Before the Establishment of R.O.T.C. — The Act of 1817, by which the Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania was established, provided for a professorship of military science. Until 1856, however, apparently no interest was taken in the teaching of this subject, since the Act of 1837, which superseded the Act of 1817, omitted the Military Department from the University. In 1856 Lieutenant William Petit Trowbridge, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the Scientific Department. Through his efforts a University battalion composed of some ninety students was organized, and a building was erected as an armory on the southeast corner of the campus. Professor Trowbridge severed his connection with the University at the end of the first year, and with his departure the interest in the unit ceased.
On March 29, 1860, a communication from Henry W. Whittlesey, secretary of the State Military Board, was presented to the Regents “requesting in behalf of the Uniformed Militia of this State that the study of Military Engineering be introduced into the University” (R.P., 1837-64, p. 899). No further interest seems to have been taken in the subject until April, 1861, when President Tappan set aside a room on the ground floor of the South College as a drill room, secured the services of Assistant Librarian Joseph H. Vance as drillmaster, and advised the students to divide themselves into sections of fifty, each section to drill one hour a day, the seniors first.
Three companies were promptly formed: The Tappan Guards, commanded by Captain Charles K. Adams (‘61, A.M. ‘62, LL.D. Harvard ‘87), who was to become Professor of History at the University and later president of Cornell and Wisconsin; the Chancellor Greys, commanded by Captain Isaac H. Elliott (‘61, A.M. hon. ‘19); and the Ellsworth Zouaves, commanded by Captain Albert Nye (‘62), who died at Murfreesboro in 1862.
In June, 1861, it was resolved that a chair of military engineering be established in the University (R.P., 1837-64, p. 963), but the President was unable to fill the chair. On December 18, 1861, the executive committee was directed “to make temporary arrangements for instruction in Military Engineering and Tactics by employing Professor [De-Volson] Wood in this Department and some individual competent to conduct military drill” (R.P., 1837-64, p. 972).
The University Catalogue for 1861-62, announcing the establishment of a chair of military engineering and tactics, explained that it was difficult to procure a suitable military man because of the great demands which the war made upon military talents, but the hope was expressed that a competent person might be secured to give the course during the second semester. Once having decided to introduce military training, the Regents became enthusiastic about the idea. In September, 1861, the following resolution establishing a military school was passed:
Whereas, It has been discovered since the outbreak of the present Southern Rebellion that in this as well as in most of the other loyal States of the American Union there exists a great scarcity of men possessed of suitable military education to drill and prepare our Volunteer Armies for camp life and the battle field and to lead them in action, whereby great loss of time and money has been incurred by the States and the Nation, and the honor of our arms as well as the safety of our country and its institutions have been seriously jeopardized, and
Whereas, The present means of furnishing a thorough military education whereby men may become masters of the art of war are entirely inadequate to the wants of the Nation and of the several States, and
Whereas, We now have before us a practical demonstration of the fact that it is not safe for any government however excellent or powerful it may be to neglect entirely the military education of its people, and [we] can see clearly that in times of peace it is wise to prepare for war … as a matter of economy to the State and that her troops may be supplied with competent officers and the work of preparing volunteers and raw recruits for efficient service be speedily and cheaply accomplished, the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, under the conviction that this work can be more economically performed for the State in this University where Civil Engineering, the higher Mathematics, the Modern Languages, the Natural Sciences, and most of the other studies incident to and connected with a thorough military education are now taught than anywhere else in the State, do adopt the following resolution:
Resolved, That as soon as the State shall add to the University Fund the sum of $100,000 from which the University shall derive a permanent additional annual income of $7,000 the Board of Regents will establish in the University a Military School in which shall be taught Military Engineering and Tactics, Strategy, and the Art and Science of War.
(R.P., 1837-64, pp. 967-68.)
In 1862 the Regents called attention to the fact that the chair of military science was still vacant and stated their willingness to establish a free military school provided the state would make the necessary financial arrangements for the support of such a school. As a result the budget for the year ending June 30, 1864, set aside the sum of $1,500 for a professor of military engineering if one should be appointed (R.P., 1837-64, p. 1090).
