In the Collection: Life Vest and Mess Kit from the Second World War

By Toni Deetz Rock
Deputy Director/Curator

In 2013, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum accessioned an interesting artifact into our collections. We accepted a life vest and mess kit (2013.007.213.1). The two artifacts are set in a shadowbox and the plaque reads, “USED BY MAURY A. NOTCH / A SURVIVOR OF THE USS HORNET / 10-26-42 / ALSO SURVIVED USS PRINCETON / 10-24-44.”

Maury A. Notch survived two ship sinkings with these items, his U.S. Navy-issued life vest and mess kit. (HRNM)

The life vest is a design known as a “Mae West.” The design includes a lightweight rubberized outer casing, and canisters of gas activate when needed to inflate synthetic bladders in the interior. Straps are located in strategic places to keep the vest in place during use. Peter Markus, an American business owner from Minnesota and an avid boater, patented the design in 1928. Markus intended to create a more comfortable life vest. He recognized that many people avoided wearing the older kapok or cork models because they were extremely bulky and restricted physical movement.

The U.S. and British military quickly adopted the model patented by Markus. The U.S. Navy made one adaptation to the original design: the Navy began producing the vests in a bright yellow color. The bright color would allow rescue teams to spot survivors more easily in open water. Navy fliers were the first to adopt the use of these vests, followed quickly by all other services. Although the life vest was highly profitable before WWII, Markus cancelled his patent, allowing the U.S. Government to produce the vests without paying additional royalties.

This hand-written label, "M A Notch," identifies the owner of the life vest, CAPT Maury A. Notch, USN, SC, Ret. (HRNM)

These life vests saved countless U.S. lives during the Second World War. One striking example is this specific life vest, which stood witness to at least two significant events of WWII. It is marked with the name “M A Notch” and is stamped with the manufacture date of June 1942. The bottom of the mess canister has a handwritten note, which reads, “USED THIS AS A / SURVIVOR OFF / USS HORNET OCT 26 ’42 / NOOMEA, NEW CALEDONIA.” Noumea, New Caledonia, was a critical supply stop in the South Pacific during WWII.

The mess kit is labelled to commemorate the sinking of the USS Hornet (CV 8) on October 26, 1942. (HRNM)

USS Hornet (CV 8) is known for launching the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and participating in the Battle of Midway. During the Solomon Islands Campaign, Hornet participated in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. There, Japanese torpedoes and dive bombers damaged Hornet badly, and the ship eventually sank. USS Hornet remains on the ocean floor, and until recently, the ship’s exact location was unknown. It was located in 2019 near the Solomon Islands. Maury Notch was deployed on Hornet at the time it was sunk, and he was among the Sailors who evacuated to safety.

Two years later, almost to the day, Notch was aboard USS Princeton (CVL 23). Princeton supported the occupation of Baker Island and conducted strikes on Makin and Tarawa the same month. In October 1944, at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese attacked USS Princeton. Princeton burned for so long and so brightly that the U.S. Navy torpedoed the ship to keep it from being a beacon to the enemy.

We do not know much about Maury Notch’s career. We do know he was a Supply Corps officer, survived both sinkings, and retired with the rank of Captain. More research into his time aboard both ships is still needed. This set of artifacts stands as witness not only to Maury Notch’s experience, but to the experience of hundreds of U.S. Sailors in the Pacific during World War II. 

1853 View of Gosport With the New and Old Navy on Display



(click to enlarge)

This is an 1853 engraving in the museum's collection of the Gosport Shipyard that appeared in the Boston-based Gleason's Pictorial Room Companion. In contrast to the 1820 print shown in the previous blog post, this illustration shows the Yard for what it was: an active industrial site and military base. The ships in the illustration are interesting mix of old and new ships and is good representation of how the U.S. Navy was slowly changing and modernizing its fleet. On the far right is the White Elephant that was the 120-gun ship-of-the-line USS Pennsylvania. To her left is second generation 44-gun frigate USS Columbia. Her sister ship USS Savannah can be seen on the far left. Also on the far left is the remains of the historic first generation 44-gun frigate USS United States. At this point in her career, the old frigate, best known for her War of 1812 operations, was being allowed to have a quiet retirement.

Mixed among these grand sail ships of war are three steam warships, USS Powhatan, Princeton, and Allegheny. While each of these ships had a coal-fired boiler, they were very different ships. Each of them had a different form of propulsion. We often assume that widely used technology must have been obvious choice when the inventor first created his invention. But that is often not the case and was especially true when it came to figuring out what type of propulsion should go on U.S. Naval warships. Powhatan represented the first and oldest concept for steam propulsion: the paddle wheel. When Robert Fulton commissioned the first steam ship, he used this technology and the Navy adopted it for its first steam warships such as USS Mississippi and Missouri. But paddle wheels present a serious problem for warships in that they are large and above the water line, thus making the ship an easy target to immobilize.

So, the Navy went looking for a propulsion system that operated below the water line. It received two other options: Princeton with a "screw propeller" designed by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson, and Allegheny that came equipped with a horizontally mounted paddle wheels that were placed below the water line. This radical idea came from U.S. Navy lieutenant William Hunter. After building a small prototype vessel named Germ, the Navy provided the funding to try the experiment on a larger scale with Allegheny. In the end, the Navy went with Ericsson's idea after discovering it was twice as energy efficient as Hunter's design.