HISTORY OF MILITARY TRAINING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
Military training at the University dates back, in one form or another, to 1858, when the martial spirit of the pre-Civil War days caught the attention of the male students. They formed a military company independently and conducted their own drills. The enthusiasm of the students led a faculty committee to ask the Board of Regents in 1861 to establish a department of military science and tactics. The Regents were willing to do so providing the legislature appropriate $1,000 for its support. The legislators refused and the program collapsed.
The Morrill Act of 1862, granting public lands to state universities, specifically called for the schools to provide military courses in their curricula. In 1866, the Wisconsin legislature voted to require military training of all able-bodied men in the University. The Morrill Act also called for training in engineering, and the first university instructors in engineering were the Army officers detailed here by the War Department to teach military science.
Compulsory military training was limited to freshmen and sophomores in 1870 as the martial air of the Civil War days faded away. The undergraduates were opposed to the requirement and resorted to an assortment of pranks to interrupt drill periods.
A shift in the type of training came in 1907 when the program went from strictly drill to a more academic approach. And in 1915–16 the War Department designated Wisconsin as a “Distinguished College.” The National Defense Act of 1916 led to establishment of a senior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at Wisconsin and in 1917 five hours per week of infantry instruction was assigned to junior and senior cadets.
World War I found ROTC at Wisconsin well established but entangled in the confusion of the times. Enrollments and deferments were the main topics of the day and engineering students could get certificates enabling them to join the Engineering Reserve Corps and remain in school until graduation.
The wartime Students Army Training Corps (SATC) succeeded the ROTC in September, 1918, and was administered by university officials. The men who signed up for the corps received a peculiar mixture of military and civilian instruction, lived in barracks and drew basic army pay. The government also provided food and clothing for the trainees. More than 3,000 men were trained in that program during World War I.
The SATC was discontinued in February, 1919, and the army ROTC program as it is known today came into being. Infantry and Ordnance courses were the first taught and Field Artillery and Signal Corps were added in December, 1919.
The state legislature made ROTC training optional in 1923, against the advice of University President Birge and the protest of 900 cadets who signed a petition to keep the course compulsory. A decline in enrollment and enthusiasm followed and in 1925 the Ordnance course was dropped, followed by the end of the Artillery branch in 1929. In 1932 the low ebb was reached with only 457 students enrolled. Academic recognition of one credit per semester for basic course training was granted in 1933 and in the same year the Governor vetoed a bill to make ROTC again compulsory. In 1935 interest was great enough to form a regiment of Infantry and introduce the Corps of Engineers branch. An enrollment of 965 cadets was reached in 1939 and two regiments were formed. The peacetime draft of 1940 boosted the enrollment to 1,421 cadets and in 1941 the requirement of two years of military training at the University was reinstated by the state legislature. In the same year, academic credit for the basic course was taken away.
In World War II, as in World War I, the University ROTC was forced to turn its training duties over to another agency. The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) came to the campus in 1943. About the same time the Navy V-twelve program was established, and the University conducted numerous technical courses for the Armed Forces.
In the spring semester of 1944, ROTC returned to the campus with a general program of training. The interim training was called “Branch Immaterial.”
In 1946, the Infantry, Signal Corps, and Engineer branches were augmented by the addition of the Transportation Corps, Military Police Corps, and Air Corps units to the military department. In the same year, the Navy ROTC program was started at Wisconsin with a four-year program for selected students.
In 1947, summer camp training of six weeks at regular military posts and bases was resumed for Advanced Course students. Also in that year, the Medical Corps and Pharmacy units were added. On July 1, 1949, the Air Corps branch became the independent Air Force ROTC.