As the Civil War period receded, interest in military instruction waned. No further mention was made of it until 1898, when the question of establishing military instruction was again discussed and disapproved. Company A, University of Michigan Rifles, was organized and was authorized by the Regents to raise the American flag on the campus flagstaff. No further action, however, other than to approve leaves of absence for faculty members who joined the colors, was taken at this time by the Board of Regents.
During World War I there was a revival of interest in military instruction. In November, 1914, petitions from faculty, students, and alumni requesting that military instruction be offered were tabled. In February, 1915, President Hutchins presented other petitions, but the committee to which they were referred for consideration recommended in May, 1915, that the matter be left in abeyance.
A resolution of the University Senate was presented to the Regents in December, 1915, recommending that beginning with the academic year 1916-17, compulsory military training of students for the first two years, under General Order No. 49 of the War Department — essentially the system then in use in the land grant colleges — be established and that a regular army officer be procured to fill the chair of military science and tactics. This resolution, which went into considerable detail, establishing the age of enrollment, duration of the course, exemptions, the use of uniforms, and control, was referred to a committee which in February, 1916, recommended the establishment of a chair of military science and tactics and of voluntary military
Page 1359
training, disapproved the use of uniforms except in summer camps, and placed administrative control under a committee composed of the President of the University, two members of the Board of Regents, and the deans of the colleges and schools. These resolutions were adopted (see Part I: The University in War Service).
The officer training camps, originated by General Leonard Wood, were then becoming nationally accepted. In May, 1916, the Regents approved the recommendation of the faculty of the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture that students completing a five-week course of instruction during the summer of 1916 should be allowed two hours of credit toward graduation and an additional hour if they qualified as expert riflemen.
The Regents, in November, 1916, authorized the Committee on Military Affairs to make an application to the War Department under the amended General Order No. 48, for the detail of an army officer to occupy the chair of military science and tactics, with the provision that the expense to be incurred by the University for such detail should not exceed $1,000 per year (R.P., 1914-17, pp. 606-9).
In January, 1917, the President reported to the Regents that more than one hundred students had signified their intention to enroll for military instruction, and the Regents authorized him to sign a petition permitting the University to participate in the government aid authorized under Section 56, Act of Congress, approved June 3, 1916. Three hours of military instruction a week were approved, completion of the course being a prerequisite for graduation for those who enrolled (R.P., 1914-17, pp. 674-75).
Early in 1916, Kenneth W. Heinrich, formerly of the Naval Militia and at that time a marine engineering student, assisted by Joseph Ralston Hayden, Arthur Edward R. Boak, Orange Malcolme McNeil, and Felix W. Pawlowski of the University faculty, organized a naval reserve unit, anticipating formal authorization by the Navy Department. Although not accepted immediately, this unit drilled and carried on other instruction that spring and the following fall, and with the entrance of the United States into the war it was officially recognized by the Navy Department. Two divisions were organized, the first naval unit to be formed in any college.
In January, 1917, ninety-six men were sworn into the service. These were the Seventh and Eighth Divisions of the Michigan Naval Reserve, which became part of the Michigan Naval Militia. The officers of the Seventh Division (engineering) were Orange Malcolme McNeil, Lieutenant (j.g.); Elmer Adna Harrington, Lieutenant (j.g.); and Kenneth Warren Heinrich, Ensign. The Eighth Division (line and deck) included Joseph Ralston Hayden, Lieutenant; Arthur Edward R. Boak, Lieutenant (j.g.); and Albert H. Jenkins, Ensign. Dr. Harold Stacy Hulburt, Lieutenant (j.g.), was medical officer. In May this unit went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.
In April, 1918, the Regents approved certain naval courses to be conducted by the faculty of the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture. A regiment of six hundred men — the Students’ Naval Training Corps, S.N.T.C. — was enrolled under command of Rear Admiral Robert M. Barry, U.S.N., with Lieutenant A. E. R. Boak (j.g.), Executive Officer, Lieutenant A. H. Porter (j.g.), Surgeon, and Professor Ralph Hamilton Curtiss, of the Department of Astronomy, as Instructor of Navigation.
