# The U.S.S. Marblehead Comes Home! (1942), a damaged cruiser as a recruiting story The U.S.S. Marblehead comes home! is a 1942 U.S. Navy recruiting poster. The cruiser steams beneath a world map traced with her route from the Pacific around Africa to the United States, and a text panel tells how she was bombed after Macassar Strait and made a 13,000-mile voyage home (NAID 513505). - Home - Archive - The U.S.S. Marblehead Comes Home! (1942), a damaged cruiser as a recruiting story The U.S.S. Marblehead comes home! The U.S.S. Marblehead Comes Home! (1942), a damaged cruiser as a recruiting story A 1942 Navy recruiting poster tells the Marblehead's story: bombed after Macassar Strait, reported sunk, and brought home 13,000 miles. NAID 513505. ## Techniques named on the archive record TestimonialTransfer Date1942Made byU.S. NavyMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 513505; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) U.S. Navy. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-9 (NAID 513505). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org The U.S.S. Marblehead comes home! is a 1942 U.S. Navy recruiting poster. The cruiser steams beneath a world map traced with her route from the Pacific around Africa to the United States, and a text panel tells how she was bombed after Macassar Strait and made a 13,000-mile voyage home (NAID 513505). ## A map and a saga The Navy chose a damaged ship, not a victory, for this recruiting sheet. The archive describes the cruiser Marblehead at sea under a world map, with a dotted line tracing her route from the Pacific around Africa to the United States. Beside it a block of text tells the story and closes with the request. THE U.S.S. MARBLEHEAD COMES HOME! Whenever men gather to speak of heroic deeds the saga of the Marblehead will rank with the greatest. After the battle of Macassar Strait this gallant ship took her place in the line and accepted the challenge of a vastly superior foe. With guns blazing a torrent of steel she fought her way clear only to be bombed without quarter from the skies. The enemy reported her as sunk. With steering gear shattered, with great gaping holes in her sides, she started her epic thirteen thousand mile voyage to safety. Only the courage, stamina and resourcefulness of men who would not "give up the ship" brought her home. If good red fighting blood flows in your veins; if you want the comradeship of men such as those on the Marblehead--go to your nearest Navy Recruiting Station today! There's a billet in the U. S. Navy waiting for you. Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 513505, local id 44-PA-9, Record Group 44. ## Issuer The record names the U.S. Navy as issuer, sets the issuer type as military, and gives the purpose as "Recruit" for a domestic audience. The transcription has no artist's signature and no printing-office number, and the record gives no print run. The National Archives copy is in Record Group 44, local id 44-PA-9. ## The story as sales copy The archive tags testimonial and transfer: the ship's record is offered as the example to follow, and the crew's standing passes to the Navy that is recruiting. The text is written as an epic, with "saga," "gallant," and "a torrent of steel," and its request opens with a test of the reader's blood. The poster is candid in one respect. It says the ship was outgunned, bombed, holed, and left with shattered steering gear, and it says the enemy believed she had sunk. Survival, not triumph, is the boast. The details of the action and the length of the voyage are the Navy's own account; the archive's record does not check them, and this page has no other source for them. The appeal is to comradeship and courage, and the sheet asks the reader to walk into a recruiting station; it does not order him there. The enemy is "a vastly superior foe" and is never named. Compare the same service's Ouch! The Japs Don't Like Mosquitoes, which sold PT-boat duty with a slur, and the Army's 1942 recruiting poster Men of 18 and 19. The Roosevelt administration essay covers the wartime government. ## Sources - FRAME object record, The U.S.S. Marblehead comes home!, 1942. U.S. Navy. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-9, NAID 513505, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/uss-marblehead-comes-home-1942/