Cruise book
Encyclopedia
Yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...
-style publication often produced by ships of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
upon completion of a long deployment
Military deployment
Military deployment is the movement of armed forces and their logistical support infrastructure around the world.-United States:The United States Military defines the term as follows:...
(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 almost always pictures taken at the various ports of call.
On large ships, the books are produced on board by the ship's Morale, Welfare and Recreation department and Public Affairs staff, and are then printed ashore by printing companies that specialize in such services. The cruise book of a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
typically reaches over 600 pages in length, as it includes portraits of the more than 5000 sailors and Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
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
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
to the present. The Navy Department Library accepts donations of cruise books from all time periods.
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 for the last eight years 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.