The Blue Angels made Academy Award winner Ernest Borgnine an honorary skipper of their squadron in ceremonies aboard the USS Boxer in San Diego, California.

Calling Borgnine "one of the team’s most faithful and avid rooters," Cdr. E. B. Holley, commanding officer of the Angels, presented the award as members of the team and the ship’s crew looked on.

Borgnine, a former GMC during WW II, expressed his pleasure and recalled his early Navy duty as a boat coxswain, saying, "I never thought that some day I’d be honored as I am today."