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Wednesday, September 7, 2022

WWII Body Types, Part 2 - The Navy


Part two of our double feature takes us back to the St. Mary's College pre-flight school.  They generally photographed recruits in jockstraps, something many of you will not complain about.

 

5 comments:

  1. I do know as a fact that until greater automation and leaps and bounds in technology, both the US and Royal Navy issued all men with a jockstrap, which was worn when manhandling the heavy guns and equipment in order to prevent groin injuries. I don't know about today in an age of man-made materials and compression shorts. The US Navy issue for many years was also made in Israel for some odd reason.

    St Mary's College clearly issued on particular style and make. By this time, the Bike company had more or less cornered the North American market, although there was plenty of competition, particularly in Canada.

    This particular style is very much more reminiscent of the British Litesome jockstrap, which was known as the Rolls Royce of jockstraps this side off the pond. (My own father, who played hockey in the All India League during WWII, had a Litesome with his team, name, position, rank and number written on the inside of the waistband in indelible ink.) Although the St Mary's issue does not have a tubular cover of concertinaed cotton on the leg straps - ostensibly to prevent chaffing - the position of the top of the leg straps as they join the waistband is the same as the Litesome, i.e. very much further back in comparison with the Bike. I am afraid I cannot get the logo into focus - the placement of a marque's logo on the outside at the front was another Bike innovation - but it may be a Wilson.

    I am surprised the St Mary's photographed at all in jockstraps as if for modesty, as navy men the world over were notorious for not caring about nudity, although those days are long since gone in those navies that now have women in the ship's company.

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    1. Thanks for the commentary, Julian. As for why St. Mary's used jockstraps, I have a longshot theory. Although the pre-flight school was an entirely Navy run operation, it used the facilities of a Roman Catholic college. Those tended to be conservative and might have influenced the decision.

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  2. I found the entire book of these photos in the Navy base library in Yokosuka, Japan. I was rather surprised.
    There were also some other, um, interesting books there; One novel was called "Whom the gods Would Destroy", a very gay novel about the Trojan War (I saw it in 1971). Another was "Child of the Sun," a homoerotic novel about the emperor Elagabalus. Made me wonder about the librarian. (Sagebrush Dan).

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    1. Very interesting library, Dan. I didn't even know there was an entire book of the Navy photos.

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    2. Yes, how interesting. I have in fact a copy of Child of the Sun, written under the obvious pen names of Kyle Onstott and Lance Homer. Obvious, because in terms of history, it is very well researched and accurate - leading me to conclude that the authors could only have been well-disguised Classicists. It is highly homoerotic and alludes to the cult Elagabalus was involved in - which was the worship of a mountain god in the form of what is presumed to have been a meteorite and from whose name posterity knows him. Born Varius Avitus Bassianus, he reigned as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus . The cult had a temple in Emesa (the modern Homs in Syria) which used male prostitutes.

      The book, copyrighted 1966, is clearly part of the pulp fiction and comics which were imported into Britain in the 1950s and '60s, along with male physique magazines. I was at school with the nephew of a Conservative Party member of parliament who, in the 1950s, led attempts to have importation banned but fortunately, he did not succeed - and I had my physique magazines!

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