Army & Navy: Back to School

After V-E day, shipping shortages will leave tens of thousands of unneeded troops temporarily stranded in Europe and Africa. To keep them occupied, the Army this week was rapidly completing plans for an elective educational program (less serious G.I.s have a choice of supervised recreation), including every grade of study from literacy classes to postgraduate seminars.

Many of the details will depend on where U.S. forces end up, what duties they will still have to perform. But the program was sufficiently set to indicate that it will be much vaster in size and scope than any ever established by a post-armistice army (the World War I program gave courses to 230,000, most of whom only attended lectures at their own posts). Included are four types of schools:

¶ Basic unit schools, attached to battalions, will range from sixth grade through second-year college, with special primary classes for illiterates. The curriculum will include vocational courses in mechanical crafts, agriculture, business administration, etc. More than 1,200 such schools will be set up, each big enough to handle between 800 and 1,000 men.

¶ Centralized on-the-job technical schools will be organized in or near installations of the various Army technical corps.

¶ University study centers will be established in at least two cities to provide liberal arts and preprofessional courses not given in unit schools. For one center, the University of Paris has already turned over its Cité Universitaire, a foreign students’ settlement with 25 buildings. Another will probably be in London. Some G.I.s also hoped for a chance to study at Oxford, where a few U.S. soldiers have taken Army-sponsored short courses while on duty in Britain.

¶ Civilian universities will take in advanced students on Army scholarships. The Army is polling soldiers in the European and Mediterranean theaters to determine how many will want to attend, is scouting around England, Scotland, France and Italy for all the room available.

Except for the civilian universities, all the schools will be Army staffed and supplied. Faculties will be formed from the hundreds of on-the-spot officers and enlisted men with prewar teaching experience. The Army has already stockpiled more than a million books in England, has more on the way.

In announcing the plan, the Army strongly emphasized one point: the program will not delay any soldier’s homecoming. Students will receive certificates of credit after every four-week term. As far as possible, every term will be independent of subsequent terms. As soon as their travel orders arrive the G.I.s can leave school.