Today’s post comes from Rachel Bartgis, conservator technician at the National Archives at College Park, MD.
In 2019 the National Archives entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)* to digitize U.S. Navy and Coast Guard deck logs from vessels with Vietnam-era service (1956–78). The more than 200 million images will be used to validate the claims for those who served in Vietnam* and establish service connection for disability benefits. The National Archives is making the digitized records available on Archives.gov, after images are transferred by the VA and screened for privacy concerns.
A port bow view of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-60), 8/13/1993. (National Archives Identifier 6484365)What is a deck log? According to the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command:
“The deck log is kept by the Quartermaster of the Watch and prepared by the designated Officer of the Deck (OOD) for each commissioned ship in accordance with Navy regulations and specific instructions. In either handwritten, typed, or in electronic format, the deck log chronicles the daily locations and movements of the ship, and captures all significant and prescribed events taking place either aboard or otherwise in the immediate vicinity of the vessel. Deck log entries are reviewed daily by the ship’s navigator for clarity and final approval as they document particular circumstances for administrative and legal purposes. . . . As a permanent official record of the ship, the deck log is efficient and succinct in its purpose, professional in appearance, and certainly not a forum for creativity.“
The sole exception to the tight regulations of the deck log takes place on the first night of the New Year during the mid-watch (midnight to 0400), when a ship may record the first entry of the New Year in verse. Navy regulations still apply, however, and however artistic the poet may be, they must still include the mandatory requirements of the current Navy Regulations: “the sources of electric power, steam and water; the state of the sea and weather; position of the ship; status of the engineering plant; courses and speed of the ship, bearings and distance of objects sighted; changes in status of ship’s personnel, disposition of the engineering plant, and even the strain upon anchor chain or cables when anchored and the placement of lines while moored.”
The New Year’s log poem arose at some point in the 20th century and possibly reached its zenith during the Vietnam War, when the tradition was so widespread that the Navy Times promoted a “New Year’s Eve Log contest.” However, Navy culture is always evolving, and the current generation is less prone to poetry at the change of the year. The Sextant noted that “In 2016, fewer than 30 ships made a New Year’s Eve mid-watch verse; in 2017 that number dwindled to fewer than 20.”
Kitty Hawk–class supercarrier America (CVA-66) is an example of one vessel that kept the tradition of the New Year’s poem for many years. America was a New Year’s Day ship, laid down on January 1, 1961, at Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on February 1, 1964, and commissioned at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on January 23, 1965.
*My Air Force husband served in Viet Nam from October 1967 to October 1968; Tam Martinides Gray; Founder and Editor, SeniorWomen.com
