Northwestern was one of many U.S. campuses with an established Naval Reserve Officers Training Program. In the summer of 1943, the first 1,000 war service candidates arrived at Northwestern. Courtesy of University Archives.
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Military Training and Service During World War II
Thousands of Northwestern faculty, staff, and students left the University for military service in World War II. Thousands of other men and women came to Northwestern to take part in massive military training programs on both campuses.
The number of male students dropped during the war years, while female student enrollment increased significantly. Enrollment in the 1939-40 academic year was 19,691, and by 1943-44 student enrollment had fallen to 13,470.
The drop in enrollment was barely noticeable to outsiders. However, military training programs on both campuses brought almost 50,000 men and women here during the war years. Men and women in uniform were a common sight on both campuses.
Mobilizing the University
Long before the United States entered the war, Northwestern had been mobilizing for a role in the looming conflict. Franklyn Bliss Snyder, who became president of Northwestern on September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, named six students and six faculty members to a Committee on Student Morale.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, the committee was renamed the Student War Council, and it quickly helped mobilize the University.
Under Snyder's leadership, Northwestern became one of the most active schools in the country. Dean of Facilities Frederick D. Fagg was named the Campus Coordinator for the federal Office of National Defense Activities. He increased the size of the Navy ROTC program, which had begun at Northwestern in 1926. He also facilitated defense-related technical research projects and oversaw military-related academic work.
Northwestern offered its facilities for war-related programs, and quickly became a major center for military training programs. Naval activity on both campuses became so extensive that Northwestern was called the Annapolis of the Midwest.
Training on Campus
The Navy's V-7 program, the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School, became the largest training program at Northwestern. Abbott Hall, completed in 1940, was used for training midshipmen, who also used the shores of Lake Michigan. Between 1941 and 1945, the campus's V-7 program turned out more than 24,000 ensigns, including John F. Kennedy.
The major Navy program in Evanston was V-12, the Navy College Training Program which placed uniformed trainees in class for 18 months of study, then sent them to active duty and officer training. The Navy Radio Training School brought apprentice seamen to Evanston for 16 weeks at the Technological Institute. They studied theory, code, and radio operations; 6,000 graduated as Seamen Radioman or Radioman Third Class.
Northwestern also was home to other military programs during war, including Navy Flight School, Army Signal Corps, Army and Navy medical and dental programs, Army Civil Affairs School, and Army, Navy and Marine Reserve programs. The University also provided tuition-free instruction to civilians engaged in war work.
The Evanston campus changed dramatically to handle the influx of military trainees. Lunt and Swift halls were transformed to house and feed the trainees. Laboratories were used for classified research. Foster House became a sick bay. A blood bank was placed in operation. Quonset huts sprung up near Dyche Stadium to house those enrolled in training programs.
Faculty and Students in Uniform
Base Hospital No. 12, the field hospital formed by Northwestern to serve in France in World War I, was revived in 1940 and re-established in North Africa, Naples, Rome, and Leghorn, Italy. Graduates and professors of the Medical School acted as the nucleus of the 2,000-bed general hospital with eight operating rooms, working in rehabilitation of war casualties, combat and war fatigue and infectious jaundice.
The Medical School faculty members were among 400 faculty members granted leaves by the University to serve in the armed forces or other forms of war-related activity. Some 11,000 alumni also served, and 247 lost their lives in the war. Two were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor. Army Maj. John L. Jerstad ('40) died while piloting the lead plane in a raid on a Romanian oil field. Army Lt. Walter E. Trumper ('41) died in a crash after taking controls of a B-17 that was hit near Leipzig; he stayed in the cockpit while other crew members bailed out.
The losses suffered by the Northwestern community were recognized by memorial services on campus. A marker on the grassy area northeast of University Library honors 23 NROTC officers who lost their lives in the war. It lists their names and states, "In memory of those of the NROTC at Northwestern University who made the supreme sacrifice in service of their country in World War II."