Bucket of "Prop Wash"This turned out to be an interesting one. First, the earliest reference to this term in the context of a snipe hunt can be found in a 1925 article from the Baltimore Sun subtitled "Phillips Field Provides Many Men With Opportunities for Playing Pranks on Rookies":
Baltimore Sun wrote:
SOME NEVER LEARN
Most of the men make these journeys
because of their ignorance of the work.
Fortunately they become familiar with
the life and later take revenge on others
that join up.
There are some, however, who never
seem to wise up. Such was the case of
a man who earned himself through the
following incident the name of "Prop
Wash."
For the third time the operations of-
ficer stepped out of his shack on the
flying field and searched the sky for
an overdue plane. Then his gaze wan-
dered about the quiet field.
"Confound it," he thought, "what in
thunder is that man mixing? He's been
stirring something in that bucket nearly
all afternoon. Guess I'll have to see."
MIXING "PROP WASH"
As the officer approached the man
stopped his persistent stirring, rose and
gave an awkward salute.
"What are you mixing in that
bucket?"
"Prop wash, sir."
"Prop wash? Let me see what that is.
The officer looked into the bucket and
then at the man.
"How long have you been here?"
"I joined up last week, sir. The
sergeant sent me for this prop wash
right after lunch. It's to be used in
washing the propellers, sir, but it
seems to unmix when I stop stirring."
LEARNING THE DIFFICULTY
"Yes, I know. It takes a lot of mix-
ing. Better keep at it an hour more
and if it still refuses to mix this slip
will tell you the cause of the trouble."
The officer wrote a on a slip of paper
and handed it to the man.
After an hour of tiresome stirring the
ingredients of the bucket were still un-
mixed. The man opened the slip of paper
and read:
"Oil and water won't mix."
(Source: "
Air Service Work Hard, But Has Its Fun Too," Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1925, 2.)
The modern version - sending someone on a wild goose chase to different departments for an item -
does also exist in the article, but instead of "prop wash" the hapless rookie is sent looking for something called "glide":
Baltimore Sun wrote:
THEY HUNT FOR "GLIDE."
When a batch of recruits starts work
on the line there are some of the men
who have to keep out of sight for fear
of exploding. Only a strong man can
keep his face in order when a dreamy-
eyed youth with a bucket dangling on
his arm approaches and in a hesitating
voice says:
"Sergeant, will you let me have a
bucket of glide?"
And be able to reply seriously:
"No, we're all out of glide today. Try
the garage."
The earnest seeker for glide wanders
from garage to supply to motor over-
haul until some kind soldier wises him
up.
(Source: "
Air Service Work Hard, But Has Its Fun Too,"
Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1925, 2.)
Attachment:
File comment: "Only a strong man can keep his face in order when a dreamy-eyed youth with a bucket dangling from his arm says, 'Sergeant, will you let me have a bucket of glider.'"
Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1925, Page 2.png [ 705.39 KiB | Viewed 576 times ]
At some point, it seems the two merged.
Where it gets interesting is when you get to the 1940s. Searching for "prop wash" on Newspapers.com of course finds you a lot of examples of the term used according to their proper definitions. However, it also reveals a number of "goings on" type columns that use it as a title.
[1] These tend to particularly date to the 1940s. One use is particularly insightful. An 1942 newspaper article about the work that the hard work ground crews performed at Shaw Field in South Carolina includes the following passage:
The State wrote:
With the plane in the air,
Joe assists other mechanics or
sits around with other line men in
a "prop wash" session.
(Source: "
Shaw Field Drive for Mechanics Shifts Into High Gear,"
The State, 13 September 1942, 1-D.)
Here, "prop wash" is being used as a byword for "sugar session" – and given that the aforementioned columns are in many ways nothing more than the printed form of such discussions, it is natural that the terms would be transplanted onto them. Clearly by this point it has grown beyond its original meaning to become an idiomatic expression referring to insider knowledge or rumors. To put it another way, it was aviation's version of "scuttlebutt". Furthermore, the connection to the original meaning can be seen as these "informal conclaves" are quite the type of situation where calls for a junior member to go procure some non-existent object may arise. By 1944, "prop wash" is popular enough that it is actually used as the name of a variety show put on by servicemen at Millville Army Air Field.
[2] Again, the connection to the original meaning can be seen, as a variety show would of course feature the type of hijinks that created the phrase in the first place.
As an aside, note also that the term is placed in quotation marks, indicating that it is a phrase the author feels the reader will not be familiar with. The most fascinating case I have come across of this is in a book from 1940 titled
Fighting Planes of the World:
Major Bernard A. Law wrote:
The airplane has become the most effective weapon in the history of man-
kind, and its various uses in "World War II" have changed all conceptions of
warfare. Its ascendancy has been meteoric, being concentrated in that quarter
of a century between the first World War, when only a few hundred planes were
to be found in the armed forces of all the powers at the outbreak, and the present
time when military strength is to be computed by the quality and quantity of
fighting aircraft.
In the early days of the World War, airplanes were used chiefly for observa-
tion and scouting missions, and, as a matter of fact, this work was done without
arms for protection or fighting.
(Source: Bernard A. Law,
Fighting Planes of the World (Random House, 1940), 1.)
In the span of two paragraphs the author: 1) puts the phrase World War II in quotation marks, 2) does not capitalize the word "first" in "first World War" and 3) refers to said conflict with a definite article and no qualification as "the World War". All of this is to say that the term "World War II" was only just starting to become popular. (As a further indication of the evolution of language, the author also describes flying as a "gay and adventurous sport" in the following sentence.)
On a final note, as timing is so critical in this case and the copyright date only going so far as to mention the year, it is worth mentioning that the illustration on the page opposite purports to depicts an aerial action that took place on "November 6th, 1939". Furthermore, an illustration on page 33 shows German paratroopers descending from Ju 52s onto "Holland" – an event that occurred on 10 May 1940. Therefore, the book could have been published no earlier than that date. Although the writing of a book obviously takes place a while before its publication, this gives us a rough approximation of when the phrase was coming into vogue.
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