A cruise book is a yearbook-style publication often produced by ships of the United States Navy upon completion of a long deployment (typically six months or more). The books typically contain photos of all the people who were aboard during the cruise, usually grouped by their division or department. There are often candid photos as well, showing the people at work aboard the ship. Often there is a map or a description of the ship's travels during the cruise, and there are pictures taken at the various ports of call. [1]
On large ships, the books are produced on board by the ship's Morale, Welfare and Recreation department and Public Affairs staff, later they are printed ashore by printing companies that specialize in such services. The cruise book of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier typically reaches over 600 pages in length, as it includes portraits of the more than 5,000 sailors and U.S. Marines assigned to the ship's company and embarked carrier air wing.
Cruise books of smaller ships are typically much smaller, often 50–100 pages, and are produced informally by volunteers. They are printed ashore by the same companies that specialize in cruise book publication firms that also handle the larger ships.
USMC units also have a long-standing tradition of doing cruise books for deployments. Many units do so remotely from their deployed location, allowing them to proof the books prior to final printing. This is usually done by allowing the publisher to maintain a website where the pages are displayed to be viewed by anyone in the unit and then giving feedback.
The Navy Department Library has a collection of over 8,000 cruise books and similar Navy yearbooks, dating from the Spanish–American War to the present. Cruise books from many Seabee units are included in the collection. The Navy Department Library accepts donations of cruise books from all time periods. [2] [3]
Private collectors exist throughout the world, with an example being a site run by Retired Command Master Chief Dillard. He has been collecting these books since the 1970s and is attempting to document every USN/USCG ship cruise book ever published. So far, he has determined that there have been at least 7,844 ship cruise books published. He has managed to have documented 3,965 of them and collected scans of the front covers of 5,797 of these cruise books. In addition to having 1,970 ship cruise books in his personal collection, he also has over 4,000 individual ship files—roughly seven file cabinets full—containing photos and other historical data. [4]
United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Force (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the initial letters "CB" from the words "Construction Battalion". Depending upon context, "Seabee" can refer to all enlisted personnel in the USN's occupational field 13 (OF-13), all personnel in the Naval Construction Force (NCF), or Construction Battalion. Seabees serve both in and outside the NCF. During World War II they were plank-holders of both the Naval Combat Demolition Units and the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs). The men in the NCF considered these units to be "Seabee". In addition, Seabees served as elements of Cubs, Lions, Acorns and the United States Marine Corps. They also provided the manpower for the top secret CWS Flame Tank Group. Today the Seabees have many special task assignments starting with Camp David and the Naval Support Unit at the Department of State. Seabees serve under both Commanders of the Naval Surface Forces Atlantic/Pacific fleets as well as on many base Public Works and USN diving commands.
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. She is the third Navy ship to have been named after the former President Abraham Lincoln. Her home port is NAS North Island, San Diego, California; she is a member of the United States Pacific Fleet. She is administratively responsible to Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific, and operationally serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 and host to Carrier Air Wing Nine. She was returned to the fleet on 12 May 2017, marking the successful completion of her Refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) carried out at Newport News Shipyard. On 1 April 2019, USS Abraham Lincoln was deployed to the Middle East as the flagship for Carrier Strike Group 12 and Carrier Air Wing Seven assigned to her.
USS Essex (CV/CVA/CVS-9) was an aircraft carrier and the lead ship of the 24-ship Essex class built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in December 1942, Essex participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA), eventually becoming an antisubmarine aircraft carrier (CVS). In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, playing a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. She also participated in the Korean War, earning four battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation. She was the primary recovery carrier for the Apollo 7 space mission.
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) is the fourth Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered, aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. She is named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States and a proponent of naval power. She is the fourth ship named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, three bearing his full name and a fourth with just his last name. Another three U.S. Navy ships have "Roosevelt" in their names in honor of members of the Roosevelt family. This carrier's radio call sign is "Rough Rider", the nickname of President Roosevelt's volunteer cavalry unit during the Spanish–American War. She was launched in 1984, and saw her first action during the Gulf War in 1991.
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a type of a book published annually. One use is to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school. The term also refers to a book of statistics or facts published annually. A yearbook often has an overarching theme that is present throughout the entire book.
The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy. It is headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 50 to 70 ships, 150 aircraft and 27,000 Sailors and Marines. Its principal responsibilities are to provide joint command in natural disaster or military operations and operational command of all US naval forces in the region.
USS Richard S. Edwards (DD-950), named for Admiral Richard Stanislaus Edwards USN (1885–1956), was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer built by the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company at Seattle, Washington and launched on 24 September 1957 by Mrs. W. B. Franke; and commissioned 5 February 1959.
