Early 1942 Plans for a Radio School

In January 1942, Ninth Naval District Headquarters notified Dykstra that it had forwarded Morgan's inspection report to the Bureau of Navigation to recommend that the Navy establish a “Radio Material School” for 500 men, increasing by 1000 on 1 June 1942. Dykstra at once wrote an enthusiastic reply requesting specifics on instructional force requirements. No shrinking violet, Dykstra added, “...it might be possible for us to increase to 1000 on June 1 by a considerable number if that would seem desirable. We would simply require students to find accommodations off the campus.” Anxious for a favorable reply, Dykstra wired Navy Secretary Frank Knox requesting his support and noting the roles the university was already playing in the Civilian Pilot Training program and in cooperating with the Navy's V-7 enlistment program. He added, “We are anxious to be of service and will be happy to be designated for the Radio School. Will you help us to help you?” In late 1941, Dykstra had agreed to serve in Washington part-time as director of the draft administration. He had studied political science and had practical political experience as city manager of Cincinnati. Thus, he knew how and actively sought to pull the levers of political influence to acquire the radio school (he was equally willing to take similar actions for V-12 and NROTC).

On 20 February 1942, the Commandant of the Ninth Naval District, Rear Admiral John Downes, informed Dykstra that he had his school. It was a “Naval Training School (radio)” for training radio operators, with a maximum capacity of 1200 men to arrive in increments of 300 per month for the sixteen-week course. The university was to furnish dormitory facilities and messing for students and Navy active-duty staff, plus utilities, maintenance, care of grounds, and laundry.  The Navy would provide beds, mattresses, lockers, linen, blankets, towels, mess trays, cups, bowls, glasses, and silverware. The university also provided classrooms, instructors, and equipment to provide instruction similar to that already in effect at a Navy radio school in Indianapolis.  Finally, the Navy would contract with the State of Wisconsin General Hospital for infirmary and hospital care while supplying naval medical and dental officers and personnel. Contracts would cover all aspects of the agreement. The first group of students was scheduled to arrive on 1 April.

A Navy Push for Technical Training of Officers

In January of 1942, at a Baltimore conference, the Navy called upon the colleges and universities of the country to stress technical training for students about to enter the service and to realize their responsibilities for advising students about their options of volunteering for enlistment, continuing their education under V-7 or V-5 (aviation training), or seeking degrees in engineering. The Navy also recommended curricular acceleration. As matters progressed, colleges and universities became part of the system for providing officers to the armed forces.

Within a month of the announced revision to V-7, the Navy created another class of enlisted men (V-1) who would remain in inactive status while enrolled in college. V-1 was open to men 17 to 19 years of age willing to attend college at their own expense until the completion of two academic years. They could study any academic curricula acceptable to the Navy and were to stress physical training, mathematics, and the physical sciences. The Navy hoped to procure about 80,000 men in V-1.  Near the end of the third semester, V-1 students would take a qualifying examination, and, upon completion of their fourth semester, approximately 20,000 would transfer to flight training (V-5), and 15,000 would transfer to V-7 (5,000 of these to be engineering students) to continue their education. The remainder, over half, would commence active duty as apprentice seamen. Somewhat obviously, V-1 never generated any great appeal to college men. Less than half of the desired 80,000 enlisted, and the program failed to become popular despite several liberalizing changes.

Madison Becomes a Navy Town Spring 1942

February and March were hectic months. The Regents blessed the project and provided the funds needed for preparations. The university pressed the work in the stadium to completion, conditioned the agriculture Short Course halls for temporary Navy housing use in April and May, made needed changes in kitchens and dish rooms, and prepared and signed contracts. Classroom and academic staff preparation continued apace. The university projected an initial instructional staff of about ten, expanding with successive increments of students to approximately 30, teaching code, typing, mathematics, radio and electronic theory, radio laboratory technique and spelling. Plans included the eventual use of the Adams and Tripp dormitories as well as the space being prepared in the stadium.

