San Diego's Naval Training Center

Images of America: California

by Jennifer A. Garey

San Diego's Naval Training Center (NTC) was commissioned on June 1, 1923, and for 70 years served as a young recruit's introduction to a naval career, beginning with nine weeks of basic orientation and organization training (BOOT) camp. Originally consisting of 135 acres adjacent to San Diego Bay, NTC eventually expanded to almost 550 acres with 300 buildings, landscaped promenades, parade grounds, and a concrete training "non-ship," the USS Recruit (a.k.a. USS Neversail), where recruits learned their first duties of seamanship. Advanced training schools were later added for military personnel learning specialized duties. After training hundreds of thousands of recruits, NTC was officially closed on April 30, 1997, and has since been transformed into San Diego's new and vibrant cultural center, Liberty Station.

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 29, 2008

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

My sister found a photo of my father at basic training, and we determined it was taken at San Diego's Naval Training Center in 1941. Although my father is no longer with us, reading this book gave us a another bit of insight to his life. My biggest regret is that it wasn't published in time for us to share it with him, and hear his stories.