This cap device featuring a perched eagle with spread wings facing dexter and with the initials of the United States Navy centered above its head was worn only on the Female Enlisted Combination Cover, commonly referred to as the “bucket hat” or “bucket cover.” While both male and female Petty Officers in the rates E-4 to E-6 were and still are authorized to wear insignia on Garrison Caps, female Sailors were the only E-1 to E-3 junior enlisted personnel who wore cap devices because no devices are insignia are worn on the White Hat, or “Dixie Cup.”
But this special perk started to come to an end on 31 October 2016 when the Navy officially phased out the Female Enlisted Combination Cover for the Service Dress White uniform worn by female sailors in rates E-6 and below, replacing it with the White Hat their male counterparts have been issued for decades.
This wasn’t quite the end of the bucket cover for female Sailors, because in January of the next year the Navy pushed back the wear-out date of the female Service Dress Blue uniform—and the bucket cover worn with it—to 31 December 2019 by classifying it as an optional uniform. On the first day of 2020, however, the Female Combo Cap will enter into the annals of Navy lore as female Sailors don the blue jumper and White Hat of the “new” female SDB.