HMS
Raleigh was commissioned on 9 January 1940 as a training establishment for Ordinary Seamen following the
Military Training Act which required that all males aged 20 and 21 years old be called up for six months full-time military training, and then transferred to the
reserve. During the Second World War, 44 sailors and 21 Royal Engineers were killed when a German bomb hit the air-raid shelter they were in at
Raleigh on 28 April 1941. In 1944, the
United States Navy took over the base to use as an embarkation centre prior to the
Invasion of Normandy.
Raleigh was transferred back to the Royal Navy in July 1944 to continue training seamen. Early in 1950, the base became the new entry and engineering training establishment for stoker mechanics. The cruiser was used for "onboard training, boiler room, auxiliary machinery, ships boats etc". The base was modernised in the 1970s, and in the early 1980s, Raleigh took on the Part I training for the
Women's Royal Naval Service, and Artificer Apprentices as well as adding the Royal Naval Supply School. These had previously taken place at , and
HMS Pembroke respectively. Briefly between 1980 and 1981 it was home to
Rowallan Division providing training before entry to
BRNC Dartmouth. In 1990, the training of male and female recruits was merged, and over the following ten years the base absorbed the Cookery School (from the Army Catering Corps headquarters) and the
Submarine School from . HMS
Raleigh was the home of Defence Maritime Logistics School (DMLS) prior to moving to
Worthy Down Camp in 2020. ==Role==