The interest in the military service was as intense as that shown in the naval service. In 1917, ably led by Joseph A. Bursley and other faculty members, two battalions were formed, and seven courses in military science were offered in the College of Engineering. All the forces of the Medical School were turned immediately to the training of the upperclassmen for medical officers, and the students enlisted almost in a body for government service. In the Law School military companies were formed at once. Companies were also organized in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Under the Act of Congress, approved June 3, 1916, Major Charles W. Castle, U. S. Army, early in 1917 was detailed to the University as Commandant of Cadets, and later in the same year his title was changed to Commandant of Cadets and Professor of Military Science and Tactics. He appointed the following faculty members as officers in the various student drill organizations: Philip G. Bartelme, Brigade Adjutant with the rank of Colonel; Philip E. Bursley, Commandant of the Literary College companies with the rank of Colonel; Colonel Clyde E. Wilson, M.N.G. retired, Commandant of the engineering companies; Professor Paul H. De Kruif, Commandant of the medical companies; and Professor Horace L. Wilgus, Commandant of the law companies. Major Castle was transferred by the War Department, and was succeeded by First Lieutenant George Carleton Mullen, in October, 1917. First Lieutenant Losey J. Williams, retired, was appointed Associate Professor of Military Science and Tactics on December 1, 1917.
In the summer of 1917 courses in military stores were authorized. Shaw, in his account, said:
The University may also claim particular credit for the development of courses in army stores, which were first instituted by Professor, later Lieutenant-Colonel, Joseph A. Bursley, 99e. This course, which aimed to fit men for the ordnance and quartermasters departments, grew through six successive increments every six weeks, to about 250 men, and proved so practical and effective that similar courses were installed in other universities. In the same manner similar short courses were established in the Engineering College for the training of mechanics, particularly in the maintenance and repair of gas engines. The first course of eight weeks began on April 15 [1917], and prepared 195 men for this important branch of the service. A detachment of 700 men followed which included 500 automobile repair men, 100 general mechanics, 60 gunsmiths, and 40 carpenters.
(Shaw, pp. 309-10).
Herbert Nicolaus Schmitt (‘16, A.M. ‘18), of the Department of Economics, was appointed Instructor in the course in Army stores. Bursley was commissioned as Major in the Army and was made supervisor of instruction in the Ordnance Department at Washington, D.C. He was later promoted to Colonel.
The R.O.T.C. — Under the provisions of Section IV, War Department Bulletin No. 51, in the fall of 1917 an infantry unit, senior division, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, was established at the University. The Regents in October, 1917, authorized two hours’ credit toward graduation for all engineering and architecture students who enrolled for military science and excused those who elected military science from compulsory gymnasium work. The University had an enrollment of eighteen hundred, the largest in the United States.
Dean Mortimer E. Cooley, of the Engineering College, was appointed Regional Director for the War Department Committee on the S.A.T.C. In this capacity he organized and supervised the training of all Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin students enrolled in this corps.
The Board of Regents in May, 1918, authorized the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture to “receive and register the members of Training Detachments … and to perform all other duties … required by the War Department” (R.P., 1917-20, p. 222). These detachments were made up of enlisted men who were to be trained for a period of sixty days in mechanical arts. Professor Henry H. Higbie submitted a plan for training two hundred enlisted men (see Part I: The University in War Service). Instruction was given for machinists, gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and carpenters. Gas engines were also studied. Higbie was placed in charge of this work, and five assistants were employed to help him. In June, 1918, the Regents agreed that the University would undertake the technical training of three hundred Signal Corps men.
So successful were the results of this instruction that in July, 1918, at the request of the War Department, the number of trainees was increased to seven hundred. Higbie had thirty-eight assistants, the three principal ones being Benjamin F. Bailey, William L. Miggett, and Walter E. Lay. In August, 1918, a new contract was signed with the government providing training for twelve hundred army mechanics.
In 1918-19, in order to correct certain defects of the old R.O.T.C., the Students’ Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.), which was intended to be a distinct organization having no relation to the training detachment for army mechanics, was organized to supersede the R.O.T.C.
