Thanks to good friend Chick Perrotto, who sent in this article originally published on Retronaut and authored by Amanda Uren. Ed. note: Wonder if it was the first non-smoking ship in the Navy?
In 1917 the U.S. Navy built a full-size battleship in Union Square, New York. It would stay there for the next three years. Intended as a recruitment and training center, the ship was commissioned as a normal seagoing ship, under the command of Acting Captain C. F. Pierce, and manned by trainee sailors from Newport Training Station. Internally the ship had a wireless station, full officer’s quarters, doctor’s quarters, and examination rooms to assess the health of potential candidates. Constructed from wood, the USS Recruit carried two cage masts, a conning tower, and a dummy funnel. It had six wooden replicas of 14-inch guns housed in three twin turrets, ten wooden five-inch anti-torpedo boat guns, and two replica one-pound saluting guns — matching the configuration of battleships of the time.
Ship’s Data
Because Recruit never floated, she has no builder’s tonnage or draft. The figures below are the ones that recur across independent published accounts; where those accounts disagree, both readings are given rather than one being picked.
| Type | Landship — full-size wooden mockup of a dreadnought battleship |
| Location | Union Square, Manhattan, New York City |
| Built by | U.S. Navy |
| Christened | 30 May 1917 |
| Length | About 200 feet (see note below) |
| Beam | 40 feet |
| Commanding officer | Acting Captain C. F. Pierce |
| Crew | 39 bluejackets plus the commanding officer, drawn from Newport Training Station |
| Main battery | Six wooden 14-inch guns in three twin turrets |
| Secondary battery | Ten wooden 5-inch anti-torpedo-boat guns |
| Saluting guns | Two wooden one-pounders |
| Rig | Two cage masts, conning tower, dummy funnel |
| Decommissioned | 16 March 1920 |
| Recruits enlisted | About 25,000 |
A note on the length. Most published accounts give Recruit as 200 feet from stem to stern, or describe her as “over 200 feet” long. One widely circulated retelling puts her at 250 feet — though the body of that same account says “over 200 feet.” The 40-foot beam is consistent everywhere. Treat 200 feet as the better-supported figure and 250 feet as an outlier rather than a settled alternative.
According to the August 1917 edition of Popular Science, the Recruit followed the normal navy routine. Sailors rose at 6 a.m., scrubbed the decks, did their laundry, and attended instructional classes. They then stood guard over the ship and were available to answer questions from visitors. By night, all the ship’s lights were turned on, including a series of searchlights. The ship hosted a variety of social events and receptions, including a christening, patriotic speeches, and visits by various dignitaries, a group of Native Americans, and the Women’s Motor Corps.
As a recruiting tool the ship was very successful, helping to recruit 25,000 men into the U.S. Navy.
What Became of Her
The First World War ended in November 1918, and by 1920 Recruit was no longer needed in Union Square. She was decommissioned on 16 March 1920 and taken apart where she stood.
The Navy’s stated intention was to move her to Luna Park at Coney Island and carry on recruiting there, and the dismantled sections were reportedly shipped in that direction. She was never rebuilt. The explanation given in the fuller accounts is a plain one: the cost of moving and re-erecting the ship came to more than the salvaged timber was worth, so the project was dropped.
What happened to the material after that is not recorded. It was most likely broken up and used locally, but no naval record has been found that says so — which is why some accounts simply state that the ultimate fate of the Recruit is unknown. Both statements are true at different levels of detail: we know why she was never reassembled; we do not know where her timbers ended up.
Sources
The narrative above is the article by Amanda Uren, originally published on Retronaut and sent in by Chick Perrotto, together with the photographs in this site’s collection. The Ship’s Data table and the section on what became of her were compiled from off-site published accounts, and every figure in the table appears in at least two of them independently.
Details that appeared in only one account — among them the name of the woman who performed the christening, and a claim that the crew had grown to eighty men by 1920 — have been left out rather than repeated on a single source.