When watching the old newsreel footage from the two world wars you see a fair amount of American sailors going about their business. They wore a uniform that seemed to have its origins in the Nineteenth Century, with bell bottom trousers and an odd shirt called a jumper. The blue jumper of an American sailor is decorated with various white stripes, stars and and topped off with a queer little black silk kerchief; this article seeks to explain what the meaning behind it all was, and their origins were, for the most part, British:
“The black silk neckerchief dates from the day when English sailors went into action stripped to the waist; in the olden days the sailors were served out with a cotton cloth which was tied around the neck and used as a sort of sweat-cloth or as a bandage for first-aid purposes.”
