August 1945

On 10 and 11 August 1945, the Navy Department NROTC team, headed by Captain A.S. Adams, visited the campus and conducted a series of meetings with President Fred, deans, faculty, and Regents. Captain Adams explained the history, development, and philosophy of NROTC, Navy plans for phasing out V-12 and phasing in NROTC at the University over the 45-46 academic year, and reviewed the Navy's curricular desires for the post-war program. He advised that Wisconsin’s NROTC Unit would be commissioned on 1 November and that V-12 engineering students already on the campus, as well as V-12 and NROTC students assigned through 1 March 1946, would remain on the three-term V-12 calendar (1 July, 1 November, and 1 March starting dates). He anticipated return to the regular academic calendar by 1 July 1946. However, civilian students would not enroll in the program until authorized by Congress. Looking ahead to the post-war NROTC program, Adams described the proposed 36-semester hour Naval Science curriculum, general academic requirements for NROTC students, accreditation desires, and degree proposals.

After the conclusion of the campus meetings, events moved forward rapidly. On 18 August, the Bureau of Naval Personnel began formal procedures to establish the "Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps Unit, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin” on 1 November 1945. On the same day, E.B. Fred advised Captain Adams that the University was already moving ahead on two important issues; a special committee (Deans Ingraham, Elwell and Johnson and Mr. J.K. Little) was exploring the academic rank issue, and a sub-committee of the Campus Planning Commission was studying the location and construction of the Naval Science building. Two days later, the Navy advised President Fred that Captain Jack E. Hurff would report for duty as Professor of Naval Science and Tactics about 1 October. Hurff, a 1920 graduate of the Naval Academy and at one time an NROTC staff member at the University of California, had just completed extensive combat area duty, including command of the heavy cruiser USS NEW ORLEANS (CA 32).

Capital Times Editorial August 1945

Not everyone in Madison was pleased with the assignment of an NROTC Unit to the University.  With the war over, the traditionally anti-military leanings of William T. Evjue's Capital Times asserted themselves in a classic editorial, published on 14 August, entitled, "Militarism Walks In On The University Campus.”  The editorial neatly summarized not only details about the assignment of the NROTC Unit, but it also displayed the spirits of Progressivism and anti-military thought which have been traditional and recurrent themes on the campus:

“The announcement Saturday that the U.S. navy will establish a permanent military institution and curriculum on the campus of the University of Wisconsin raises the very pertinent question of where the military crowd will stop in its efforts to retain their wartime privileges and their present positions of power.

“The navy plans for the university were announced following a meeting of the Board of Regents on Saturday. A flock of gold braided navy officials from Washington, flanked by a retinue of members of the snooty and swank Navy League of Wisconsin, descended on Madison for the day to put the plan across. It was a gala day for the crowd that always basks in the aura and glamor of naval mi1itarism.

“According to the announcement, a four-year course in naval science will be established as a permanent part of the university curriculum. Special dormitory facilities will be provided for the enrollees and a new naval science building, the cost of which is expected to reach a quarter of a million dollars, is to be constructed before the summer of next year.  The building is to provide space for an ordnance laboratory, space for large guns and equipment and offices and classrooms.

“Other agreements reached by our big business board of university regents and the gold braid brigade from the navy department are said to include a proposal that naval personnel will do the teaching in the new school and will offer a course of brass hat politics.  This indoctrination will be called `Foundations of National Power.’

“Thus, with the active collaboration of the corporation executives now guiding the destiny of our great educational institution the militarists have invaded the campus of a university that once towered above all as a custodian of the nation's anti-militarist heritage. The university is to play a part in the plot to perpetuate the power and privilege of the militarists who are also attempting to impose compulsory military conscription on the nation for the same selfish purpose, -- power and control. 

“The people of Wisconsin should examine closely this attempt to make the university an outpost of seaboard militarism. This program will not stop with one building and one course in the art of warfare. The army, intensely jealous of naval expansion will have its demand to make. If the militarists are allowed to put this over we can look forward to the day when our university will be a vast military academy, such as Hitler made of the universities in Germany.

“The proposal already contains indications of this trend. Preference in the use of dormitory facilities is to be accorded to the enrollees in the naval school. For regular students the usual housing facilities, some of which are firetraps and a menace to health, are apparently good enough.  The young men from Wisconsin's farm areas attending the short course in agriculture will presumably go on sleeping in the wretched sheep barns until, in good time, the state finds more humane quarters for them. Militarism will get the green light and the priorities on the campus.

“Notice too that there is to be no hesitation about spending a quarter of a million dollars for the construction of the new building to be dedicated to the navy. The building is to be erected by next summer.  This priority is in direct contrast to the endless, discouraging struggle for facilities to carry on the `winnowing and sifting’ in those fields of research and study which contribute to the peace and betterment of mankind.

“Somehow we seem never able to find the money for the latter purpose. The current legislature, without rhyme or reason, slashed Gov. Goodland's building program to pieces on the grounds that the state could not afford it. It will be interesting to see what the legislature's reaction will be when this request for a quarter of million is dumped in their laps as it is reported it will be when they get back in September.

“The people of the state should know too of the part being played in this militaristic scheme by the civilian big business people of the Navy League, an organization founded to enlist civilian support in the propaganda drive for a large and expensive navy. These men, who like to hob-nob with the gold-braid set and who delight in the snooty atmosphere for which naval functions have become widely known, are trotting around on the fringes of this arrangement, doing the social lionizing necessary to popularize it among the ‘right people.’ They are quite content that the university become a military establishment.

“The Capital Times sees in this effort to establish a naval school on the university campus another manifestation of the gigantic scheme to fasten on this nation a militaristic pattern which will entrench and aggrandize the elements in our society which have always distrusted democracy. We already have compulsory military drill at the university, a powerful drive to impose universal conscription is underway, the army has served notice that it intends to keep its present strength long after the war is over, and science has presented the militarists with the most fearful instrument of destruction and conquest ever conceived by the mind of man.

“Where and when will this insane drive end?  Why not turn the university over to the military and chamber of commerce crowd.”

September 1945

However, negative voices seemed scarcely audible in those days of recent military triumph. Navy and university plans for the new NROTC Unit were essentially complete by the end of September. Commencing 1 November, Navy students on the campus would include remaining V-12 engineers and medical students plus arriving contingents of 189 V-12 students and 115 V-5 students from programs discontinued elsewhere. V-12 students within two or fewer semesters of graduation would continue their regular courses, receiving their commissions at the time of graduation. Those with five or fewer semesters completed would enroll in NROTC to continue V-12 training with added naval training. The Blackhawk building, designated the interim naval armory, was beginning to receive its allotment of training equipment.

November 1945

On 1 November, the University of Wisconsin NROTC Unit and Department of Naval Science came into existence with an enrollment of 565 and Captain Jack E. Hurff, USN, serving as the first Commanding Officer.

December 1945

Problems during the initial NROTC year were minimal. In December of 1945, Captain Hurff complained about the V-5 students assigned on 1 November, “This lot has not done well in contrast with the V-12s who hold a good local scholastic reputation. The V-5s are quite good in drill, conduct, and in campus activities, but from a scholarship standpoint, a high percentage are not university material.” President Fred worried that his response to a query from Congressman W. Sterling Cole might jeopardize Congressional approval of the Holloway plan for the NROTC program. Fred quickly clarified his position with the Navy, but the issue was never seriously in doubt. The enabling legislation became law in August and established the essential structure of the modern NROTC.