USS Recruit

She was also Building 430, on Geary Drive between Evans and Chauncey. That is the whole problem in one address. The Navy kept her on the register as a commissioned ship and on the property books as a structure, and the paper system tolerated it for eighteen years. When the card index became a database in 1967 there was no category for a ship that never floated, so she was struck. Recruits went on training aboard her for another thirty years anyway.

What the plaque says

USS Recruit This 2/3 scale model of a destroyer escort (TDE-1) helped instruct as many as 50,000 naval recruits annually in basic naval procedure. Commissioned 27 July 1949, the Recruit was the Navy's only commissioned ship never to reach water. The Recruit was the first of three similar structures built by the Navy following World War II. It is the sole survivor of the three. Decommissioned 7 March 1967 when it could not be classified in a computerized naval inventory, the USS Recruit nevertheless continued to train recruits, and was reconditioned in 1982 as a training guided missile frigate. Recruits gave the structure its affectionate nickname: USS Neversail. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1042 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Corky McMillin Companies, the Redevelopment Agency of San Diego, and the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, Squibob Chapter, August 13, 2005

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Old Landing, Site of El Desembarcadero — 0.5 mi
• Spanish Landing — 0.5 mi
• Casa de Lopez — 2.0 mi
• Site of Casa de Cota — 2.0 mi