Naval Base San Diego (U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego)

Naval Base San Diego is a United States Navy installation on San Diego Bay in San Diego, California. It operates under Commander, Navy Region Southwest and is the principal homeport of the United States Pacific Fleet. It is the second largest surface ship base in the world after Naval Station Norfolk.

The base homeports surface combatants, amphibious ships, littoral combat ships, and auxiliary and research vessels, together with ships of the Military Sealift Command and United States Coast Guard cutters. Around 150 tenant commands are based ashore, each with defined fleet support missions, and the base is the hub of Navy port operations for Navy Region Southwest. It also carries logistical responsibility for Naval Medical Center San Diego and for the Region headquarters. Military, civilian and contract personnel on base number in the tens of thousands.

The installation occupies land and water frontage on the eastern side of the bay, with piers providing berthing for the homeported force. Shore support covers waterfront operations, force protection, supply, bachelor and barracks accommodation for several thousand personnel, food services, civil engineering and facility maintenance, transportation, utilities, fire protection, and medical and dental care. Plant value is given as 4.5 billion dollars.

The site was occupied from 1918 by concrete shipbuilding firms of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, and the Navy acquired the land and improvements from 1920 to establish a west coast ship repair facility, taking formal custody on 21 February 1921; General Order 78 of 23 February 1922 established it as the U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego. Expanded wartime training and repair work led to redesignation as the U.S. Repair Base, San Diego, on 7 October 1943, and the base repaired, overhauled and converted more than 5,000 ships between 1943 and 1945. On 15 September 1946 it became Naval Station, San Diego, with a logistics, repair and dry-docking mission for the active fleet. Following the closure of Long Beach Naval Shipyard on 30 September 1994, it became the principal Pacific Fleet homeport and was redesignated Naval Base San Diego.