W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
For what it's worth...

At the Naval Academy in the early 1950s we got fam flights in N3N
floatplanes. It was great fun. The engine flywheel had to be hand cranked to
provide the energy to turn over the engine to get it started. The plane then
pushed off the Severn River bank by white hat crewmen.

My dad was one of this white hats, an E1 but a future chief aviation
storekeeper. They had flying chiefs driving them things too. He still
loves to tell stories about middies heading back out to the plane with a
bucket and mop for a post-flight barf removal session.