Not to be confused with the ever-popular Dial-A-Sailor we remember from our days in Perth, W.A., the Name-A-Sailor feature lets you contribute and help identify shipmates from thirty year old photos before all our collective knowledge is lost to time. Working in conjunction with the Name-A-Sailor tab, you can easily identify people, times, and places in photographs featured on the site.

For those that visit routinely, we all know that many of the photographs on the site don’t identify the individuals, mostly because our memories are not as iron-clad as they used to be, but also because the site contains photos from thirty years of the U.S.S William H. Bates, and since each of us was only on-board for two to six of those, we can’t possibly know everyone by sight.

We’ve always encouraged viewers to let us know if they recognize shipmates and family that are not identified in photos, so their names can be added in the captions, but the help has been slow in coming, perhaps because it is just too hard to add a comment or email just to clear things up.

Regardless of the reason, here’s where Name-A-Sailor comes in. Now, when you are logged in, there will be a tab on the right side of your browser window right where the Registration tab is when you are not logged in. Clicking on Name-A-Sailor brings up a simple form that emails us directly and easily when you identify a shipmate or family member that is not identified, or identified incorrectly in the caption or text.

On the photographs in this section of Up Scope, we have conveniently numbered each person in the image so that you can easily tell us who is who. Simple click on the Name-A-Sailor tab, and let us know what you know.

The Name-A-Sailor tab can be used on any page of the website. Simply fill in the form with the requested information, click submit, and you’re done. We can then update the caption or text, and your knowledge has been captured, to the benefit of everyone who browses the ssn-680.org website.