KU mobilized for war 25 years ago
By Cheryl Hentsch
Twenty-five years ago this spring, KU went to war. For five years KU suspended normal campus routine while students, faculty, administration and Lawrence residents united their educational efforts to achieve the then distant goal of victory in Europe and the Pacific.
December 7, 1941, was an ordinary Sunday in the United States, but within weeks, with military equipment and personnel at a minimum, the armed forces began assembling their sea, air and land power.
AT KU CHANCELLOR Deane W. Malot (1939-1951) in his "KU At War" message emphasized President Roosevelt's request that college men should continue training as long as possible. He noted that at a January, 1942, meeting in Baltimore, a thousand college and university presidents were asked by the Army, Navy and Civil Service Commission to train more men, more quickly and more thoroughly.
KU responded with a number of courses designed to give students a greater opportunity to be of service. New courses in meteorology, aerial photography, military law, nursing and navigation became integral parts of the curriculum.
One of the first effects of war on campus was adoption of the three semester plan by the schools of Medicine and Engineering.
Since members of the Law School were subject to immediate draft, steps were taken to enable them to obtain a law degree in less time. The Law School opened to graduating seniors in the College, waiving the former requirement of a college degree for admission.
BY SENATE action, KU Easter recess was omitted and commencement was advanced one week to extend the regular summer school by four weeks. The creation of a 12-week summer school permitted the student to carry more hours during the summer and to complete the required number of hours for a degree much sooner.
Such changes in education programs were not limited to KU, but were instituted in colleges and universities in all sections of the United States. "The younger generation is working to win the war as well as to earn a degree," a 1942 issue of the University Daily Kansan noted.
The United States' entry into the conflict was driven home to the campus and Lawrence in July, 1942, when the first division of trainees for the U.S. Naval Training School anchored its "ship," the USS Strong Hall, on the Kansas inland sea at Mount Oread. The trainees, machinist mates, began a four-month training course to fit them for service on ships. They came to KU from six weeks of intensive boot training at the Great Lakes Naval Training station in Illinois.
LOCATED IN Strong Hall, the sailors brought several innovations to the campus. The quarters, which included a partitioned section of the lower, main and second decks (naval terminology for floors) and all of the third deck were closed to the public as were all military stations.
Trainees were restricted aboard ship (quarters) and kept within the naval area unless granted permission by an officer.
KU set up two cafeterias in the Kansas Union and Lindley Hall for the sailors who marched to mess everyday. (During one period, Lawrence and KU women
served approximately 3,500 meals a day.) Naval personnel also marched to chapel and attended supervised athletic events on the triangular strip of ground to the stern of Strong Hall.
REQUISITIONING the space for the Navy required shifting many offices and departments of KU to other places. When September classes resumed in 1942, classrooms were changed and departments scattered over the campus. Confused students wandered over the Hill in and out of buildings.
KU hummed with activity and preparations for the war effort in 1943. Thomas C. Rythe, director of the KU Press, received his appointment as conservator of materials and services important to national defense. He organized a cooperative campaign to conserve waste paper, light, heat and power on campus. Used rags, envelopes and magazines were saved.
An acute man shortage developed at KU. Almost every student at one time wore army khaki or navy blue. Gas rationing reduced the number of cars and food rationing reduced the number of steals served for dinner. Students carried ration cards for butter, sugar and shoes.
THE WAR ALSO began to change locations as well as the numbers of organized houses at KU. Naval aviation cadets lived in the Tau Kappa Epsilon house with other navy trainees. Delta Chi members made way for the Marines, and women aeronautical engineers occupied Hopkins Hall and a portion of the Alpha Omicron Pi house.
KU as an academic institution literally became a factory turning out trained manpower for the Army, Navy, Marines and Army Air Corps. Every few months entire divisions of men arrived on the 11:05 a.m. Union Pacific train and marched up Massachusetts to their KU quarters, while other groups left for duty. Faces changed rapidly.
Approximately 1,085 people were attending war training classes by mid-April 1943. Sixty women, training for aeronautical technician jobs, added a feminine touch to Marvin Hall and the Aeronautical Engineering building behind it.
THE MARINES landed, too. Marine flyers trained at the local airport, and an intermediate course given by the Navy to its flyers was offered at KU. Perhaps the hardest thing in the entire course, one cadet remarked, was getting up five morning a week to go to a 7:30 a.m. ground school class.
KU ranked fifth in 1943 among 211 colleges and universities offering the Engineering Science Management War Training program (ESMWT) for war production plant employees.
Classes conducted by KU Extension enrolled 3,898 workers in February, 1943. Penn State, University of California, Rutgers and Purdue, which outstripped KU in the number of enrollees, were all situated in extremely congested industrial areas, which according to the U.S. Office of Education, made the KU record little short of phenomenal.
EMPHASIS ON war training did not stop with the men in uniform. Nearly all of the men students attending regular KU courses were in some branch of the armed forces on a reserve status.
KU women also went all out for war. They attended classes in mechanical drawing offered to second semester seniors to reduce the shortage of trained personnel in industry.
Local organizations planned numerous activities for the servicemen to provide relief from drill
and training. The Naval Training Station's softball team began playing local clubs, whether KU intramural groups or town teams, in the evenings under floodlights on the South Park diamond.
NAVAL PERSONNEL shared Robinson pool with students, Marines, cadets and boy scouts. Navy V-12 students organized a dance band and played for P-T dances and numerous war fund drives scheduled during the war.
Students, servicemen and Lawrence residents joined to support the war effort with dollars as well as knowledge. Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, director of several drives, commented that "most of the money received was sent to his office without contributors being solicited."
KU also sponsored war bond dances to raise money. Students and servicemen who attended cast a vote for the war bond queen by purchasing a war stamp or bond. Each 10 cent stamp purchased, cast one vote for the queen.
IN THE SPRING of 1944, after three years of intensive war preparations and sacrifices, the armed forces eased the enlistment and training quotas. KU programs and facilities gradually returned to "normal."
With the return to peace-time navy college training, men were inactivated or transferred to duty elsewhere. Some of the former ROTC students came under the G.I. Bill of Rights but many were not able to continue school ba-
cause of finances. As one student put it, "if you take my uniform. I won't have anything to wear, and new clothes will run into money."
"The gravy's in the navy ... "a popular wartime tune advertised, and that seemed to be the situation on the KU campus. With the departure of the Navy, navy student participation in college activities declined and left many leadership gaps. A Cappella, All Student Council, fraternities, and varsity athletics lost many singers, soap-box orators, presidents and athletes.
THOUGHTS OF "Rock Chalk and the Jayhawker, the officers and 'Jeeps' (A-12 students), and of course, the Navy," frequent topics of conversation during five years of war, gradually disappeared from the KU scene to be replaced by phrases more appropriate to peace time.
What the future held, however, no one could foresee. "Patience, courage and hard work will be required of us all," said Chancellor Malott in 1942. "It is the fundamental duty of KU men and women to train themselves for maximum leadership, for maximum understanding and for maximum service. To this end, the resources of the entire University are pledged"—then as now and in KU's second century.
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