Carroll College - Hilltopper Yearbook (Helena, MT)

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THE WAR YEARS This next section oi the retrospect might well be called Carroll Goes to War. tor that is just what Carroll did. Her history during this period represents activity aimed essentially at the war effort through training of civilian pilots, naval aviation cadets, and naval bluejackets. AIR TRAINING PROGRAM—The first wartime change noted at Carroll College was the conversion of the Civilian Pilot Training program into a military operation under the Civil Aeronautics Administration War Training Service in the summer of 1942. Trainees under this program were army and navy enlisted personnel and they were housed and fed at the college. Originally this program was intended to initiate the training of pilots for glider, service, and ferry duty in the Army and for combat duty in the Navy. The training of army personnel was terminated in January. 1943, but the training of navy pilots under the Navy V-S program continued until August 1944. Under these various programs Carroll trained 127 civilian pilots, 38 army pilots, and 550 navy V-5 pilots. ACCELERATED COURSE- -In accord with wartime training schedules, the Board of Studies on February 26, 1942, adopted an accelerated program. Under the specifications of this schedule, beginning June 7, 1943. Carroll offered annually three sixteen-week semesters. In addition to this, the Board adopted a policy of admitting high school juniors to college status provided they could show a standing in the top third of their high school class. V-12 PROGRAM—The culminating point of Carroll's wartime program was reached on April 30, 1943, when Very Rev. Emmet J. Riley, president of the College, announced that Carroll had been accepted by the Navy Department as a V-12 training school. The program offered was designed to train Naval officer candidates for the Navy Air Corps, Civil Engineer Corps, Construction Corps, Supply Corps, and Chaplain Corps, and to prepare Deck Officers for general Navy duty. On July 1, 1943, Carroll admitted its first group of V-12 trainees. With the departure of the final group of bluejackets on October 24, 1945, and the formal decommissioning of the navy unit on the Hilltop, Carroll finished its war-time task of instructing 704 V-12 trainees. RETURN OF CIVILIANS The end of the war brought the school back to full civilian status on November 3, 1945. A small group of civilian students was registered on July 1, 1945; however. Carroll's first all-civilian post-war student body, consisting largely of former servicemen, was enrolled on November 1, 1945. NEW FEATURES—The fall semester of 1946 witnessed a further innovation in the educational system on the Hilltop when a Department of Nursing Education was inaugurated. Carroll will grant degrees in Nursing Education to its first women graduates. Among the other changes at Carroll attending the war's end was the en- rollment of a large number of married veterans, twenty-five of whom are being housed in Carroll Village. The Village is made up of Federally-constructed housing units and the ''Faculty Club,'’ formerly a faculty residence hall during the Navy stay at Carroll. V-12 Trainees, 1943. V-5 Cadets on Scullon Field.