[citation needed] The ETP combined college-level classroom instruction with laboratories involving highly complex electronic systems that were classified secret, resulting in a level of training reported to have been the most intense and difficult ever given to enlisted servicemen.
[2] As America entered WW II, there was a crisis concerning the availability of men qualified to maintain the huge amount of complex electronic equipment being procured for the Navy's ships, aircraft, submarines, and shore stations.
Chief Radio Electrician Nelson M. Cooke was responsible for the primary element, and Lieutenant Commander Wallace J. Miller was the officer-in-charge of the overall RMS.
[citation needed] In preparing for war, the BuNav directed that the RMS-Bellevue operation be replicated at a site in the vicinity of San Francisco, California.
[6] In mid-1941, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer), in cooperation with the BuNav, began development of the Aviation RMS (ARMS) to train technicians for airborne equipment maintenance.
Sidney R. Stock, previously head of a college program in aviation and radio technology was recruited as a lieutenant commander to organize the ARMS.
The NRL and the newly formed Radiation Laboratory, as well as a number of industries, were developing electronic systems that were far above the average maintenance capabilities of existing Navy technicians.
On 8 December – the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor – William C. Eddy, a medically retired (deafness) lieutenant, joined the committee and quickly became its leader.
Navy technicians would also be required to make rapid repairs on combat-critical equipment in locations where assistance from the outside – such as technical representatives of industries – would not be available.
It was agreed that the ideal situation would be to recruit persons with an electrical engineering (EE) or similar education and put them through the existing five-month advanced segment of the RMS to learn Navy hardware.
The Navy had sent a few men to a recently opened Royal Air Force (RAF) electronics school in a base at Clinton, Canada.
The central elements of this plan were the following: Eddy, then director of experimental television station W9XBK in Chicago, volunteered to provide both the space and instructional staff for a prototype primary school.
Eddy had returned to Chicago and obtained concurrence from the station owner, Balaban and Katz; they not only approved but also made the space and staff available at no cost to the Navy.
The program was initiated on 12 January with the opening of the prototype primary school at the top floor of the State-Lake Theater building in downtown Chicago.
As the local aspects of the ETM unfolded, the effort was designated Naval Training Schools-Radio Chicago, an official Navy unit commanded by Eddy.
[12] In the approved plan, Eddy would offer a developmental-prototype primary school with classrooms and laboratories in the experimental television facilities at 190 North State Street.
Archibald H. Brolly, chief engineer of W9XBK and graduate of the University of California, Harvard, and MIT, led in developing the initial curriculum and served as the lead instructor.
In an article, published after the war in the journal American Psychologist, the following justification was noted for the difficulty of the test:[14] In such an extensive training program as that for radio technicians which demands a high degree of concentration and ability, the Navy could ill afford to spend several months training men who, because of lack of ability, were unable to complete the training.The Eddy Test was given to men in high schools, colleges, and recruiting centers.
During early 1943, as the need for this activity increased, the initial school was moved to nearby Michigan City, Indiana, and three facilities were leased from the Chicago Board of Education.
One study found that the average person completing Pre-Radio had 1.5 years of prior college and scored in the top two percent of intelligence quotient in the Nation.
[16] In a four-week curriculum, Pre-Radio included a lightning-speed review of high school mathematics (through second-level algebra), physics (mainly electricity and magnetism), and elementary chemistry.
Other committee members felt that students for the secondary school should be recruited from persons who had already completed a degree, or at least had two years of study in electrical engineering, and could bypass the Primary altogether.
Two members of the original ad hoc committee received such assignments: William Grogan, raised in rank to lieutenant commander, went to Grove City, and Sidney Stock returned to Utah State.
The ETP secondary school initially retained the same five-month length and with the same basic curriculum, but the topics were presented at a higher level, taking into account the better preparation of the entering students.
Much of the equipment studied was classified as Secret; therefore, physical security was a major factor in selecting school locations, and the instructional compounds were all under 24-hour guard by armed Marines.
The basic curriculum of the ARM secondary school was carefully coordinated for uniformity, but some differences existed in the specific hardware studied at the three bases.
BuPers convened a conference on the ETP in December 1943, at which time the secondary school was increased from 5 months to 24 weeks with new topics added (especially sonar).
The RMS facilities on the NRL campus had been considerably expanded in the years immediately preceding the war; by early 1941, the entering class had increased to 135 men.
[28] When the ETP was being developed, the BuAer agreed that the Aviation RMS just getting underway in Annapolis, Maryland, would be moved to a more secure and larger facility.
Captain Eddy received a Legion of Merit in December 1945, recognizing his contributions in the "recruiting, selection, and training of radio technicians".