Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a sailor.

1918

A.N. Depew Gunner Depew 16: I could never understand it, but garbies and marines never mix. The marines are good men and great fighters, aboard and ashore, but we garbies never have a word for them, nor they for us. On shore leave abroad, we pal up with foreign garbies [...] A Limey garby told me it was the same way with them.