Army Specialized Training Program
A program that could provide a "continuous and accelerated flow of high grade technicians and specialists needed by the Army" would both help the war effort, offset ROTC enrollment turndown, and keep universities operating when most, if not all, male students would be absent.
[3] Colonel Herman Beukema, a professor of history at West Point, was named director of the Army Specialized Training Program, responsible for sending over 200,000 soldiers to 227 colleges at cost of $127,000,000.
[5] A maximum of 25,000 high school graduates were offered scholarships through the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program (ASTRP).
Unlike the Navy's V-12 college training program, the Army's criteria for hosting ASTP detachments predominantly favored large, state flagship institutions.
[10] In the spring of 1942, the Army had allowed men in colleges and universities studying specific subjects to enlist in the Enlisted Reserve Corps and defer a call to active duty until they had completed their degree requirements, left or dropped out, or were called to active duty by the Secretary of War.
[citation needed] The advanced ROTC program was suspended in its entirety in the spring of 1943 and no new contracts were issued for the duration of the war.
The basic ROTC curriculum was kept intact as part of the military indoctrination for the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program.
While in academic training the soldiers were on active duty, in uniform, under military discipline, and received regular Army pay.
[2] The number of voluntary applications soon proved disappointing, and all men already in the Army began to be screened for ASTP eligibility, regardless of interest.
Additionally, the output of replacement training centers, already incorrectly adjusted to the rate of ground combat casualties, fell off precipitously in the last half of 1943.
The extension of the basic training cycle from thirteen to seventeen weeks in summer 1943 caused many groups of trainees to be held in the centers for over a month past the date when their graduations had been expected.
Facilities also had to be reserved for several thousand college students enrolled in ROTC who had to complete basic training before admission to officer candidate school.
In January 1944, Colonel Beukema reported to a U.S. Congressional investigating committee that the requirements for the ASTP were more demanding than those of either West Point or the Naval Academy.
[2] It was initially contemplated to allow only the graduates of the "advanced" course (roughly 25 percent of the ASTP participants) to apply for admission to officer candidate schools.
Of the 86,167 men terminated from academic programs, 68,995 went to the Army Ground Forces, of which about 55,500 were assigned evenly to thirty-five airborne, armored, and infantry divisions.
[18][19][14] The 17-year-olds were continued in school until the age of 18, at which time they were transferred from the Organized Reserve to active duty and given their mandated basic training.
Those men who had sacrificed non-commissioned rank to qualify for the college training were not necessarily reinstated, and often shortly went into combat as privates.
Even though the ASTP men did not have the practical experience to qualify for non-commissioned officer rank, the Army anticipated that their superior training and intelligence levels would result in advancement to leadership positions.
While the ASTP initiative suffered from manpower drawdowns to meet immediate combat needs, it did serve as an important financial subsidy of land grant colleges whose male student bodies had been decimated by the diversion of about 14 million men into the various armed forces.
Another positive effect of the ASTP effort was a softening of university resistance to lowering the draft age from twenty to eighteen.
A highly dismissive opinion was expressed by Major General Harry L. Twaddle, a former Army Assistant Chief of Staff G-3, who wrote, "The underlying reason for institution of the ASP [sic] program was to prevent some colleges and universities from going into bankruptcy.
