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33 Army Hist. 1 (1995)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0033 and id is 1 raw text is: ARMY HISTORY ThE PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF ARMY HISTORY PB20-95- (No. 33) Washington, D.C. Winter 1995 Birth and Death of the Army Specialized Training Program Louis E. Keefer Many military historians are quite famiiar with the story of the Army Specialzed Training Program (ASTP): conceived in mid- 1942 to meet the Army's avowed need for university-trained officers, w i some of the nation's most renowned college educators hov- ering about as midwives while Secretary of War Henry L Stim son and his top civilian staft deivered the baby. Some top-level Army oflicers apparently hoped for a sillbioh, In early 1944, no soonert han fully operational, the program w3 curailed to help meet the manpower cisis. By i April more than 105,000trainees had been reassigned .overhalf tointantry, armored, and atrorme disons These men had espected ASTP to be their open-sesame to officer candidate school (OCS) in- stead, thy re used as fillers in units wh re cv i the noncommissioned officer matings were all take n For most, their first stripes came only after combat casualtics created openings they might fill. Prvbably the ASTP discuss best known tArmy historians is the one contained in The Procurem etand fr f Ground Conurb Troops by Rohelr R. Palmer, Bell 1. Wiey, and WIllidam R. Kca t (U .S, Army Cenctrof Miitary Hi tory, 1948) Othe a pects of the program 're cosered in pubIcations by the American Council onEducation. incontemporary jour- nal as ch and iScer, and m newipapers e.g , 1he New York limes Tremendous detailahou the administraion of the program can he found in the National A rchives and Records Administration's Record Group I60, utled 'Headquariers, A ynn Ser- vice Forces, Of fice of the Director of Military Train- ig. 1 39-1946, Army Speciahi ed Training Division, 1942-1946, The diarnes and papers of Secretary of War Stimson of fer a poltically astute, inside view of the progrrn (the Stimson papers reside in the Yale Lniversity Library. but are available on microfilm at the Library of Congress Manuscrpts Division)t The author's own book on the ASTP was based on these and other sources, not least of which were inter views and correspondencewith several hundred orncr ASTPers (it helped that the author was one himself Readers who might like to compare ASTP and the Navy V 12 Program should consul the author's essay Exceptional Young A mericans in Prologue (Winter 1992, the qarterly magazine of the National Ar chives. This article reviews some of the aspects of ASTP that may be of special interest to the readers of Army itry. it aims only to inform generayll, not to of fer any definitive theses. ConFused Objectives at 0irth The Army Specialized Training Program had its otigiris in the Student Army Training Cops (SATC) ot World War 1 That plan would have sent trainees to collcges for three years to wtudy military and acadeei ubject, durng which time they would get the founda- tions to fit them for commissions, The first classes began In September 1918. but the program was can. cted shortly afler the armistice Some of tie same people who helped create the SATC iI 1918 were still around twenty-some years later. In mid-1942 a few led the prestigious American Council of Educat on (ACE) to recommend 4hat a college training corps he set up to function in as many institutions as possible -ad that candidates for the corps be selected, Inducted, put 1to uni form, on pay, and be under military disciphne while in technical traiintg with the armed forces. (I) Shortly thereafter, President Frankl n R R;sevelt urged Secretary StimsOn and Seretary of the Navy Frank Knox t1 conrsider promptly the Councl ' recom - mendation: Please have an immediate study made as t the highesti utilization of Amecntan colleges This is in view of the undoubted facts that the drafting of boys down to and including eighteen year olds will greatly deplete all undergraduate enrollment , Tiere is n e nOrmOL amount of equipment in colleges huilldtigs, athletic

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