liberty man

plural liberty men

1. A sailor who has been granted permission to go ashore.

   ‘When libertymen come back there’s the quartermaster, the crusher, the officer of the day, sometimes the Jaunty hisself and usually Big Bill.’

   1960, J. E. Macdonnell, Don't Gimme the Ships, Melbourne: Horwitz Publications, page 74

   1 more example

   With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers' Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations, and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport, while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the Queen's Officers.

   1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 135