President Roosevelt personally chose the name of “Bainbridge” for the Center in honor of Commodore William Bainbridge who had commanded the famous American frigate Constitution during the War of 1812 and defeated the British frigate HMS Java.
 
Military recruits were trained in shipboard duties aboard the R.T.S. Commodore, aka "USS Neversail". The dry land-bound ship was equipped with most of the facilities found on a real ship, including deck guns, pilot house, davits with whaleboats, and mooring lines fastened to earth-bound bollards, so that crew members could even learn casting off hawsers and other lines connecting the ship to its dock.

By the end of World War II, the center had trained a total of 244,277 recruits who were formally graduated and transferred to various ships and stations throughout the world. Post-World War II the center continued limited operations until June 30, 1947, when it was inactivated as a Navy training center.

A total of 24,484 recruit graduates were trained and graduated during World War II with technical skills under the direction of the Service School Command.

The following "A-Schools" were located in the Naval Training Center during World War II:
Coast Guard School, Rockefeller Research Unit, Stewards Mates' School Roll, Naval Academy Preparatory School, Naval Hospital, Hospital Corps School, Radio School, Fire Control School, Fire Fighters School, Electrical School, Physical Instructors School, Instructors School, Sound Motion Picture Technician School, Fire Fighters Training Unit School, Motion Picture Operators School, and Recruit Instructors School.


Post-World War II, the center was deactivated in 1947, and the only school remaining at the center was then the Naval Academy Prep School, which continued to operate at Bainbridge until it was moved to Newport, Rhode Island, in October 1949.

Since the center’s closing was effected in 1947, a maintenance staff remained onboard to protect the buildings from fire and other damage, such as that from the weather. In mid-1950, with the advent of the Korean War crisis, plans were made to reactivate the center, and it was officially reopened on February 1, 1951, in a ceremony in which Captain Robert Hall Smith, USN, took overall command.

It reopened its gates for its first recruits on April 5, 1951.

The Recruit Training Command was the largest of the Center’s commands and was responsible for the basic training of recruits in the skills that would allow them to be graduated as seamen recruits. It consisted of four independent commands – known as Camps -- each of which had its own regimental drill hall, mess hall, barracks, class rooms, and so on:
Camp Rodgers, Camp Perry, Camp James, and Camp Barney.

Each camp contained 5,000 male recruits. A training school was established for WAVE recruits in October 1951.

In 1962, a Naval Nuclear Power School was installed on the center, but was eventually moved to the Naval Training Center at Orlando, Florida. The Center was deactivated in 1976, after which the center’s facilities were used by the Department of Labor as a Job Corps Training Center on part of the installation until 1990.

On November 3, 1986, the United States Congress authorized the Secretary of the Navy to dispose of the NTCB (Naval Training Center, Bainbridge) facility by sale to private parties or transfer to other government agencies. NTCB is the Federal Facilities equivalent of a Brownfields site with the primary goal of the Navy being effective re-use of the former property by the State of Maryland and the people of Cecil County. Congress specified that before any sale, the Secretary of the Navy was required to “restore such property to a condition that meets all applicable Federal and State of Maryland environmental protection regulations (Public Law 99-956). The U.S. Navy has transferred this site to the Bainbridge Development Corporation. The cleanup is complete.