The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II. Between July 1, 1943, and June 30, 1946, more than 125,000 participants were enrolled in 131 colleges and universities in the United States. Numerous participants attended classes and lectures at their respective colleges and earned completion degrees for their studies. Some even returned from their naval obligations to earn a degree from the colleges where they were previously stationed.
The V-12 program's goal was to produce officers, not unlike the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), which sought to turn out more than 200,000 technically trained personnel in such fields as engineering, foreign languages, and medicine. Running from 1942 to 1944, the ASTP recruits were expected but not required to become officers at the end of their training.
The V-12 program was founded to generate a large number of officers for both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to meet the demands of World War II, in excess of the number that was turned out annually by the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School. Once enrollees completed their V-12-subsidized bachelor's degree programs, their next step toward obtaining a commission depended on the service branch:[1]
Navy
Marines
When the United States entered the Second World War, American colleges and universities suffered huge enrollment declines. Men of prime draft age who would normally have gone into college (or would have remained enrolled until their course of study was completed) were either drafted, volunteered for service, or dropped out and took jobs in agriculture or war-related industries. As a result, some colleges worried they would have to close their doors for the duration of the conflict.
On October 14, 1942, the American Council on Education issued a report on how best to use colleges and universities for the war effort. The plan recommended that a "college training corps" be established on college and university campuses, that members of the corps be in uniform and receive active-duty pay, and that graduates be trained in technical specialties that were of use to the Army and the Navy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed with this report, and asked the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy how best they could use higher education in their mobilization plans. The V-12 Navy college training program and the Army Specialized Training Program were jointly announced on December 12, 1942.[3] The V-12 program found more favor with college administrators than did the ASTP. Unlike the ASTP, V-12 students were allowed to attend classes with civilian students and participate in athletics. The majority of the basic curriculum consisted of classes already taught by civilian instructors.[4] Depending on the V-12 enrollees' past college curriculum, they were enrolled in three school terms, or semesters, which lasted four months each.
Captain Arthur S. Adams, from the Training Division of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, was the officer-in-charge of the V-12 program.[1] Richard Barrett Lowe, future Governor of Guam and American Samoa, was one of its early commanding officers.[5]
Gentlemen, we are about to embark on an education program that will have important effects on American colleges, on the Navy, and, most important of all, on the lives of thousands of this nation's finest young men. We must educate and train these men well so that they may serve their country with distinction, both in war and in peace. Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs, May 14, 1943[1]
The V-12 program was economically and functionally beneficial to undergraduate colleges and universities in maintaining enrollments during a general mobilization of manpower for the war, and also met and exceeded the critical needs of the military.[1]
Unlike the ASTP, the Navy predominantly chose small, private colleges for V-12 detachments. Of the 131 institutions selected for line units, approximately 100 could be considered "small," and eighty-eight were private institutions. Eleven were associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Land grant and state flagship universities accounted for only eighteen of the 131 detachments.[6] After the V-12 Program got underway on July 1, 1943, public and private college enrollment increased by 100,000 participants, helping reverse the sharp wartime downward trend.[1]
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