Thanks for that lot, Faldage - adds credence to the belief that all naval types are linguistically inventive.

As to "Brown shoes" - in the UK, the first military aviators were army officers, with khaki uniform and brown shoes. I believe it was the same in the USA (you still call it the Army Air Force, I believe?) Did the USAAF fly from naval ships for a while, before the Naval air forces were formed? This would account a term for the strangely uniformed fellows mixed in with the blue-uniformed navy people.

Just a hypothesis - anyone know the truth?