US Navy Recruit Training Command - Keel Yearbook (Great Lakes, IL)

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.,..:h... .if-. ...-e,,-.....4--- Mfiitlftltl' Jilftmiitfliumifiuhiiifed Ttwtfituixg unit 16313255 .E'E'Zll.525 EllQEi3rf5is. complete standstill for a time, beginning in 1933. Al- though it was re-opened Iuly 29, 1935, the total popu- lation of Great Lakes was less 'than one thousand when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a national emergency on September 9, 1939. A period of orderly growth began July 26, 1940 and when the Iapanese hit Pearl Harbor, Great Lakes accommodated 14,000 men. Arnerica's entry into World War II touched off a tremendous expansion program which was to add another thousand acres to the Station area and make it big enough to hold 100,000 men under crowded conditions. Ten thousand men were em- ployed in the construction program which by late 1942 had mushroomed Great Lakes to approximately its present size. More than a million men, or a third of the Blue- jackets in the wartime fleet, were trained at Great Lakes during the war. The present name, U. S. Naval Training Cen- ter, Great Lakes, Illinois, came with a change ot status on March 28, 1944. Great Lakes became a group command, with four subordinate commands. of which one is the Recruit Training Command. The others are Administrative and Service School com- mands and the Marine. Barracks. Great Lakes was the home of the Navy's only Wave Recruit Training School until late in 1951.

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2 in si inf, H R.: N' , N Egfr .wr sn 5 1 it fu jfs i , Wggggsg, 1 Kms IFTTST HY From a modest beginning shortly after the turn of the century. U. S. Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Ill., has grown to a capacity of more than 80,000 and become the Navy's largest training es- tablishment. It was in 1904 when a board appointed by Presi- dent Theodore Roosevelt selected two adjoining forms near Lake Bluff, Illinois, as a site for a naval training station. The site was presented as a gift of the people of nearby Chicago, acting thru their Merchant's Club. . After six years of construction, the Navy had a 172-acre station with a capacity of 1,500 men. It was commissioned Iuly 1, 1911 and dedicated as a Station by President William Howard Taft in No- vember oi that year. Under conditions of wartime urgency, Great Lakes has undergone two periods of rapid expan- sion. When the Armistice of 1918 concluded the Kaiser war, Great Lakes had been expanded to 1,200 acres and 45,000 men were in training. The Station had trained a quarter-million men tor serv- ice in that war. Between wars, the station's activity came to a 23ttilteF5i,ZtTsan1 ',.sE5id'zxf3f2'f.?tfi' -,-L. -. ,. -- .

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. l,Ewi .Liam I Wave training is subsidiary to the larger Recruit Training Command and the Wave recruit receives training similar in many respects to that received by her Bluejacket brothers in another part of the Center. The Navy recruit, regardless of sex, receives basic indoctrination in the skills needed in the service and an overall picture of the Navy, its customs, traditions and history. Physical training, first aid, physical hygiene and related subjects CAMP DEWEY NERVE CENTER We Z warm N -ue' te, EVERYONE SPENDS A FEW DAYS IN CAMP BARRY EACH CAMP HAS ITS OWN RECREATION BUILDING swf, ' -it if ' ,rg f 15 A it ' Axim. , y A we ., Y WM we fww ,Q , wget, ,ew ,. aww' Hi 12 ' 'gxgfhxg .V , Kwglu ,i W, 53523 1 J tx Q3 , K 1 'tliiizf-' L-1 , K v LS L I x Q we R' ' my 'ffrfg,sg.,z:f- :wwf 4 x , Q ., Z 4 . w. I ft We LRE-ft 1 Mr?Q'Yff'E5F' It ' 9155 ' gilt .2 5 QrS?e,F , A ,rift-tr, ssre2g1iwv,N,m rg H Q ,Q gf if -x , 'X , wg? I Y Q 'f v fy 5 N ff . . v W t 4 fy wg- Q , M I isis M K s Q A- Q 'wwfii W'-2?.s'Ess:TH4f2 'www' s X l I g S ,