Lieutenants Mullen and Williams were relieved from duty at the University to have charge of this work, and in September, 1918, Captain, later Major, Ralph H. Durkee, was assigned by the War Department as military commanding officer, with a staff of five lieutenants and one medical officer to assist him. In October, 1918, the Regents directed President Hutchins to sign a contract with the government providing for the training of 3,000 S.A.T.C. students. More than 2,700 students enrolled for training that fall. After the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the Regents, on November 21, voted to discontinue the Students’ Army Training Corps.
In April, 1919, President Hutchins was authorized by the Board to take the necessary steps in order to secure the re-establishment in the University of units of the Signal Corps, Coast Artillery Corps, and Field Artillery (R.O.T.C.), and in August, 1919, Lieutenant Colonel John Porter Lucas (United States Military Academy ‘11) was appointed officer in charge of the R.O.T.C. with the rank of Professor of Military Science and Tactics. At this time the Regents directed the President to request the establishment of ordnance and engineer units of the R.O.T.C. At the same meeting the sum of $750 was set aside for salaries in the Department of Military Science and Tactics, and the sum of $250 for current expenses for the year 1919-20.
In September, 1919, the Regents approved the recommendation of a committee of the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture that twelve hours’ credit in military science be accepted toward graduation. In December, 1919, a similar recommendation from the faculty of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts was approved by the Regents.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Arthur was appointed Professor of Military Science and Tactics in November, 1919, and as he was senior to Lieutenant Colonel Lucas, the Regents designated Colonel Arthur as Commandant in the department.
Under the provisions of Section II, War Department Bulletin No. 43, in December, 1919, the Infantry R.O.T.C. unit at the University was discontinued, and, under the provisions of Section IV of the same bulletin, the Coast Artillery and Signal Corps units were established. In February, 1921, the Regents approved the establishment of Infantry (Sec. VIII, Bull. 17, War Department, 1921) and Ordnance R.O.T.C. units (par. 3, Sec. II, Bull. 14, 1921).
The Board of Regents in June, 1922, approved the establishment of an R.O.T.C. unit of the Air Service, but this was not done because the War Department appropriation bill for 1923 prohibited the expenditure of funds for new R.O.T.C. units of the Air Service (R.P., 1920-23, p. 607).
The Coast Artillery unit was discontinued in 1928 (Sec. I, War Dept. Bull. No. 43). In 1935, under authorization of the War Department, a military engineering unit of the R.O.T.C. was established at the University. A medical unit was established in October, 1936, without additional expense to the University, under conditions laid down by the War Department.
The period 1937-52. — The Corps grew steadily from 180 men in 1920 to a maximum enrollment of 1,256 in 1942-43, but by the end of that year the enrollment was only 440. This decrease was caused by loss of students to army service.
At the beginning of the second term all Advanced Course R.O.T.C. students were members of the Enlisted Reserve Corps. As soon as the Army Specialized Training Program went into effect at the University these men were ordered to active duty and placed in barracks on the campus. All cadets were sent to a reception center for complete processing. They returned to the University in March, and each man continued the course of study which he had pursued before activation. At the end of the year the Advanced Course was discontinued by the War Department. The juniors were sent to replacement training centers to take training in lieu of the senior year at the University and the seniors were sent to officer candidate schools.
With the inactivation of the Advanced Course, and owing to the fact that most students would be called for Army service prior to the completion of R.O.T.C., the War Department prescribed that all instruction should be comparable to that received in Army basic training. Therefore, two additional terms were added to the basic course so that students who were permitted to remain in school were given an opportunity to take advanced work. These additional courses, although not considered advanced R.O.T.C. work, were intended for those who wanted to increase their knowledge of Army work.
Twenty-seven students, all in Army basic training, were enrolled at the end of the 1943-44 school year in the branch immaterial course. The maximum enrollment for this period was 218. A quartermaster unit was established in 1942.
In December, 1943, twenty-nine former first-year advanced students were returned to the University from replacement training centers to continue their studies and to await call to their respective officer candidate schools.
Assigned Army personnel served only part time in connection with the R.O.T.C. during World War II. The remainder of their time was spent in the Army Specialized Training Program.
