I’m talking about the ball caps like these, which feature the name, designation, and profile of the vessel. My dad wore them all the time from at least the 90s on, and now I see them everywhere. But when did they become popular among ex-sailors?
I ask because I’m working on a story set in the summer of 1976 and one of the characters is a retired Navy man. It would be nice to be able to put one of those hats on his head (if they existed back then).
Command ball caps were part of the shipboard working uniform in 1978 at least. It would also partly depend on when your guy retired - it’d be more likely he’d wear one if he wore it on the ship, although I don’t think there was anything preventing them from being sold to civilians.
I’m thinking more of a WWII/Korea vet, retired from Navy and from civilian career. I know my dad (Korea) wore them in the late 80s/90s, and they were new, not from his actual time in the Navy. But I don’t know where he got them…
You can buy them for WWII ships now online. I’m not sure the market would have existed to make selling caps from ships where they weren’t part of the uniform to the general public profitable before the internet.
I had a guy come into my shop wearing one from the USS Arizona. I asked him if he served on board. He said “I was on shore that day, but I lost a lot of friends”. He got free ice cream.
Here’s a photo of the Apollo 11 astronauts with their baseball caps from the USS Hornet, so that puts the idea back to at least 1969.
I have a vague memory of Bob Hope Christmas in Vietnam specials where he wore the appropriate cap for whatever aircraft carrier he happened to be visiting. Here’s one from 1965, but I can’t make out what the cap says.
Based on the answers I’ve gotten so far, they were introduced sometime around 1968-70 - though some individual ships seem to have had them as far back as the '50s.
That picture was taken aboard USS Ticonderoga (CVA 14). Found a better copy of it - it’s still hard to make out what the cap says, but it appears to be “52.” I’m guessing it’s a cap from VA-52, which was part of Ticonderoga’s air wing at that time.
IME, they became generally , i.e., not just for military, popular in the early 80s, which would coincide with Dr. Strangelove’s reference. IIRC, President Reagan wore one, and, with Top Gun and the military trending in style in the 80s, they got at least a nominal marketing boost. Before then, I hadn’t seen many, if any, but, I didn’t live in Navy areas.
In 1968, we were issued plain navy blue ball caps in boot camp. This was for working uniforms. The white “Dixie Cup” was the dress-up version, which was only ocassionally worn with the working uniform. Which were straight legged denim jeans, but many bought bell-bottoms that may or may not have been accepted aat work.
As I recall, only ships had ball caps identifying the hull number and class (the profile) and if someone transferred from a ship to a shore station, the ship’s ball cap was NOT to be worn.
So you are safe to use ball caps as you described for someone stationed on a ship.
I also seem to recall that both officers and enlisted wore the ball caps shipboard, and on work detail ashore, but not while on liberty (off-duty).
There’s a place called the Ship’s Hatch that has been selling ship ball caps to anyone since at least the mid 80s.
Their web site says they opened in 1973 with a different line of merchandise, so I’m not sure when they added ball caps.