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Navy
Contract Midshipmen 70 Regular Midshipmen 20 Naval Aviation 6
Major John Davis Morgan, Jr., Engineer Reserve, Pennsylvania State College.—The United States is rapidly and unnecessarily losing the opportunity to secure the services of large numbers of qualified veterans who would make the most competent Reserve Officers with a minimum of training and expense. As an example: at the Pennsylvania State College in the spring of 1947, only 217 individuals are receiving ROTC training leading to a commission, while there are 3884 male undergraduate veterans in attendance at the college. The veterans are enrolled in the Schools of the College as follows:
Agriculture 574 Liberal Arts 1119
Chemistry and Physics 424 Mineral Industries 269 Education 172 Physical Education 133
Engineering 1193
and the numbers taking ROTC are tabulated below:
Army
Air Force Adv. ROTC 71 Corps of Eng. Adv.
ROTC 11
Infantry Adv. ROTC 36 Signal Corps Adv. ROTC 3
In addition, 97 students are taking Basic Army ROTC which does not lead to a commission unless the student continues through the Advanced Course. Of the 3884 veterans, only about one-third served in World War II as officers, the greater part in the Air Forces; consequently, over 2000 potential Reserve Officers are being lost in one college alone.
The veteran who has seen combat as an enlisted man and who then receives the advantages of a college education would make the most efficient Reserve Officer in the event that we are required to fight another war, for modern warfare requires increasing numbers of officers who are both leaders of men and competent technicians. If the situation at the Penn State College is indicative of the situation at our other major universities, the Reserves are each year losing thousands of combat veterans with college degrees. The present lack of interest in ROTC should be investigated without delay and remedial measures taken before the total reservoir of college students with wartime service experience is dangerously depleted. If the ROTC programs are not immediately strengthened, the next war will again find us with insufficient numbers of good Reserve Officers at a point when time will not be available to undo our mistakes.
(Reply by Captain William G. Fisher, U. S. Navy, Bureau of Naval Personnel)
Major Morgan’s letter quotes the condition of the Army ROTC and the Naval ROTC at Pennsylvania State College. I believe the overall picture of the entire NROTC and Naval Aviation College Program may be of interest.
A new Officer Candidate Training Program, based on the Holloway Board Report, was authorized for the Navy in August, 1946, by Public Law 729. Under this Law three types of officer candidates are authorized.
Regular NROTC students under the Law are Midshipmen in the U. S. Naval Reserve, and upon completion of four years in college, including a course in Naval Science each term and three summer cruises of about eight weeks, are required to serve two years on active duty as Ensigns in the U. S. Navy or Second Lieutenants in the U. S. Marine
Corps. These young men receive $50.00 retainer pay a month while in college and have their tuition paid by the Navy. At the end of their commissioned service they may either request retention in the Regular Navy or may transfer to the Reserve. In the latter case, they are required to serve a total of five years commissioned service either in the Regular Navy or in the Reserve. The service in the Reserve need not be on active duty except in time of emergency.
A second type of NROTC student, called a Contract student, is provided. This student takes the same Naval Science courses as the regular student, but is required to take only one summer cruise, and upon graduation is required to accept a commission in the Naval Reserve or Marine Corps Reserve. He receives during his last two years at college a commuted ration, and while on active duty on the summer cruise receives the pay of the lowest enlisted pay grade.
The Naval Aviation College Program (NACP) provides for two years at college followed by a year of flight training as a Midshipman and another year on active duty as a Midshipman. At the end of this four year period, a man is commissioned an Ensign in the Regular Navy and is required to serve one more year. At the end of one year’s service as an Ensign he may either request retention in the Regular Navy as a career officer or he may go back to the Reserve. If he goes back to the Reserve the Government will pay his tuition for two years more at a college and pay him $100.00 a month retainer pay during this period. If he remains in the Navy he will be given further education to bring him up to a college graduate level. During his first two years at college this man receives the same emoluments as the regular NROTC student. He likewise has the same obligations regarding service in the Naval Reserve.
The NROTC and the Naval Aviation College Program students who remain in the regular service are expected to supplement the output of career officers by the U. S. Naval Academy.