During the years of World War II the University and the Army co-operated in establishing the following schools and programs: Army Specialized Training Program, Army Specialized Training Reserve Program, Army Intensive Japanese Language School, Civil Affairs Training School, Post Hostilities Training School, Judge Advocate General’s School, and the Judge Advocate General’s Candidate School.
In 1945 the following advanced course units were reactivated: Infantry, Signal Corps, Ordnance Department, Quartermaster Corps, and Corps of Engineers. This was termed an Interim Program and was to remain in effect until superseded by a permanent postwar R.O.T.C. All new students entering R.O.T.C. were enrolled in the new program, which was initiated at the beginning of the 1946-47 school year. The Interim Program begun in 1945-46 continued in effect for those students originally enrolled.
In addition to the former units, which included Infantry, Signal Corps, Ordnance Department, Quartermaster Corps, and Corps of Engineers, four additional units were activated: Corps of Military Police, Transportation Corps, Medical Corps, and Air Force. Of the latter group only the Medical Corps had been a part of the University R.O.T.C. before World War II.
The basic policy of the present R.O.T.C. program has raised the senior R.O.T.C. to college level and limited advanced courses to those who were graduates of degree-granting institutions, thereby commissioning only those students who already had had four years of college. Pay and allowances were increased for advanced course students. Branch type instruction was retained in order to provide qualified branch type officers. Commissioning in professional branches was retained, and credit for junior R.O.T.C. and service in the armed forces during World War II was allowed.
The maximum enrollment for the 1946-47 school year was 131. The preceding year it had been forty-five. The number of students in the R.O.T.C. immediately following World War II was low, resulting in part from the so-called “veteran attitude.” A large proportion of the students were veterans, many of whom were former officers who were thus excluded from R.O.T.C. training. Those who were eligible appeared to have had all the military training they desired. Reports indicated this to be true at almost all colleges in which R.O.T.C. was on a voluntary basis.
In addition to Scabbard and Blade, national honorary society, and Pi Tau Sigma, national Signal Corps fraternity, Company A, Pershing Rifles, a national honor society, was activated in March, 1948. Membership in this society is selective from the basic R.O.T.C. students. The Pershing Rifle Company, now D-3, held its first invitational drill and rifle meet in May, 1951. Cadets representing eleven colleges and universities participated.
Because the maximum enrollment for 1947-48 was again disappointingly low, the Corps of Engineers, the Transportation Corps, and the Corps of Military Police units were discontinued in August, 1948. A Dental Corps Unit, however, enrolled students for the first time in the fall of that year.
With the graduation at the end of the first semester of 1947-48 of the last group of students enrolled in the Interim Program, a difficult problem in scheduling was eliminated and the level of instruction was raised materially. Lesson plans were revised and improved in each service unit. As a result, at the time of the annual inspection the University received a superior grade for its educational and training R.O.T.C. program.
Supply rooms were maintained in the old Boiler House on the campus, and a security room for weapons and other equipment was provided in the basement of the Boiler House. The Air Force had a supply room in the Temporary Classroom Building, and the Signal Corps had one in the West Engineering Annex. Although the enrollment was low in 1947-48, there was a marked improvement in the general effectiveness of the program.
A comprehensive survey of the R.O.T.C. was begun by the University in the spring of 1948, with a view to increasing the enrollment, arousing interest in the R.O.T.C. on the part of both students and faculty, and improving the facilities provided. With the passage of Public Law 759, the Selective Service Act of 1948 provided for military deferments, under certain conditions, of R.O.T.C. students. In 1948-49 more than seven hundred students were enrolled in Infantry, Ordnance, Quartermaster, Signal Corps, Medical, Dental, and Air Force branches.
In July, 1949, the Air Force was separated from the Army R.O.T.C. and became the Air Force R.O.T.C. The two units continued to operate under the chairmanship of the Department of Military Science and Tactics. The senior Air Force officer was raised to the rank of professor. Both units moved to North Hall, which also housed the Naval R.O.T.C., in July of that year. Enrollment for 1949-50 (less Air Force R.O.T.C.) totaled 576 cadets.
Five hundred and sixty-five cadets were enrolled in 1949-50. At this time the Signal Corps took over the space previously occupied by the Air Force in the Temporary Classroom Building. The old Signal Corps supply room on the second floor of North Hall was converted into a cadet library and meeting room, and a training aids construction room was prepared on the third floor.
