Navy returning to traditional bell bottom trousers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy’s top brass bowed to complaints from the ranks and the nostalgia of nearly every old salt Monday by authorizing a return to the traditional uniform of bell bottoms, jumpers and floppy white hats for sailors in the lowest four grades.

The decision by Adm. James Holloway, chief of naval operations, effectively reverses the dress code decreed by his predecessor, Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr., that put every enlisted man in the coat, white shirt, tie and peaked hat previously worn only by the ranks of chief petty officer and above.

Zumwalt’s 1971 order, which was fully implemented just two years ago, was aimed at boosting morale in the lower ranks and promoting “the concept of one Navy.”

But an official Navy poll completed earlier this year found the more formal uniforms achieved just the opposite effect. Sailors complained the officer-type outfits were difficult to keep clean and crisp and took up too much storage space in cramped ship quarters.

Moreover, Navy veterans groaned that in abandoning bells, the service had given up one of its most popular symbols. And chief petty officers, particularly, were unhappy that the distinction they once enjoyed when wearing coats and ties was lost when all enlisted men began dressing the same way.

Holloway’s order provides for a gradual transition, just as Zumwalt’s did several years ago.

In the first phase, set to begin in 1978, only 20,000 fleet personnel will be issued bell bottoms for a yearlong “wear test” of various materials, including serge and a cotton-polyester blend. The uniforms will be issued in both blue and white versions.

Plans for a full conversion to bells for the Navy’s total of 250,000 men in grades E-1 through E-4 will be made later, the announcement said.

The Navy gave no cost figures for the project. But Holloway told Congress in 1975 it could run about $42 million to change back to the old style, and inflation undoubtedly has raised that figure.

The Navy’s sampling of opinion of more than 8,500 sailors last spring showed that about 87 per cent favored restoring the traditional uniform.

In earlier years, grades E-1 through E-6 wore bell bottoms, while chief petty officers, E-7, and those above that rank wore the officer look.

Under Holloway’s order, grades E-5 and E-6 will continue to share the same uniform as the chiefs.

Holloway said that even though bells would be issued to only 20,000 sailors during the test period next year, any enlisted man of the E-1 to E-4 rank who wishes to purchase them commercially will be allowed to wear them on duty.

This story was published in the Aug. 2, 1977, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.