The Navy is proceeding to implement the above program in an orderly manner. There are NROTC units in operation in fifty-two colleges, and Naval Aviation College Program students (who in accordance with Law may attend any accredited college) are now in attendance at seven hundred colleges throughout the country.
The total number of students on board in the three programs described above are as follows:
NROTC (regular) 2000
NROTC (contract) 3200
NACP 3200
The above figures should be considered in comparison with the ceiling authorized by Law, a total of contract and regular students of 15,400. There is no ceiling on Naval Aviation College Program students. This program is being implemented as rapidly as is consistent with the equalization of numbers in each class and the avoidance of “humps.”
Cruises are being conducted for these men this summer on our latest and finest ships.
The candidates for NROTC regular status and for the Naval Aviation College Programs are chosen by competitive examination. Forty-two thousand youngsters competed for entrance in September, 1947. From these about three thousand were chosen.
It is true, as Major Morgan states, that the NROTC does not have very many veterans enrolled. There are several reasons for this. First, the veteran very naturally has had enough of the military life to last him for a few years. Second, the veteran is anxious to complete his college education in order that he may start his career in his profession or business; taking the required Naval Science courses would increase time required for graduation. Third, the veteran is frequently too old to meet the age requirements for entrance into the NROTC. While it is regrettable that more veterans are not enrolled, it is understandable and probably unavoidable.
I do not believe that this is as serious as might at first appear, since, in the event of an emergency in the near future, the veterans who have gone to college and graduated will be excellent officer candidates without regard to whether or not they have taken NROTC. If the emergency does not occur for several years, the younger non-veterans produced by this program will be the ones of suitable age for active duty. The latter group are the
pnes upon which the Navy is concentrating its long-time efforts.
Fighting Ships on the Leash
(See page 162, February, 1947, Proceedings)
Rear Admiral Henry Williams, U. S. Navy (Retired).—Captain Cope, in his article “Fighting Ships on the Leash,” gives an excellent and comprehensive description °f the methods developed in the Bureau of Ships for laying up and protecting Naval ships against physical deterioration caused by moisture and its corrosive effect. Unfortunately there can be no method of preventing obsolescense, and an obsolete man-of-war, like a second best poker hand, is good only for bluffing purposes.
Upon completion of hostilities, the Navy was faced with the problem of determining the disposition of the ships, facilities, and material not needed for the peace-time naval establishment. The question is historical and has presented itself after each war in which the country has been engaged. The traditional answer has been to lay up in reserve many of the ships, much of the equipment, and some of the facilities “for use during the next war.” Each war we have waged has found the Navy with outmoded ships of the previous war, which for lack of better ones it was forced to use. During the war with Spain, Civil War monitors with smooth-bore guns were placed in service for coast defense. After that war there were in service in the Navy even some wooden ships.
World War I found us with ships in active service antedating the Spanish War. Numbers of old small destroyers were fitted out and commissioned, some of them for overseas service.
World War II found our Navy to a con-
siderable extent dependent for operations on ships built prior to and during World War I. These ships, particularly the destroyers, rendered invaluable service, for lack of better ones.
The availability of old ships in reserve unquestionably has discouraged the construction of new ships for the Navy.
The question that confronted the Navy Department is whether to adopt the traditional procedure of laying up ships and facilities “for the next war” or whether to dispose of all not needed to maintain the active Navy and proceed on the assumption that new ships will be designed and built as needed to maintain a Navy determined upon as adequate to prevent the next war.
Military men have been criticized from time immemorial as “always fighting the last war,” using methods and equipment determined upon by those experiences as being the most effective. The Navy has been forced to fight each new war with many of the ships of the last war and only as the new war has progressed has it been possible to incorporate into our fleet the features requisite for naval superiority.
The question of how many old ships to retain and how long they should be retained is difficult to answer. If many are retained, their maintenance will absorb too much of the naval appropriation and give a false sense of security, resulting in curtailment of new construction.
Should we not, facing the issue squarely, progressively scrap all ships not needed for an active up-to-the-minute Navy, and adopt the policy that new ships will be added when and as necessary to maintain full naval strength adequate to prevent any other nation from arming effectively for waging a victorious war?