In 1951 four students taking business administration, law, and accounting courses were sent to the Finance Corps Summer Camp rather than to the camp of their assigned branch. In this way, upon graduation these students were commissioned in the Finance Corps. No such R.O.T.C. branches were contemplated, but the University of Michigan was one of the twenty-five institutions selected to furnish officers under this plan.
In September, 1950, the effect of the war in Korea began to make itself felt on the campus. The fact that R.O.T.C. students were draft deferred increased interest in the program. No student was accepted in any unit, however, who could not complete his full R.O.T.C. course before graduation. This was in accord with the aim of the R.O.T.C. to furnish junior reserve officers for the national defense. Interest in the program had increased sharply by midyear, but many students were unable to enroll because they lacked the necessary number of hours. Increased enrollment in the Air Force (veterans in curtailed courses) caused classroom facilities at North Hall to become badly strained. The rifle range with its ten firing points was inadequate. Air Force R.O.T.C. announced that in addition to Communications it would teach the following courses: General Tech, Flight Operations, and Administration and Logistics. In order to accommodate these classes the R.O.T.C. moved to the Temporary Classroom Building, which had been prepared for occupancy during the summer. Separate classrooms, training aids rooms, and offices were provided for each branch. A lecture room containing seventy-two seats was arranged for common courses, and a map room seating sixty students and containing permanently affixed training aids and fluorescent lighting was provided. These rooms, the cadet library, meeting room, and a Signal Corps laboratory, comprised the new facilities. The photograph laboratory was retained in North Hall. The firing positions in the rifle range were rearranged, and the number of firing points was increased to twenty. New lighting, bullet traps, and retractable targets were installed.
Over-all enrollment in the R.O.T.C. units increased from about eight hundred to approximately twelve hundred in
TABLE I
Enrollment R.O.T.C.*
Established19191919192119211935193619421948Total
Cac*SigOrdInfEngr*MedQMCDent
Year
19212006252111............425
1925925655109............312
1929...14175198............414
1933...115102392............609
1937...9210841812768......813
1941...8698539264120......1,107
1945Branch Immaterial45
1949...61108133...6211795576
1951...74100141...3311955522
1951.
Of the seven hundred freshmen enrolled, more than one hundred joined the Naval R.O.T.C. and of the remainder, about one-third joined the Army and two-thirds the Air Force R.O.T.C. units. This division was so ordered by the Department of Defense, but a substantial change in these percentages of entering freshmen is planned for future classes.
In the fall of 1951 Army R.O.T.C. enrollment totaled 522 cadets. The decrease was in the medical and dental branches. The enrollment in other branches increased slightly, and a 50 per cent increase in the number of freshmen took place in spite of the unfavorable division of the Army and Air Force units.
During the fall the rifle team was equipped with shooting jackets, gloves, and fine Remington Rangemaster target rifles. It became an active chapter of the National Rifle Association, College Division, and participated in national intercollegiate and postintercollegiate matches. Shoulder-to-shoulder matches were fired in competition with nearby institutions, and an annual club championship match was arranged. The Army, Navy, and Air Force R.O.T.C. teams held annual matches sponsored by the Lions Club of Ann Arbor. In co-operation with the University of Michigan Rifle Club, the National Rifle Association Intercollegiate Rifle Tournament was sponsored in March, 1952.
The number of cadets authorized to attend the 1952 Finance Corps Summer Camp was increased from four to eight.
The Regents voted that, effective July 1, 1951, the Department of Air Science and Tactics be established and that hereafter there would be a Department of Air Science and Tactics, a Department of Military Science and Tactics, and a Department of Naval Science (R.P., 1951, p. 1298).
