Although the Chinese and American militaries have long been rivals, exchanges and port visits — which combine diplomacy and public relations with much needed shore leaves for sailors and Marines — have been common over the years.
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During the three years the couple are apart (their shore leaves never coincide), they are transformed, each becoming much more self-confident. Cathy's assertive new friend, Dizzy Clayton, helps her break out of her shell. She begins going out with Dizzy's cousin, naval architect Richard, who falls in love with her. However, she remains faithful (if unenthusiastically) to her husband.
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The B-side of "Follow the Boys", "Waiting For Billy", was also from the film and also a Davis/Mencher co-write, with Dramato Palumbo as additional songwriter: "Billy" refers to the film's character Billy Pulaski, a naval officer (played by Roger Perry) unexpectedly called to Mediterranean duty two hours after his marriage to Francis' character Bonnie, whose yen to share her husband's shore leaves - felt by three other women in regard to their respective mates - formed the film's central plot. "Waiting For Billy" received enough airplay to "bubble under" the Billboard Hot 100 at No.127.
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Despite the generally healthy climate, fevers still occasionally decimated crews and drunkenness and brawls were common. Officers chaperoned shore leaves but sometimes required help from local authorities, as in 1761 when the Pazhou mandarins closed down a Dutch punsch tent set up on Xiaoguwei at the request of Puankhequa, then the fiador of the Swedish East India Company. He was passing along a request from their supercargo, who in turn was acting on a note from a Swedish captain who had become powerless to keep his men away from it. For the men on the ships, however, sampan ladies would crowd around them to get laundry work or odd jobs.
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In their years together, he and his wife have traveled extensively throughout the world and have often collaborated on books and other projects. While serving in the U.S. Navy in the early 1960s, he used his shore leaves to visit the studios of world famous potters, notably Shoji Hamada in Japan, and Bauhaus-trained Master Potter Marguerite Wildenhain at Pond Farm near Guerneville, California. He studied with Wildenhain at Pond Farm in 1964, then returned there for two additional summers, serving the third year as her teaching associate. In 1968, he also studied with ceramic artist William Daley at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
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The sheds, made of bamboo poles and woven mats and known as "bankshalls", were usually rented from local officials, though the French and Swedes received permission to build their own on Xiaoguwei. They also served as a workshop for careful repairs or living quarters for the ships' supercargos, but most of them preferred to be left at Macao or ferried to the Thirteen Factories at Guangzhou. Foreign crews were usually left on their ships, but captains usually rotated shore leaves and work on land to keep up morale. Common trips were to the Fanee Gardens and Hoi Tong Monastery on Henan and to the shopping streets of the Thirteen Factories, particularly Hog Lane.
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In advance of the storm, Pan American World Airways suspended flights departing from and arriving at Miami and redirected them to Havana, Cuba. The United States Navy also prepared its bases in the Florida Keys for the arrival of the storm by securing boats to piers and canceling all shore leaves, while the United States Army Air Corps moved its planes from Morrison Field to a safer location inland. The state of Florida stockpiled food for those affected by the storm, establishing depots in West Palm Beach, Miami, and Fort Myers, and the Governor of Florida, Spessard Holland, ordered state agencies to prepare for relief work. A detachment of officers from the Florida Highway Patrol was sent to Miami and patrolled along highways to provide gasoline to motorists evacuating the storm.
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