The hat worn by the swabby on the left is likely a 'dixie cup' flipped upside down, or turned inside out. When I served, the POD would specify the uniform of the day. In this case, it may be a watch-stander is helping the mess decks get their food delivered while it is still hot. They are no longer around to answer our insipid questions. I thank them for their service posthumously.

You still have a choice.

but in the days before the Navy issued dungarees for work, didn't sailors wear old worn-out dress uniforms for that? Seems that even the engine room crews in these old photos are dressed this way.

Are they coming from feeding or going to feed the patients? The plates appear to have left overs on them and judging by the loose grip on the pail, it's almost empty.

I was a Tin Can sailor during the 60s. I seem to remember the mess cooks wearing whites even if the uniform of the day was blues. Each division had to supply two or three mess cooks depending on the size of the division. Maybe that's why the two different uniforms.

Modern appliances, washing powders and detergents not only give a hand to the working homemakers of either sex to keep the house shipshape and copper bottomed. They also help the modern sailor to look neat and clean, freshly machine-washed and electric-ironed most of the time. Not to mention that air conditioning keeps the mildew out. Not having to man-haul thousdands of tons of coal every other week may help, too.

By the way, is that hat on the blue sailor's head regular issue? Looks like a floppy hat used by modern sport fishermen.

Maybe it's my 21st century sensibilities, but it's pretty unnerving to see a cuspidor on a hospital floor.

[Better to spit on the floor? -tterrace]

With JohnMB, Glenn555 & landtuna:

Hot pot! Make a hole!

you never messcranked? I only wonder why blues and whites.

I was in the Navy (late 50's). We kept out uniforms clean and pressed. We wore them such that we would at least look neat. These mess boys could not look any worse, but let us not forget at that time they were our heroes.