HMS KENT - CROSSING THE LINE CEREMONY :-) - INDONESIA 1939 [ silent ] скачать в хорошем качестве

HMS KENT - CROSSING THE LINE CEREMONY :-) - INDONESIA 1939 [ silent ]

A little bit of RN history here , in the form of a bit of ( colour ! ) home movie shot by Lt George BLUNDELL aboard HMS KENT in 1939 on her travels through Indonesia. My dad was either a Boy or ( just about ) an Ordinary Seaman on board , at the time . Pretty weird & wonderful for a poverty stricken lad from Birmingham :-) I've watched this countless times trying to find him but no luck so far . Blundell's notes to the ( whole, unexcerpted ) movie only say : " HMS KENT : Tourist shots, grand palace, Bangkok, Batavia, Crossing the line. Mt Gede 'rather dark' 1939 " Of the RN crossing the line ceremony , while researching the background to the movie , i found this , somewhere , probably wikipedia : " The ceremony of Crossing the Line is an initiation rite in the Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, and other navies which commemorates a sailor's first crossing of the equator. Originally the tradition was created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long rough times at sea. Sailors who have already crossed the equator are nicknamed (Trusty) Shellbacks, often referred to as Sons of Neptune; those who have not are nicknamed (Slimy) Pollywogs. The two-day event (evening and day) is a ritual of reversal in which the older and experienced enlisted crew essentially takes over the ship from the officers. Physical assaults in keeping with the 'spirit' of the initiation are tolerated, and even the inexperienced crew is given the opportunity to 'take over'. The transition flows from established order to the controlled 'chaos' of the Pollywog Revolt, the beginnings of re-order in the initiation rite as the fewer but experienced enlisted crew converts the 'Wogs' through physical tests, then back to, and thereby affirming, the pre-established order of officers and enlisted. Like the old physically- and emotionally-intensive boot camp, the "Crossing the Line" ritual deconstructs then reconstructs the initiates' experience from newbie outsider into the experienced military fraternity. The eve of the equatorial crossing is called Pollywogs' Revolt and, as with many other night-before rituals, is a mild type of reversal of the day to come. 'Wogs' - all of the uninitiated - are allowed to capture and 'interrogate' any shellbacks they can find (eg, tying them up, cracking eggs or pouring aftershave lotion on their heads). After crossing the line, Pollywogs receive subpoenas [1] to appear before King Neptune and his court (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest ranking seamen), who officiate at the ceremony, which is often preceded by a Beauty Contest of men dressing up as women, each department of the ship being required to introduce one contestant in swimsuit drag. Afterwards, some wogs may be "interrogated" by King Nepture and his entourage, and the use of 'truth serum' (hot sauce + after shave + ?) and whole uncooked eggs put in the mouth. During the ceremony, the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly disgusting ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; being locked in stocks and pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; being locked in a water coffin of salt-water and bright green sea dye (fluorescent sodium salt); crawling through chutes or large tubs of rotting garbage; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, hair chopping, etc), largely for the entertainment of the Shellbacks.[citation needed] Once the ceremony is complete, a Pollywog receives a certificate [2] declaring his new status. Another rare status is the Golden shellback, a person who has crossed the equator at the 180th meridian (international date line). When a ship must cross these lines, the ship's captain will usually intentionally plot a course across the Golden X so that the ship's crew can be initiated into the Golden Shellbacks. A watered-down version of the ceremony, typically featuring King Neptune, is also sometimes carried out for passengers' entertainment on civilian ocean liners and cruise ships. " Of how he came to be making these movies , Blundell says : "As 1st Lieut. I was Kent’s Regatta officer. I bought my fist cine camera, a Bell & Howell “Sportsman” double 8 with single lens, to help train raw crews in a newly commissioned ship. "