Original Item: Only One Available. This is an original U.S. WWII USMC reversible camouflage shelter half, later marked for use at the U.S. Naval Training Center, Bainbridge, Maryland. The shelter half is a double-sided rectangular camouflage panel with pointed ends, designed so that two sections could be buttoned together to form a small field tent. The camouflage colors remain quite vibrant despite extensive use, staining, and fabric wear.
The shelter half retains nearly all of its buttons and grommets, and the fabric remains mostly soft and pliable. Overall condition is fair, however, with several areas of heavy tearing, particularly along the seams. These weakened sections should be handled carefully to prevent further separation or loss.
The shelter half is stamped on one side:

U.S.N. TRA. CEN.
BAINBRIDGE, MD

4-H60
20TH BN. -420
12

This denotes the shelter half was used extensively at the United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, the U.S. Navy Training Center at Port Deposit, Maryland, on the bluffs of the northeast bank of the Susquehanna River. It was active from 1942 to 1976 under the Commander of the Fifth Naval District, based in Norfolk, Virginia.

The center was activated on 1 October 1942, and the first batch of recruits arrived 10 days later to begin "boot camp" training. They came in busloads from transportation collection points at Havre de Grace and Perryville, Maryland. The recruits were given a battery of tests to determine their educational and skill levels, then trained in ordnance and gunnery, seamanship, fire fighting, physical training, and military drill.

Recruits were trained in shipboard duties aboard the R.T.S. Commodore, a 200-foot "ship" built on dry land. The trainer was equipped with deck guns, a pilot house, davits with whaleboats, and mooring lines fastened to earth-bound bollards, so that crew members could learn casting off hawsers and other lines connecting the ship to its dock.

Halfway through boot camp, recruits had a "service week", which generally included kitchen duty, peeling potatoes, mopping, picking up cigarette butts, etc. Recruits with desirable skills, such as typing, could end up on an office typewriter rather than in a kitchen. One winter, recruits were sent to shovel snow off roads to a largely rural area near Colora and Rising Sun.

By the end of World War II, the center had trained 244,277 recruits who transferred to various ships and stations throughout the world.

The shelter half shows numerous additional scattered markings and areas of wear throughout. The combination of the reversible camouflage pattern, complete buttons and grommets, Bainbridge training-center stamp, additional unit or inventory markings, and heavily service-worn condition makes this a particularly interesting example of WWII-era field equipment that appears to have continued in institutional use after initial issue.