Historic Photos of USS Recruit, a Dreadnought Battleship Built in Union Square From 1917-1920 – Design You Trust

Historic Photos of USS Recruit, a Dreadnought Battleship Built in Union Square From 1917-1920

USS Recruit was a wooden mockup of a dreadnought battleship constructed by the United States Navy in Manhattan in New York City, as a recruiting tool and training ship during the First World War. Commissioned as if it were a normal vessel of the U.S. Navy and manned by a crew of trainee sailors, Recruit was located in Union Square from 1917 until the end of the war.

h/t: vintag.es

Operating as the U.S. Navy’s headquarters for recruiting in the New York City district, Recruit was a fully rigged battleship, and was operated as a commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy. Under the command of Acting Captain C. F. Pierce and with a complement of thirty-nine bluejackets from the Newport Training Station for crew, Recruit served as a training ship in addition to being a recruiting office. The Navy also offered public access and tours of the ship, allowing civilians to familiarize themselves with how a Navy warship was operated.

The accommodations aboard Recruit included fore and aft examination rooms, full officer’s quarters, a wireless station, a heating and ventilation system that was capable of changing the temperature of the air inside the ship ten times within the span of an hour, and cabins for the accommodation of the sailors of its crew.

Two high cage masts, a conning tower, and a single dummy smokestack matched Recruit’s silhouette to the layout of seagoing U.S. battleships of the time. Three twin turrets contained a total of six wooden versions of 14-inch (360 mm) guns, providing the ship’s ‘main battery’. Ten wooden 5-inch (130 mm) guns in casemates represented the secondary anti-torpedo-boat weaponry of a battleship, while two replicas of one-pounder saluting guns completed the ship’s ‘armament’.

After spending over two years in Union Square, the Landship Recruit was decommissioned and dismantled, the Navy intending to move it to Coney Island’s Luna Park, where it would be maintained as a recruiting depot following its success at its Union Square location; Recruit struck its colors on March 16, 1920; The New York Times reported that the “Landship” had helped the U.S. Navy recruit 25,000 men into the service—625 times the size of her own crew, and enough to crew twenty-eight Nevada-class battleships. However, the cost of a move to Coney Island proved to exceed the value of the materials used in the vessel, so following its dismantling it was never reassembled, the materials being most likely reused in local projects.















If you want more awesome content, subscribe to 'Oh, Design You Trust,' our brand new Facebook page! Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

More Inspiring Stories

The 10 Winning Photographs From The Hasselblad Masters Awards 2016
1959 Cadillac Cyclone Concept, An Indication Of The United States Obsession With Jet Design And Aerodynamics
Dayalets’ Hellish Vitamin Mascots Intended to Promote a Healthy Diet From the 1950s
Tornado Captured in Couple's Wedding Photos
Dreaming of Tomorrow At Alberta Vocational Schools, 1970
Stunning Beauty Photography Of Freckled Individuals By Brock Elbank
World's Best Wedding Photography Contest - The 2017 Best Of The Best Destination Photography Collection
This Russian Artist Continues to Create Amazing Surrealistic Self-Portraits and Photomanipulations
Beautiful Photos of Sakura Blooming in Japan by Hidenobu Suzuki
Italian Photographer Matteo Carella Captures Urban Tokyo In Noir And Neon
ALIVE! Fred G Johnson’s American Sideshow Banners
Vintage Photos Of Lumberjacks Who Felled Big Trees Using Only Hand Tools In The Early 20th Century
People Use This Online Photo Enhancer To Restore Old Pictures And Share The Results
Fantastic Photographs Of Native Americans In Ceremonial Masks, 1905-1915
Sign Of The Times: Protest Signs That Sum Up The Sixties
When Eight-Year-Olds Worked The Streets: Lewis Hine's Beautiful Vintage Portraits Of Young Workers In America
Stunning Photographs Taken By Stanley Kubrick That Capture Street Scenes of New York City In The 1940s
1938 Phantom Corsair: The Regret Of A Car Ahead Of Its Time
15 Rare Photos Taken With The First Ever Kodak Photo Camera
Turbo-Reactive Diesel-Punk: Flying Retro Cars By Alejandro Burdisio
Let's Enter A New World: Photography Masterpieces Of Vitas Luckus
The Superb Black And White Abstract Beauty And Street Photo Artworks By Olivier Mayhall
Rare Photographs Reveal British Soldiers Manning Anti-Aircraft Guns in Full Drag in World War II
2013 National Geographic Photo Contest, Part 1: "Places", Weeks 1-3