Domain of the Golden Dragon Embroidered Patch - 180th Meridian Navy Crossing Ceremony

The 180 stitched at the bottom of this patch is the meridian itself, the International Date Line, where a ship steaming west skips a day on the calendar in the time it takes to cross. The Navy lists the Domain of the Golden Dragon among its traditional crew certificates, given for crossing the 180th meridian. It sits beside the Shellback for the Equator, the Blue Nose for the Arctic Circle and the Red Nose for the Antarctic Circle. A ship that crosses the Equator right at the Date Line makes its crew Golden Shellbacks. Plenty of crews got the Golden Dragon card with little ceremony at all, because a Western Pacific deployment crossed that line as a matter of course.

The line runs through open Pacific between Hawaii and the ports a WestPac sailor came to know, Yokosuka in Japan, home of the Seventh Fleet, Guam, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, where the Navy kept a base until 1992. Carriers, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious ships and submarines out of Pearl Harbor and San Diego crossed it on the way out and again on the way home. Coast Guard cutters working the Pacific earned the same card. From Korea through Vietnam and the long Cold War patrols that followed, crossing the 180th was part of going west. Some sailors crossed it a dozen times and only have one card to show for it.

The patch is a 4 inch circle with a blue merrowed edge. DOMAIN OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON arches across a sky of light blue and white clouds in red brush-style lettering. Two gold dragons rise out of the sea on either side of a red torii gate, each one gripping a post, while a yellow lightning bolt drops straight through the middle of the gate into the water. Below the horizon the Pacific turns teal, two orange koi leap at the left and right, and INTO THE SILENT MYSTERIES OF THE FAR EAST is stitched across the waves in white, with 180 degrees beneath it. It is a Popular Patch design, built around the imagery sailors have tied to the Golden Dragon for generations.

The Golden Dragon was never a medal or a line in a service record. It was a card in a wallet and a story told at the chiefs' mess or the kitchen table. Western Pacific deployments meant long months away, typhoon seasons, liberty ports half a world from home and watches that ran together. Sailors who made those cruises know exactly which ship they were on when they crossed and who stood watch with them. This patch puts that crossing where it can be seen.

Mount it in a shadow box with your Golden Dragon card, a Shellback card if you have one and your WestPac cruise book. It also works on a ship reunion vest or a jacket, or as a gift for a son or grandson who wants to know what a WestPac was. The iron-on backing makes mounting simple, and it can be sewn on for a permanent hold. One line on the chart, and every sailor who crossed it remembers.