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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 —6,385 full-time and 13,306 part-time. By 1943-44,
student enrollment had fallen to 13,470 —5,312 full-time
and 8,149 part-time.
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.
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 Sept. 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded
Poland, named six students and six faculty to a Committee on Student
Morale.
After Pearl Harbor,
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 Faculties 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.
Abbott Hall, completed
in 1940, was taken over by the Navy for V-7 midshipmen training.
V-7 midshipmen were trained in classrooms and on the shores of
Lake Michigan.
The V-7 program—
the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School became the largest training
program at Northwestern. Between 1941 and 1945, the V-7 program
here 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 seaman 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.
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 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 of them lost their lives
in the war. Two were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor. Army
Maj. John L. Jerstad (1940) died while piloting the lead plane
in a raid on a Romanian oil field. Army Lt. Walter E. Trurmper
(1941) 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 honoring their services on campuses. A marker
in 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."
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