passed a naked guy that was ordy-taped to the bulkhead. He was wearing a large dildo on his nose, with a condom hanging off of the end. He had a sign on his chest that read “I told a Shellback to fuck off”. I asked my partner “What the hell is that?”
“You’ll see.”
We assumed the uniform of the day (described above), And our initiation started. The basic premise was to crawl from your berthing area, up through the hangar bays, finally arriving at the flight deck.
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of crawling around on an aircraft carrier, there’s this stuff called non skid, to prevent slipping. It’s basically 45 grit sandpaper. Does wonders for your hands and knees.
Highlights included:
Being pushed into an ammo locker that had 2 weeks worth of rotting fish inside. You had to come out with a fish eye in your mouth.
Sucking bug juice/raw eggs out of pad eyes in the hangar bays. Nevermind that the guy ahead of you just threw up.
Getting beat on with shillelaghs. These were pieces of wet fire hose (see above again), but ours were different, as they still had the rubber inserts inside. Packed quite a wallop. I sustained a direct shot to the cod sack, and curled up like a worm on a fish hook. I also wanted my mommy.
I was in the Weapons Department, so I had to report to the Weapon’s Officer up on top. On top was the usual assortment of carnival games:
Wog-in-a-box. 7 or 8 guys were crammed into a wooden box, on our hands and knees. We had 5 seconds to roll over on our backs, while the box was pounded on.
Trash tunnel. Crawling through a 50 foot tunnel, filled with a few weeks worth of food scraps from the mess decks.
Elevator Drill. On your hands and knees, getting your butt beat, while riding up and down the flight deck elevators. Add a measure of being sprayed down with fire hoses for extra flavor. The Skipper had to put a stop to that one, after a bunch of guys almost got blown overboard.
Meet the Gun Boss. This is where you crawl up to your Division Officer, and humbly beg admission to the Honored Ranks of Shellbacks. Unfortunately, I told my divo that his legs reminded me of a Popeye’s Chicken reject, so I had to go through everything again.
The night before Wog Day is the traditional Wog Uprising. You’re going to get your ass beat anyway, so you might as well get a few licks in first. We were fighting in our berthing space, and evidently made enough of a racket that caused our Senior Chief to be dispatched unto us.
He stepped through the hatch, and barely had enough time to say “I do not fucking believe what I am fucking seeing” when a folding chair caught him right in the phiz, breaking his nose.
If you can acquire the Union Jack before the ceremony, you do not have to participate. The Skipper had to put the squash on that as well. A few of the more adventurous woggies almost got fried on a radar mast in their attempts to scale up to where the Union Jack was, so the Skipper posted an armed guard.
Lots of broken arms, from guys falling down ladder wells. At the end, you went to the aft end of the boat, and completely stripped, threw your clothes in the ocean, then headed for the rain locker.
I always felt sorry for the Russian fishing trawlers that followed us, who had to try to get Intel from the vomit-stained, rotten-fish/trash filled, ripped-to-shreds dungarees.
Do you have a certificate?
Did you undergo essentially what’s been described by the other shellbacks here?
Did you ever participate in the initiation as a shellback?
How much does the Royal Barber usually shave (or cut)?
Are officers treated differently?
Thanks again!
If it’s any indication of how tame it’s gotten…
No one bothered to wake me up the first time I crossed the equator.
And there didn’t seem much point in it any time after that.
Ok, had no idea what the OP was talking about, and thought Johnny LA’s first response was a hilarious, surreal piss-take and was amused by his creativity in bullshit arts. Then I kept reading.
Ya’ll are fucking retarded. In a good way. Jesus Christ!
yes…shell back…uss virginia cgn 38…any more and i would haf’ta kill you…(did i mention i kid?) …not about being a shellback though… or the ship …and , yes, there is a certificate 
tsfr
Yes. Signed by King Neptune himself, and witnessed by Davy Jones.
Yes.
Yes. As a matter of fact, I was herding a pack of unruly wogs aboard the USS Nimitz, when I was attacked! Damnable, slimey wogs. I’d gotten them on the No. 2 aircraft elevator taking about 100 of 'em from the hangar to the flight deck. We were rising, when they stood as one attacked me and another trusty, crusty Shellback, threw our shillalaghs over the side, ripped our clothing of and threw *that * over the side. By the time we reached the flight deck, all 100 of 'em were back on their hands and knees with their heads bowed, and we were standing there stark naked! You can’t trust those slimy wogs.
Usually, not a lot. Unless, of course, you are unduly concerned about how much he’ll cut and mention that to him.
No. As a matter of fact, they usually get it worse, especially if they’re higher ranking.