Navy oilers are named for rivers. One day there arrived at my desk a letter from a California shipbuilding company. They were about to launch an oiler, their umpteenth in the shipbuilding race of war. Could it be called the USS Marin? Sorry, I replied, oilers are named for rivers, and I knew of no river bearing the name of Marin.
A couple of weeks passed by and the telephone rang. An important official of the shipbuilding concern asked if he could come over to see me.
He was at my office within the hour. Amiably but firmly, he underscored that he had to have that oiler named Marin. With equal amiability and firmness, I told him it just wasn't possible. I explained again that oilers are named after rivers. It would compromise the high mission of Navy shipnaming if we let down the bars; there was no telling what dire results might ensue if we failed to follow precedent or set new precedent. I mentioned that Marin is the name of a county (for which cargo ships, attack, and transports, attack, are named), the name probably deriving from marina, which means shore or sea coast in Spanish, since Marin County is both on the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
"How do you know so much about Marin?" he asked. "I'm from California. I live in Berkeley." He thought that over for a minute. "How well do you know Marin?" I admitted that I was fairly familiar with the area. "Do you know the little creek that comes down from Mt. Tamalpais and empties into Richardson Bay just north and west of Marinship?" I had a vague recollection of a highway bridge along the road somewhere. "What if that were called the Marin River? Could my oiler be named after the Marin River?"
I suspected that skullduggery would soon be afoot, but as a loyal Californian (and a naval officer with an eye for an influential citizen), I told him that if there was a Marin River, there could be a USS Marin.
And there was. Three weeks later I received an imposing document, with seals and everything, from the Board of Supervisors of Marin County, that told all men that "a certain body of water (sometimes it does have running water—in a wet winter) emptying into Richardson Bay…would henceforth be known as Marin River."