On 1 April, the Fleet steamed into Madison - by train. Three hundred sailors, mostly apprentice seamen and seamen second class, descended upon the campus and the university went on "active naval service.” It was quite an event, and the excitement spread over the next few days. The Wisconsin State Journal greeted the sailors, “We’re glad you’re aboard, gentlemen.” The young men also endured in good spirits official welcomes from Dean George C. Sellery and Mayor James R. Law. The new Officer-in-Charge, Lieutenant Schubert, cautioned them, “Don’t disgrace your uniform.”  Professor Miller introduced the educational staff and the sailors politely applauded, but they reserved the biggest outburst for the truly most important person, the Navy paymaster. Next came Good Friday services and class assignments.

The Saturday morning schedule included military classes and open-air military reviews. Saturday afternoons were dedicated to sports and recreation. Sundays included church, study, and liberty. The intensity of the training schedule reflected the urgency of America’s commitment to the war.

These early days were heady, at times confusing, and even tense. The university had to master Navy language (mess, galley, deck, head, watch, etc.). Residence hall director Halverson had to carefully document, for a Navy staff officer, Lieutenant Boudry, the policies, procedures, and personnel supervision exercised by the university in procuring and preparing meals for the sailors. Nevertheless, given the chaos of starting a program quite unlike anything ever done before on the Madison campus, things probably went better than could be expected. The experience was equally new for the Navy because the Wisconsin Radio School was the first one located on a college campus. In May the new school received its initial Navy inspection by Lieutenant Robert W. Percy of the Bureau of Navigation. Percy was impressed with all aspects of the school, and he expressed confidence in the abilities of its prospective graduates.

Scarcely was the new school into its post-commissioning “shake-down” when President Dykstra received a confidential letter from Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Jacobs disclosed the Navy's proposed legislation which would authorize enrollment of women in the Naval Reserve for specialist duties which would relieve men for service in the fleet, and he wanted to know what capacity the university might have for the assignment of women trainees. Dykstra’s reply was typically enthusiastic and indicated a capacity for 600 women on 1 June, and there was the possibility that “after we have had experience with these and know a little bit more about the load we will have to carry during the next academic year we can take more.... Perhaps I may be pardoned for making the suggestion, then, that the Navy give consideration to the setting up of a radio and communications unit for women upon the theory that there will be no unnecessary duplication of facilities by such a process.” Dykstra would later regret this action because he was unwittingly digging the university deeper into a situation at variance with its interests. However, early war euphoria still influenced events.

V-1 Program Begins

In early 1942 the Navy announced V-1, and the University of Wisconsin eagerly sought to be accredited for the program. In March, by letter, the Navy formally approved, under V-1 guidelines, the curriculum outline submitted by the university, thereby permitting participation in the program. That letter additionally requested active recruiting support.

On 10 April Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox telegraphed a message of congratulations and solicited recruiting assistance. These messages not only raised President Dykstra’s spirits, but also led him to believe that the university’s status as a land grant school, with compulsory ROTC enrollment for freshman and sophomore men, was not an impediment, and he immediately launched an active recruitment campaign to encourage eligible prospective students to enroll in V-1 and the university.  However, the land grant issue soon became a matter of real concern.

May 1942 V-1 Off to a Rocky Start

On 6 May, Dykstra received a letter stating that the Navy could not promote naval enlistments in land grant colleges. He immediately wrote to the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, insisting that the Regents had full authority to exempt freshman and sophomore students from compulsory ROTC enrollment. Thus the Navy should not feel any impediment to V-1 accreditation. He asked, "May we have a directive sent...indicating that the University has been accepted, both by your office and by the Secretary of the Navy? ...Because of the acceptance which we had from your office, we have notified the high schools throughout the State of this program, and many students on the campus are waiting for an opportunity to enroll.”

Although it took some time for its bureaucracy to react to this plea, the Navy finally resolved the matter in the university's favor by late June, and the crisis passed. V-1 failed to attract widespread popularity, and, on the Madison campus, the Radio School was already showing signs of failing to live up to Dykstra’s expectations. Thus, at the end of 1942, the announcement of the proposed Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and the Navy College Program (V-12) immediately caught his attention. He informed the faculty about the structure and potential of both programs. 

