USS Recruit (TDE-1) | scale models (structures), historic landmark

USA / California / Coronado / Gearing Drive, 430
 scale models (structures), historic landmark
USS Recruit
Gearing Drive
San Diego, CA 92101

USS Recruit (TDE-1), a landlocked "dummy" training ship.
She was built to scale, exactly one-third the size of a destroyer escort, and commissioned 27 July 1949, the Recruit served for 18 years as the only landlocked commissioned ship in the Navy.
"Sailing" on a sea of concrete at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, California, she trained over 50,000 new recruits yearly in the fundamentals of shipboard drills and procedures with the use of standard deck and bridge gear found on all vessels, including lifelines, accommodation ladder, signal halyards, searchlights, engine order telegraph, and helm, but not engines or screws.

She was "decommissioned" in March 1967 but, continued in her training role until the base closure in 1997.
Now the Recruit can be viewed up close by the public as a historical landmark in a park setting, across from a strip mall of course. ~phiz 10/14/2007
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Coordinates:   32°43'42"N   117°12'58"W

Comments

  • This ship is also known as the SS Never Sail
  • I learned shipboard operations on this "ship" as a 17 year-old recruit in late 1971. I just returned from a week in San Diego on Coronado Island for a school--my first vist since February 1972 when I graduated from Navy Boot Camp. A LOT of changes!! Steve
  • Added picture of the Neversail from the "I'm at the Naval Training Center" booklet that was sent home to recruits families. The booklet is from the summer of 1962.
This article was last modified 7 years ago