Naval Technical Training Center Corry Station Patch

In 1960 the first class of Navy communications technicians, the rating later called cryptologic technician, reported to a former aviation field north of Pensacola, and Corry has been a schoolhouse ever since. It started as Kiwanis Field in 1923, moved to its present site in 1928, and trained student naval aviators as Naval Auxiliary Air Station Corry Field through World War II, Korea and into the Cold War. Flight operations ended in June 1958. The station carries the name of Lieutenant Commander William M. Corry Jr., a Medal of Honor recipient. For a generation of sailors, NTTC Corry Station was the first place they learned the trade they would carry to the fleet.

The technical training era began as Naval Communications Training Center Corry Field, and the Chief of Naval Operations later renamed the installation Naval Technical Training Center Corry Station. In 1973 NTTC Corry Station was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, so students earned college credit for the courses they finished. On 28 April 2003 the command became the Center for Cryptology Corry Station. In 2005 it merged with the Center for Information Technology San Diego to form the Center for Information Dominance. Since 2016 the schoolhouse has been Information Warfare Training Command Corry Station, headquarters of the Center for Information Warfare Training.

This is a 4 inch round with a gold merrowed edge and a royal blue outer ring. NAVAL TECHNICAL TRAINING CENTER arcs across the top in gold, with CORRY STATION along the bottom on a silver-gray band. In the light blue center a brown eagle spreads its wings over a gold lightning bolt, with three flags fanned out behind it. Below them, an aircraft carrier deck and a submarine seen head-on sit at either end of a white curve. The lightning bolt fits the electronics and communications trade, and the carrier and boat fit the fleet those sailors went on to serve.

Corry graduates do not usually make the newspaper, and the work does not allow it. CTs and the other technicians who came through this station stood watches in radio rooms, signals spaces and shore stations around the world. Many of them remember Pensacola as the place where the Navy first trusted them with something that mattered. The name on this patch dates to the NTTC years, the era a lot of retired chiefs still call the place by.

Frame it with a rating badge and a set of orders in a shadow box, or sew it on a jacket for the next reunion of your class. It also makes a fine gift for a cryptologic technician heading to his first command. A plain patch for a place that sent a lot of sailors to sea.