The Blue Bonnet was the shipboard newsletter of the USS Houston (CA-30), a World War II-era heavy cruiser named for the city of Houston. The newsletters chronicle events both on and off the ship, providing an insider’s view of the lives and thoughts of the sailors on board. Although not all issues are available, the collection includes nearly 250 multi-page newsletters from 1933-1941, arranged chronologically.

Contents include ship news and general military news, sports updates for the ship’s teams, editorials, notes about the ship’s journeys and whereabouts, humor bits, sea chanteys, poems, and photos of the ship and some of its distinguished passengers, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Published by the ship’s company, each edition specifically names its reporters and editors, customarily on page two. Interestingly, each edition also states the ship’s location at the time of publication – for example, “Asiatic Station,” “Mare Island Navy Yard, California,” and “At Sea, Hawaiian Area.”

The Houston was sunk in 1942 during the Battle of Sunda Strait, and her surviving crew members were taken as prisoners-of-war. The Blue Bonnet was revived after the war by the USS Houston Survivors Association and Next Generations, and issues from the 2000s may be viewed online at their web site.

The original materials are available in UH Libraries' Special Collections in the Cruiser Houston Collecton.