Aviation Boatswain's Mate Patch

Give the Boatswain's Mate's crossed anchors a pair of wings and you have the mark of the Aviation Boatswain's Mate, the sailor who owns the flight deck. ABs launch, recover, fuel and move the aircraft on a carrier, and the rate has done it since 1944. Nobody on the ship works closer to turning rotors and jet exhaust. Pilots get the glory, but every launch starts with an AB. This patch carries the anchors and wings and nothing else, because an AB needs nothing else to recognize it.

The rating later split into three specialties: ABE for equipment, ABF for fuels and ABH for aircraft handling. ABEs run the catapults, arresting gear, barricades and jet blast deflectors, with much of the machinery in spaces below the flight deck. ABFs handle fueling, defueling and lube oil systems, from the pump rooms at sea to the fuel farms ashore, and the purple jerseys earn them the name grapes. ABHs move, spot and secure aircraft, drive the tractors, run the spotting board and handle crash and salvage. They serve on CVNs, LHAs and LHDs, and at naval air stations ashore.

The patch is a 4 by 1.62 inch bar of black twill with a gold merrowed edge. The crossed anchors sit in the center in gold thread, rings up and flukes down, with a feathered gold wing sweeping out to each side. There is no lettering and no rate abbreviation. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on. Gold on black reads clean from across a hangar bay.

Flight deck work is jet blast, rotor wash, hydraulic fluid and fuel, around the clock during flight operations. A catapult crew has to get every shot right so the pilot never has to think about it. Fuels has to keep the gas clean and the fire risk down. Handlers pack aircraft onto a deck and a hangar bay with very little room to spare. ABs are a tight community, and most of them can still tell you their ship, their cruise and their jersey color.

Sew it on a jacket or a flight deck reunion vest, or frame it in a shadow box with your old jersey color and a photo of the ship. It makes a good gift for a new ABE, ABF or ABH heading to the fleet, or for a father who spent his twenties on the roof. The anchors and wings tell the story.