I just read the quote of the day on "To our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet". It is attributted to Patrick O'Brian, and must have been in one of his books; but the first of those books was printed in 1970, and the quote comes from several years earlier-Hogan's Heroes, to be exact.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058812/quotes
On the other hand, there is an older reference, and definitely naval in origin: Ernest Shackleton:
http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/...hackleton.html