A 1941 Navy recruiting poem in which Jones, Perry and Dewey ask for men

A call to a breed that never dies is a 1941 U.S. Navy recruiting sheet built on a four-stanza poem in which John Paul Jones, Commodore Perry and the shade of Dewey ask where America's seafaring men have gone. It closes with the battleship U.S.S. Washington and "Come man the ships" (NAID 513499).

The poem

The sheet is mostly verse. The archive describes a portrait and a sailing-ship battle on either side of the poem, and a modern battleship at the foot with the closing appeal. Three famous commanders speak in turn. Jones and Perry ask whether the breed has died out, Dewey remembers his own crews, and the fourth stanza answers.

"WHERE are they now?" said John Paul Jones, / "The men like the men I knew; [...]

There MUST be men like the men I knew!" / Said John Paul Jones.

[...]

WHERE are they now? Where they always were-- / They bend over desk and hoe, / Awaiting the word to man the guns-- / Awaiting the word to go! / And the word is out . . . you are needed now / Where the sea-tide swells and dips . . . / From orchard and office, from city and plow / Come join the Navy, come man the ships!

[...] LEARN HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE NAVY OR NAVAL RESERVE [...] You'll be able to get complete information, without any obligation to enlist.

Come man the ships . . . The Navy needs you NOW!

Modern 35,000-Ton Battleship, U.S.S. WASHINGTON

[imprint:] NRB-30200-9-18-41-10M

Borrowed heroes

The archive tags transfer: the standing of past naval heroes is lent to a present request. Perry is made to quote "We have met the enemy . . . he is ours!" Dewey recalls the Oregon's run to join the fight at Santiago Bay. The sheet then adds a prose note on John Paul Jones and "I have not yet begun to fight," with claims about the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis. Those claims are the poster's own, given here as printed and unchecked.

"Without any obligation to enlist"

For a liberty reading, the most important line is in the small print. A man who goes to the recruiting station will find "Navy men ready to discuss with you in a friendly way the opportunities the Navy offers," and he can leave with the facts "without any obligation to enlist." The appeal is to pride and to history, and the reader stays a volunteer.

The imprint line ends in a code that includes "9-18-41." The archive leaves the code undecoded, and it is not read here as a printing date or a print run. Another 1941 Navy sheet, A national emergency is upon us, makes its appeal with a flag and no history.