In addition to those already mentioned, commissioned personnel who have served with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University include: Major William Thomas Carpenter, Coast Artillery Corps (B.M.E. Kentucky ‘98, M.E. ibid. ‘18), who in 1923 succeeded Major Arthur as Professor of Military Science and Tactics and head of the department. In 1925 the War Department relieved Major Carpenter of his duties here, and Major Reinold Melberg (U. S. Military Academy ‘15) of the Coast Artillery Corps, became Commandant of the R.O.T.C. and Professor of Military Science and Tactics. He was succeeded in 1929 by Major Basil Duke Edwards (U. S. Military Academy ‘12, LL.B. Harvard ‘17) of the Infantry, and he in turn by Major Fredrick Clifford Rogers, who was appointed Professor of Military Science and Tactics in 1933. In 1937 Edwards, who had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, returned to the University as Professor of Military Science and Tactics and head of the department in place of Lieutenant Colonel Rogers, who in the summer completed a four-year assignment to the position.
Edwards was on leave because of illness during the year 1940-41, and Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion Brannan (U. S. Military Academy ‘14), Infantry, was appointed to serve in his place. He was succeeded by Colonel William Addleman Ganoe (Dickinson ‘02, A.M. ibid. ‘13, Ph.D. hon. ibid. ‘52, U. S. Military Academy ‘07) in 1941. When Colonel Ganoe was transferred in April, 1943, it was resolved by the Regents:
Whereas, Colonel Ganoe served the University and the people of the state very effectively and loyally by his successful efforts to arouse the attention of the community to the seriousness of the national situation … be it
Resolved, That the Regents of the University of Michigan hereby express to Colonel Ganoe their sincere appreciation of the loyal and effective aid given the University by his tireless work in its behalf.
(R.P., 1942-45, pp. 269-70.)
Colonel Rogers returned to the University and was reappointed Professor of Military Science and Tactics and chairman of the department in May, 1943. His period of service (1933-37) was undoubtedly one of great importance to the University in the years preceding World War II. Colonel Rogers was keenly interested in the R.O.T.C., and his affability, kindness, and understanding endeared him to everyone. Because of his understanding of students and his interest in University problems it was fitting that he should return in 1943 to take charge of all programs established by the Department of the Army. He retired in September, 1944, after thirty-five years of military service.
Colonel Edward Hamilton Young (U. S. Military Academy ‘18, J.D. New York University ‘38, LL.D. Miami ‘43), J.A.G.D., was appointed to the position, but was transferred in the same year, and Colonel Reginald Conklin Miller (Nebraska ‘32, LL.B. ibid. ‘33), J.A.G.D., succeeded him. He in turn was succeeded in 1946 by Colonel John Beecher Evans (New Hampshire ‘29, M.F. Yale ‘47), Infantry; in 1946 he was replaced by Colonel Karl Eugene Henion, Infantry, who became Professor of Military Science and Tactics and chairman of the department. He was followed by Colonel Charles Dudley Wiegand (U. S. Military Academy ‘29) in 1950, and he in turn by Colonel Virgil Rasmuss Miller (U. S. Military Academy ‘24) in 1952.
In his report for 1946-47 Colonel Henion stated:
Special mention may be made of the retirement of Master Sergeant Dewey G. Bonnewell. Sergeant Bonnewell retired from the Army after twenty-six and one-half years’ service, twenty-one years of which he served with the R.O.T.C. at the University of Michigan. His long and faithful service contributed greatly to the success of the R.O.T.C. at this University.
(R.P., 1946-47, p. 377.)
Fredrick C. Rogers
Marjorie F. Kinney
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hayden, Joseph R., , and Robey M. Burley. A History of the University Divisions, Michigan Naval Militia. Ann Arbor: Privately printed, 1921.
Hinsdale, Burke A.History of the University of Michigan. Ed. By Isaac N. Demmon. Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich., 1906.
Michiganensian, 23 (1919): 36, 39-244.
“Michigan in the War.”Mich. Alum., 5 (1898): 79-93.
“Michigan Prepares for War.”Mich. Alum., 23 (1917): 446-49.
“Michigan’s Record in the Great War.”Mich. Alum., 27 (1921): 551-52.
“Military Training in the University.”Mich. Alum., 22 (1915): 147-48.
“The University During War Times.”Mich. Alum., 2 (1895): 3-4.
Shaw, Wilfred B.The University of Michigan. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.
The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedic Survey ... Wilfred B. Shaw, editor, Volume III, Part VII, pp. 1357-1366.
