yellow shirt

• Yellow Shirt

yellow shirt (plural yellow shirts)

1. A sailor on an aircraft carrier responsible for directing aircraft.
   • 1988, United States Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval Historical Center, Naval aviation news, page 21:

     I was extremely happy and excited when promoted to yellow shirt, but I was scared because I didn't want to make any mistakes or get chewed out for doing something wrong.

   • 1992, Approach - Volume 37, Issue 7:

     Then, out of the comer of my eye, I saw a blue shirt get blown down the flight deck. I saw a yellow shirt run up to him and drag him to safety.

   • 2009, James W. Huston, Balance of Power: A Novel, →ISBN, page 457:

     But too much turn, and the plane could start to slide and skid across the slippery flight deck. Caskey inched his Tomcat forward. As he approached the shuttle, the yellow shirt slowed his lighted wands.

2. Alternative form of Yellow Shirt
   • 2012, Gary L. Atkins, Imagining Gay Paradise: Bali, Bangkok, and Cyber-Singapore, →ISBN:

     Yellow shirts seized control of that all-important symbol of globalization that Darrell Berrigan had once written about — the airport — its tourists determining Thailand's future by either passing through or staying.

   • 2012, Colin Cotterill, Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach: A Jimm Juree Mystery, →ISBN, page 82:

     The fact is my father is one of the leading activists against the yellow shirts. You do know about the situation in Bangkok?

   • 2014, JJ Stone -, Bungee Love, →ISBN, page 283:

     I had just missed the red shirt rally in Pattaya months earlier, and somehow I missed flying to Suvarnabhumi Airport the week that the yellow shirts occupied it.

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see yellow,‎ shirt.