USNTC Bainbridge -- First Regiment Mess Hall Taken by Dorothy Montgomery while in recruit training in fall of 1963
The aerial photo below shows how the Mess Hall looked in 2005. It's seems somewhat odd the mess hall would have survived demolition.
Just imagine how many meals were served in this one mess hall alone. 5000 recruits x 3 meals/day x 365 days = 5,375,000 meals in one year during WWII. .
The "H" shaped building at the bottom is HUNTER HALL constructed circa 1967 to serve as Wave barracks.
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A 2010 photo of the mess hall taken from nearly the same spot as Dorothy Montgomery's 1963 photo above.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- Mess Hall Interior April 1943.
The menu sign read "soup de jour" every day, I wasn't having any of it, didn't sound appetizing to me.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- Great image of the First Regiment Grinder Taken by Dorothy Montgomery while in recruit training in fall of 1963.
The F4U-2 Corsair fighter plane on the grinder is an air intercept variant it was modified with a radar pod on the right wing, I recall an episode of the "Black Sheep Squadron" on TV about the radar modification.
In the late 1940's as a young boy I assembled a model of the Corsair. .
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USNTC Bainbridge -- F4U-2 Corsair on 1st Regiment Grinder, Date unkown.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- First Regiment Grinder and Mess Hall Building 102 circa November 1957.
Male recruit training would end at Bainbridge NTC in December 1957, so it is very likely this recruit would have been one of the last recruits to graduate.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- First Regiment Grinder Graduation Day in 1954.
This photo represents the essence of what occurred at Bainbridge, parents proudly and happily turning their son over to the US Navy. Lives changed forever. .
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USNTC Bainbridge -- First Regiment Drill Hall Building 101, circa ????, however a 1940's automobile parked beside the drill indicates the 1040's .
Lower portion of Drill Hall 101. The swimming pool was at this end of the building.
It's apparent the grinder itself had quite a slope to it judging by how fast it is falling in comparison to the level drill hall.
The original grinder was of gravel construction, perhaps the slope to aid in drainage?.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- An unknown bldg on the base. Taken by Carol Weir while attending Radioman's School in November 1973.
Carol wrote: "The one building looks impressive-I don't actually remember it. A few of us went horseback riding in November before it got too cold. The stables were on the base".
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USNTC Bainbridge -- The unknown bldg. on the base is actually the Anti-Aircraft Gunnery Training Building 707 which served both the 1st and 2nd regiments.
Building 707 was situated next to the Ship's Service Headquarters across Bainbridge Ave from 4th Regiment Drill. 1943 Photograph is poor quality, but the black outline behind building 707 across Bainbridge Ave. is the 4th regiment drill hall bldg. 401.
There was another anti-aircraft building serving both the 3rd and 4th regiments located behind the 3rd Regiment Drill Hall and just below the water treatment plant and reservoir (lake).
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USNTC Bainbridge -- Have you found your Fiddler's Green?
Fiddler's Green is the happy land imagined by sailors where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing and dancers that never tire.
Origins are an old English legend, oft put to song:
They say an old salt who is tired of going to sea should walk inland with an oar over his shoulder. When he comes to a village deep in the country and the people ask him what he is carrying, he will know that he's found Fiddler's Green. The people give him a seat in the sun outside the Village Inn with a glass of grog that refills itself every time he drains the last drop and a pipe forever smoking with fragrant tobacco. From then onwards he has nothing to do but enjoy his glass and pipe and watch the maidens dancing to the music of a fiddle on Fiddler's Green.
USNTC Bainbridge -- Wonderful 1964 photo with the Fiddler's Green EM Club in the background.
What gave Bainbridge its character was the simplicity and unpretentiousness of the "temporary" architecture and the rolling terrain -- no granite, no polished marble, no gold plating, very few bricks, no air conditioning, no frills.
Wood, glass, asbestos-cement transite sheet siding, tarpaper/gravel flat roofs, coal by the trainload for heat.
Constructed as only a temporary wartime training facility Bainbridge served the United States Navy very well (and inexpensively) for 30+ years.
Check out the red Chevrolet Corvair automobile; Ralph Nader was writing his book "Unsafe At Any Speed" to be published the next year that would unfairly put an end to the Corvair.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- Another view of the EM Club, date unknown.
Never being off the farm I was initially fascinated by the large rotating mirrored ball that hung from the ceiling.
The 1964 photo above shows handrails were added to the entry steps, seems like a very prudent addition considering the condition in which many departed the premises, albeit 3.2% beer was the strongest liquid most had consumed.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- Scene from inside of the EM Club circa 1969.
Is that a bottle of National Bohemian beer? "Natty Boh", brewed on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Fiddler's Green legend had it that girls who drank Natty Boh, got drunk, squinted one eye and had sex all night ..... or so us teenage 'never seen an ocean' sailors did fantasize.
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USNTC Bainbridge -- 1968 photo of the rock band The Runabout's appearance at the Fiddler's Green. The Runabouts, a local band from Havre de Grace, Maryland played several shows at the EM Club in 1967-1968. Amazingly the rock group still performs today with the original members - http://www.therunabouts.com
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A 2010 photo of the mess hall taken from nearly the same spot as Dorothy Montgomery's 1963 photo above.
