San Diego's Naval Training Center

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439636510

Jennifer A. Garey

Jennifer A. Garey is president of Arts & Antiquities, Inc., which provides consultations, collections management, and exhibitions for museums, corporations, and private collectors. Her professional museum experience spans over 25 years with institutions such as the San Diego Historical Society, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. She has compiled here a brief pictorial history of the recruits, schools, and community, which grew and trained together in what was once the highlight of the U.S. Navy, the San Diego Naval Training Center.

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Companies.

INTRODUCTION

Since 1923, San Diego’s Naval Training Center (NTC) has undergone many fluctuations in size and operations since its beginning as a Naval Training Station (NTS). NTC had a unique and symbiotic relationship with the city of San Diego with the additions of schools and later advanced schools. One of the unique attributes of San Diego’s NTC was the Advance Training Programs and Diversity Programs, such as the Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection Training (BOOST) and WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Many of the diversity programs and the advanced training programs such as television instruction began at San Diego’s NTC. The high quality of training provided and the geographic location made San Diego’s NTC the place where many wanted to train and many eventually retired. Numerous recruits, commanders, and civilians share fond memories of their time at NTC, and many became the men and women they are today because of the training and skills they learned while there.

The integral relationship between the U.S. Navy and San Diego began even before its inception, starting in 1916 with a dream of William Kettner, congressman from the 11th Congressional District of California and spokesperson for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. The political elite of San Diego were looking at opportunities to put San Diego on the map. Competition was fierce with Los Angeles and San Francisco, both locations with ports and both soon to be the location of large railway hubs. San Diego, in response, wanted to be the first port of entry for the newly opened Panama Canal and was hopeful for a national rail line. These two options, if materialized, would bring in commerce and trade that would then build the community. They concocted the idea of having the 1915–1916 Panama-California Exposition to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal, a grand public event to entice large corporations and political entities to fund the prospect and make San Diego the first port of entry. The main concern was the extensive marshland surrounding the proposed harbor. Although the exposition was a success, it did not bring in the backers the committee had hoped for. William Kettner had a different plan for the development of San Diego, one that he would continue to pursue relentlessly. He continued to court the U.S. Navy and its personnel in hopes of establishing a naval base in San Diego. Whether he envisioned the navy only dredging the harbor and creating one of the most beautiful and functional ports or whether he knew the navy would build the entire water infrastructure for the city of San Diego is not clear; however, once the navy came to San Diego, the benefits were evident. Funding for the acquisition of land and the deeds to much of the land itself came from San Diego local business, such as San Diego Securities, Union Trust and Company, and Southern Title Guaranty Company, among others. Navy dollars built the infrastructure and continued to rebuild and maintain it for 70 years. As NTC grew in size and numbers, the facility was reconfigured into numerous camps. Each camp was designated by location, and each camp was equipped with its own barracks, commissary, post office, medical facilities, mess hall, swimming pool, gym, and grinder (drill field). The camps were designated by names of regarded and decorated naval heroes, such as Camp John Paul Jones, Camp Lawrence, Camp Luce, Camp Decatur, Camp Farragut, and Camp Mahan. Over 70 years, NTC grew from an active training facility to a training center with the additions of schools and later advance schools. Much of the advanced school training and programs begun at NTC San Diego were found in no other naval training center. The BOOST program and the Radioman School, for example, were only located in NTC San Diego until the disestablishment.

NTC San Diego was the place where many men and women became a part of the community and part of world events. Much of our nation’s critical moments were handled by men and women who trained at NTC San Diego. Many retired recruits and officers have returned to San Diego and continue to participate in the growth and memories of NTC by sharing their stories with the newly redeveloped NTC, now known as Liberty Station. These stories and memories are now in the care of the NTC Foundation and NTC Promenade, who is tasked with the mission to bring life back into the historic core of NTC.

The carefully thought-out restoration and reuse of the original buildings makes working in, living in, and visiting NTC San Diego/Liberty Station so unique. The thoughtful rehabilitation and reuse plans used by the Corky McMillin Companies and C. W. Clark, Inc., had never been undertaken by any other base renovation project in the nation. The development of a Historic Interpretive Master Plan for the Naval Training Center San Diego—developed and funded by the NTC Foundation, the Corky McMillin Companies, C. W. Clark, Inc., and the McCarthy Family Foundation—has set the standard for a legacy presence of the NTC story. Once again, NTC San Diego has become a model and a standard, first as a premier NTC and now as a model rehabilitation project. The history continues to be kept alive by businesses now occupying the original barracks, commissaries, and other NTC buildings, which communicate and educate all those who enter their establishments. NTC, once a thriving naval city full of learning and training, is now a thriving historic monument, with educational walking tours, retail, schools, churches, and cultural centers, as San Diego’s NTC continues to be an integral part of the growth of San Diego.

Much of the source information for this book came from Mary E. Camacho, the NTC public affairs officer from 1995 to 1997, who showed great foresight in compiling material from the NTC newspaper, the Hoist, into a limited publication called The Cradle of the Navy. Additional resource materials

Reviews for San Diego's Naval Training Center

[Tom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting pictorial history of a former and major naval training station. While the photographs are most interesting and well selected, the captions are a bit confusing at times, as well as inaccurate in a few instances.

Overall though, I would recommend for any sailor who passed through its gates.