Ward Island (Texas)
[1] With war looming, the United States Congress directed that the U.S. Navy develop an air training facility in the Corpus Christi Bay vicinity.
Construction of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (NASCC) started in June 1940, and the base was dedicated on March 12, 1941.
A major highway was built to the east end of the base, and, for a second entrance, the existing Ocean Drive causeway that passed by Ward Island was improved.
[2] Immediately following the start of World War II, the Navy initiated a major program to train highly qualified technicians to maintain the myriad of electronic systems, particularly radar, that was urgently needed.
[4] In addition, in 1973 a small portion of Ward Island was permanently set aside for special university-level religious training; since 2003, this area has been used by the South Texas School for Christian Studies, now known as Stark College & Seminary.
When World War II started with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), the Radio Materiel School (RMS) on the campus of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington D.C. was the only Navy training source of electronic technicians.
Both the Eddy Test and the subsequent Pre-Radio School were rigorous filters, passing only a small fraction of the most capable candidates.
The Primary Schools concentrated the main topics from the first two years of a traditional engineering curriculum into three months of 12-hour instructional days.
Instructional personnel, classroom equipment, and existing students were transferred from a small, similar school that had been started by the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics a few months earlier at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Eventually, NATTC Ward Island had 87 buildings, including a dispensary with 34 beds, a 4,000-volume library, a 350-seat chapel, an even larger auditorium (destroyed by fire in early 1946), a well-stocked ship's store, a gymnasium, and a reception center for visitors.
Lectures included advanced electronic circuits, microwave theory, servomechanisms and other topics that might normally be in the upper level at engineering colleges.
[8] Except for a small amount of training on equipment during flight, all instruction was conducted within a highly restricted compound under 24-hour guard from the Marine Detachment.
All Navy activities at Ward Island closed in the early fall of 1947, with the instructional program transferring to NATTC Memphis at Millington, Tennessee.
Originally intended to be located in Beeville, Texas, in July this was shifted to Corpus Christi, and ATC temporarily opened in September at Cuddihy Field, a surplus Navy auxiliary airfield on the outskirts of the city.
[9] The Navy closed the NATTC on Ward Island in October 1947, and in November the UCC leased the property, including all of the buildings, for a dollar a year.
During the Christmas break, the school moved from Cuddihy Field to Ward Island and classes restarted in former training buildings on January 5, 1948.
Texas A&I at Corpus Christi (TAICC) began courses for 969 students at the junior, senior, and graduate levels in the fall of 1973.
Although a few dormitories and other permanent facilities were added, CCSU still used many of the original Navy buildings and remained primarily a school for commuting students.
With the start of the 1994-1995 academic year, freshmen and sophomore students were also admitted, returning the institution to being a full undergraduate and graduate university.
The intercollegiate athletic program was restarted in 1997, with basketball, baseball, tennis, track, and other sports using the name "Islanders" and competing in the Southland Conference.
This plot, just southeast of TAMU-CC's campus, is now occupied by the South Texas School of Christian Studies, an independent agency that describes itself as a "delivery system for religious education".
The Center does not grant degrees itself, but provides educational services on behalf of Hardin-Simmons, Logsdon Seminary, and other accredited institutions.
