While serving in the British merchant marine during World War I, Herbert Marshall was once engaged in an operation requiring all hands to wear life jackets almost continuously.

"They got terribly soiled and foul-smelling," he later recalled, "and after a while you detested them. Coming to port, finally, at the conclusion of my tour of duty, I threw mine overboard. And watched it sink."

["The Balfour Mission to America set forth on board the Olympic on Saturday April 14, 1917, and encountered a storm that forced the escort of destroyers to turn back almost as soon as the liner came out of the Forth. A life-preserving suit of india-rubber was placed in [former British prime minister] Lord Balfour's cabin, but after inspecting it for a moment he said that on the whole he would prefer to drown in his nightshirt."]