Early Crisis in the Radio School Program

Signs of potential trouble first appeared in May when the Ninth Naval District Training Director advised commanders of naval training schools that a review of synopses of courses being offered indicated several cases of significant deviation from “previously established curricula.” He cautioned them to “ascertain that the courses of study established conform, insofar as is practicable, with the approved courses....” Several days later, radio school instructional director Miller warned Dykstra of a staff “crisis” caused by a deficiency in the number of sea-experienced chief radiomen assigned by the Navy to the school. The need was great because “only chiefs who have had some sea experience can meet our needs, as only they would know what would be required to fit the men for sea duty.” Although no one was prepared to say it bluntly at that point, the signs were clear that schools such as the one at Madison needed considerably more Navy supervision and control.

Dykstra wrote to the Ninth Naval District Commandant to get the chief petty officers needed to be assigned. By June, no chiefs had arrived, so Miller again wrote to Dykstra about the problem, now asking him to write directly to the Bureau of Navigation and request assignment, not of the two or three previously desired, but of one chief or first-class petty officer for every 100 students, for a sizeable increase in ship’s company, and even for a recreation officer!

School-community relations also suffered. In mid-June, the Regents agreed to declare campus areas occupied by the naval trainees as naval reservations, excluding the public from them (Camp Randall Stadium, Adams and Tripp dormitories, and the intramural fields from the dormitories to the Stock Pavilion). “Keep Off—Naval Reservation” signs appeared, and officer-in-charge Schubert solemnly stated, “People must realize that we are at war and that this is a naval camp in which we are training men for active war duty.” In reality, however, the action taken was for less profound purposes. It was a reaction “to a series of insidious rumors which have circulated the city recently involving the morals of sailors attending the U.S. Naval Training school...and Madison high school girls.” Although a volunteer investigating committee declared the charges to be unfounded, posting of the areas was done “to help us carry out our work and to cooperate with city officials in adjusting the program to community relations.” This was at least one radio school crisis that went away.

Radio School Graduates its First Class

Despite these problems, the school managed to move forward, and on Sunday, 26 July 1942, 248 sailors graduated from an outdoor ceremony in the stadium. Sixty of them were honor graduates and won their “crows,” rated radiomen third-class. President Dykstra saluted the graduates with a ponderous “Wisconsin bids you farewell and God speed. From this moment on you are a part of the Wisconsin tradition of hope, of fair play and of elementary justice.” A slightly less Olympian message, and one somewhat more to the point in the eyes of the service men, was sponsored by a number of Madison businesses and appeared in the campus newspaper: "GOOD LUCK, SAILORS AND CONGRATULATIONS FROM ALL OF MADISON! Give HITLER, HIROHITO and MUSSOLINI HELL for us...."

Now the school was at full strength. Based on positive comments from the Navy concerning the probable assignment of Naval Reserve women to the university, the Regents authorized the president, comptroller, and the executive committee the power to act to use Chadbourne and Barnard Halls as living accommodations for 450 to 500 “girls.” In early August, the Navy formally advised the university of its selection as “a training School for enlisted radio operators of the Women’s Reserve, United States Naval Reserve.” Instruction was to commence on 1 November 1942 for 470 women. The assignment of the WAVES increased the need to centralize code instruction and focused even more attention on the Blackhawk Garage. J.L. Miller was already feeling considerable anxiety over the building by that time because he was attempting to negotiate modus vivendi with the Athletic Department to retain until mid-September at least some Fieldhouse space for code instruction— despite the needs of fall registration and the basketball team. In the meanwhile, the second graduating class from the radio school paraded through Camp Randall on 23 August. Of the 258 graduates, 64 were honor men and were rated. The Radio School was finding an operating rhythm. However, the arrival of the WAVES was to rekindle the dynamics of change.

August 1942 The University Acquires the Blackhawk Garage

In August the university purchased the Blackhawk Garage which it would remodel for use as a central location for code classes (which temporarily were meeting in the Fieldhouse).