US Naval Training Center - Anchor Yearbook (San Diego, CA)

No text available for this page.

Page 4 text:

.l mmm' U. S. NAVAL TRAINING CENTER San Diego, California OUNTLESS GENERATIONS of seafaring men have come to regard the anchor as a symbol of their profession and a mark of security to the ships on which they serve. By the Romans the anchor was re- garded as a symbol of wealth and commerce, while the Greeks gave to it the significance of hope and steadiness, a meaning that persists in religion and heraldry today. The symbolism of the Greeks was carried on by the early Christians with a meaning of steadfastness, hope and salvation. Here, too, in recruit training, the anchor has special significance, not only as the symbol of the recruitls new life and surroundings but also as the steadfast symbol of the security in his new career that his recruit training will give him. In the pages that follow, the daily life of a recruit is traced from his initial arrival at the Naval Training Center until his graduation. ' $933331? - "MDV. '6'. ' ? d; 1 V THE ANCHOR

Page 6 text:

HISTORY The NAVAL TRAINING CENTER, San Diego, had its inception in 1916 when Mr. William Kettner, Con- gressman from the Eleventh Congressional District of California and spokesman for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, interested the Honorable Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in establishing a naval training activity on the shores of San Diego Bay. Due to the Nations entry into World War I, further development of this plan was postponed until 1919, when Congress authorized acceptance by the Navy of the present site of the Training Center. The original grant consisted of 135 acres of highland donated by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and 142 acres of tideland given by the City of San Diego. Construction work began in 1921, and on IJune 1923 the U.S. Naval Training Station, San Diego, was placed in commission under the command of Captain tlater Rear AdmiraD David F. Sellers, US. Navy. At the time of its commissioning in 1923 the station bore little resemblance to its present size or arrange- ment. At that time Camp PaulJones housed the entire population of the station and the maximum recruit strength was 1,500. The period of recruit training was then sixteen weeks. The shore line of San Diego Bay extended considerably further inland than at present, and the land now occupied by Preble Field, the North Athletic area and Camp Farragut was entirely under water. The recruit parade ground was located on the present site of the Public Works garage. During the 192015 the Recruit Receiving and Outgoing Units were housed in the Detention Unit, known as Camp Ingram, which consisted of a group of walled tents adjacent to the south boundary of Camp Paul Jones. Until Camp Lawrence was completed in 1936, recruits spent their first three weeks of training under canvas in this Det- ention Unit. In 1939 a construction program was commenced which within three years was to increase the capacity of the station four-fold. This expansion went hand in glove with a large scale program of harbor improve- ments by means of which the channel and anchorages in San Diego Bay were deepened and 130 acres of filled land were added to the eastern boundaries of the sta- tion. By 1941 Camp Luce had been completed, and the construction Camps Mahan, Decatur, and Farragut was already well under way when theJapanese at tacked Pearl Harbor. Virtually all this construction work was completed by September, 1942, when the capacity of the station had reached its wartime peak of 33,000 men, 25,000 of whom were recruits. The period of recruit training during World War II varied between three weeks and seven weeks. In April, 1944, the Secretary of the Navy changed the status of the Training Station to that of a group com- mand and redesignated it the US. Naval Training Cen- ter, San Diego. Under the Center Commander were established three subordinate commands: The Recruit Training Command, The Service School Command and the Naval Training Station. The years immediately following World War II saw a considerable reduction in population of the Training Center despite a post-war expansion of the Service Schools, and by the end of 1949 the population of the Center had dropped to a twenty-year low of 5,800 men. Six months later, when the Communists invaded the Republic of Korea, and immediate expansion of all Naval training activities took place and by September of 1950 the Center was again operating at nearly full capacity. During the early months of the Korean conflict it became apparent that the demand for trained personnel in the rapidly growing Pacific Fleet would require further expansion of this training center. Accordingly steps were taken by the Navy Department to reactive Camp Elliott, formerly a World War II Marine Corps training camp which is located ten miles north of San Diego on Kearny Mesa. On 15January 1951 Camp Elli- ott was placed in commission as Elliott Annex of the Naval Training Center for the purpose of conducting the primary phases of recruit training. In March, 1953, in line with the planned reduction in size of the Navy, training at Elliott Annex was discontinued and it was placed in an inactive status. During its two years of operation, over 150,000 recruits received training there. Late in 1952 projects were approved to convert some recruit barracks into classrooms and to extend training facilities by construction of a permanent recruit camp on the undeveloped Training Center land lying to the south and east of the estuary. The six converted bar- racks went into service as recruit classrooms in April, 1953, and construction work on the new camp was completed in 1955. In late 1965, the demand for trained Navy men to man the additional ships and overseas billets, required to meet the Vietnam crisis, brought the on-board popula- tion to a record of over 18,000 recruits, the highest since Korea. At the same time a military construction pro- gram got underway with the foundation ofa new 8,000- man mess hall being laid adjacent to Bainbridge Court. In addition, an ambitious five-year program was for- malized for the construction of modern barracks, TV classrooms and administration facilities. The face lift- ing of the Recruit Command was completed by the early 1970's.