Army & Navy – Navy in the Trees

Kicking the rusty North Carolina dust in route step, a column of cadets clumped to a halt on a narrow road. Into the woods, cluttered with heavy undergrowth and roofed with tall loblolly pines, moved a group headed by a lieutenant and a brace of ensigns wearing unseamanlike woodsman’s boots and hunting knives. The newest course in the Navy’s crowded curriculum for aviation cadets was about to begin: lessons in woodcraft for the young future flyers who might someday find themselves afoot and alone.

While the cadets watched, officers demonstrated some lore of survival. One found a swampy spot, dug up the edible roots of cattails. Another showed how to twist a fish line from tough inner bark, whittle a hook from a thorned twig. A third whacked out a four-foot section of wild grapevine which dripped a cupful of clear water, surprisingly sweet and cool to the taste.

Heading the Navy’s new course in woodcraft is Lieut. George D. Kepler, onetime professional guide in Pennsylvania. Assisting him are Ensigns Frank and John Craighead, authors of the manual for the course, Living off Land & Sea. At 27, the Craighead twins are already authorities on wild life. (One book they wrote on falconry brought them an invitation from a maharaja to be his guests. They spent nine months in India.)

Examination by Practice. Eventually, cadets will be tossed a 40-lb. pack. They will be trucked off 30 or 40 miles, given a compass and told to find their way home.

The new course, introduced at Chapel Hill, N.C., is a fitting addition to the tough training program of the Pre-Flight Schools. When cadets arrive at the University of North Carolina, they have already gone through a Naval Flight Preparatory School and a War Training Service School, where they got the basic academic courses and put in their first flying time in civilian planes. At Chapel Hill and the other Pre-Flight Schools,* academic courses continue, but the emphasis is on physical fitness. Sports stressed are those which feature bodily contact and competitive spirit; boxing, wrestling, football. Swimming is a must: every cadet learns how to abandon ship, how to free himself from a cockpit under water. All must be able to swim three-quarters of a mile with clothes on.

Discipline is Annapolis-strict: cadets keep their own quarters as spick as at the Academy. On their weekly “town liberty” they may not smoke on the street, or drink a beer at Harry’s, or ride or sit in any vehicle except a bicycle. Lounging up & down Franklin Street, they have but one thought: to get through and done with Chapel Hill, get on to Primary, Intermediate, and Operational Training Stations, toward the fine day when they lift a Hellcat or a Corsair off a carrier.