BM Boatswain's Mate US Navy Rating Patch

Before the Navy had a department, it had boatswain's mates. The rating traces to 1775 and the Continental Navy, which makes it the oldest in the service by any measure that matters. Ships have changed hulls, weapons, and propulsion a dozen times since, and every one of them still needs sailors who can handle ground tackle, rig a tow, and put a boat in the water. That work belongs to the crossed anchors. This licensed patch is the rating badge, sized for a jacket instead of a sleeve.

A BM's day runs the length of the ship. Anchoring and mooring, underway replenishment alongside, small boat operations with BM coxswains at the helm, and the deck division's endless war against salt and rust. On watch, the Boatswain's Mate of the Watch pipes calls on the boatswain's call and passes the word on the 1MC in a cadence every sailor aboard can identify with their eyes closed. The rating has hard proof of its record: James E. Williams, the most decorated enlisted sailor in Navy history and a Medal of Honor recipient for a 1966 river action in Vietnam, was a boatswain's mate, and the destroyer USS James E. Williams carries his name today.

The design is the classic rating patch layout, done properly. Large white B and M letters flank the white crossed anchors of the rating badge on a navy blue field, and beneath the anchors sit the Bravo and Mike signal flags, spelling the rating a second time for anyone who reads flags. United States Navy arcs across the top gold band, with the Navy trademark embroidered in, and Boatswain's Mate anchors the bottom band. The patch measures 4.5 x 3.25 inches with a navy merrowed edge and an iron-on backing that sews on just as well.

Every Boats knows the rating's standing aboard ship. The deck division is where seamanship still means rope, steel, and weather rather than a screen, and the pipe that opens a change of command today is the same call that ordered sail handling two centuries ago. Sailors from other ratings retire and mention their ship first. A BM mentions the rating.

Iron it onto a jacket, vest, or sea bag, or sew it where the weather can test the stitching. It sits just as well in a shadow box beside the chevrons and the cruise patches. The oldest rating in the Navy has earned its wall space.