USS Higbee (DD/DDR-806) was a Gearing-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first U.S. warship named for a female member of the U.S. Navy, being named for Chief Nurse Lenah S. Higbee (1874–1941), a pioneering Navy nurse who served as Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during World War I.
The Naval History and Heritage Command, formerly the Naval Historical Center, is an Echelon II command responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage located at the historic Washington Navy Yard. The NHHC is composed of 42 facilities in 13 geographic locations including the Navy Department Library, 10 museums and 1 heritage center, USS Constitution repair facility and detachment, and historic ship ex-USS Nautilus.
Surface combatants are a subset of naval warships which are designed for warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons and armed forces. They are generally ships built to fight other ships, submarines, aircraft or land targets, and can carry out several other missions including counter-narcotics operations and maritime interdiction. Their primary purpose is to engage space, air, surface, and submerged targets with weapons deployed from the ship itself, rather than by manned carried craft.
Operation Sea Orbit was the 1964 around-the-world cruise of the United States Navy's Task Force One, consisting of USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), USS Long Beach (CGN-9), and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25). This all-nuclear-powered unit steamed 30,565 miles unrefuelled around the world for sixty-five days.
For decades, Task Force 77 was the aircraft carrier battle/strike force of the United States Seventh Fleet in the United States Navy (USN), a designation lasting from the final year of the Second World War until the disestablishment of the task force in 2000.
USS City of Dalhart (IX-156) was built for the United States Shipping Board (USSB), delivered to the USSB in November 1920 and, after exchanging original steam engines with diesels, operated by the board's agents in Pacific trade until bareboat charter to the Navy in February 1944 by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) for the duration of the war. Commissioned 2 June 1944 and designated unclassified miscellaneous vessel IX-156 the ship served the remainder of the war in the western Pacific.
A carrier strike group (CSG) is a type of carrier battle group of the United States Navy. It is an operational formation composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, usually an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also, on occasion, includes submarines, attached logistics ships and a supply ship. The carrier strike group commander operationally reports to the commander of the numbered fleet, who is operationally responsible for the area of waters in which the carrier strike group is operating.
When World War II broke out the United States Naval Construction Battalions (Seabees) did not exist. The logistics of a two theater war were daunting to conceive. Rear Admiral Moreell completely understood the issues. What needed to be done was build staging bases to take the war to the enemy, across both oceans, and create the construction force to do the work. Naval Construction Battalions were first conceived at Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDocks) in the 1930s. The onset of hostilities clarified to Radm. Moreell the need for developing advance bases to project American power. The solution: tap the vast pool of skilled labor in the U.S. Put it in uniform to build anything, anywhere under any conditions and get the Marine Corps to train it. The first volunteers came skilled. To obtain these tradesmen, military age was waived to age 50. It was later found that several past 60 had managed to get in. Men were given advanced rank/pay based upon experience making the Seabees the highest paid group in the U.S. military. The first 60 battalions had an average age of 37.
Airborne Command & Control Squadron 125 (VAW-125), known as the "Torch Bearers" or "Tigertails", was established on 1 October 1968, at Naval Air Station Norfolk. The squadron's initial supporting command was Carrier Air Wing Three (CVW-3) deploying aboard USS Saratoga.
Carrier Air Wing Six (CVW-6) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier air wing whose operational history spans from the middle of World War II to the end of the Cold War. Established in 1943 as Carrier Air Group Seventeen (CVG-17), it would be re-designated several times during its establishment, including Carrier Air Group Six (CVG-6) as the second unit to be so designated. The first Carrier Air Group Six served for just over two years during World War II, but drew on the history of the Enterprise Air Group established in 1938 and active in the early battles of the Pacific War, being disestablished after the first year of the conflict. During its time in USS Enterprise (CV-6), it was the Navy's only carrier-based air group to carry out three complete tours of duty during World War II.
Naval Base Guam is a strategic U.S. naval base located on Apra Harbor and occupying the Orote Peninsula. In 2009, it was combined with Andersen Air Force Base to form Joint Region Marianas, which is a Navy-controlled joint base.
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the U.S. as of 2009. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with 11 in service, 1 undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 299 deployable combat vessels and about 4,012 operational aircraft as of July 18, 2023.
A Marine Detachment, or MarDet, was a unit of 35 to 85 United States Marines aboard large warships including cruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers. They were a regular component of a ship's company from the formation of the United States Marine Corps until 1998. Missions of shipboard Marine Detachments evolved, and included protecting the ship's captain, security and defense of the ship, operating the brig, limited action ashore, securing nuclear weapons and ceremonial details. The Marines' successful command structure for dispersed detachments aboard warships encouraged detachments for other purposes.