US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May

"Commissioned as a Navy Section Base 9 in 1917, the US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May stands on the site of a former amusement park that bordered the Atlantic Ocean a few miles east of Cape May in southern New Jersey. Dirigibles, submarines, and minesweepers were based here during World War 1. Because of its proximity to the ocean and Delaware Bay, the base was used by Coast Guard patrol boats and cutters to chase rumrunners during Prohibition in the 1920s. An airfield was established adjacent to the base in 1926, and in 1948, the base became the only recruit training center in the country, today graduating more than 4,000 recruits per year. Joseph E. Salvatore, MD, is the non-salaried executive directory of the Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum. Joan Berkey is an architectural historian and author. US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May contains photographs and images from the museum's archives, most of them previously unpublished. The Images of America series ce