Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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MILITARY

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History of the R.O.T.C. at Yale TN 1862 Congress passed an act to donate land an Act of Congress of June 3, 1916, the unit was for the estabUshment of colleges on condition converted from the State National Guard into a that military tactics form a part of the curric- Reserve Officers ' Training Corps. The University ulum. In 18 66 the Sheffield Scientific School gave built Artillery Hall in the rear of the old Gym- military instruction under the above act. This nasium on Elm Street. Under the chairmanship may be said to mark the faint beginning of the of Mr. A. C. Goodyear ' 99, a committee of Reserve Officers ' Training Corps, although Yale Alumni raised $15 S, 000 for the construction of previously had trained military companies during the Yale Armory just west of the Bowl. the American Revolution and the War of 1812. With the declaration of war in April, 1917, Yale became a military school. The unit enlarged to over 1,600 men with instruction provided by Regular Army personnel and some fifty members of the faculty. Of great instructional value was the gift by the French Government of a battery of French 75 ' s. Yale ' s military associations had crystalized into identification with Field Artiller ' . Yale and the Guns, in the words of General Danford was, and still is, the Yale tradition. It was in 1898 that Yale first turned to Field Artillery in the organization of the original Yale Battery. Most of its personnel saw service in the Spanish War, though the unit as such was never engaged. The most famous of the Yale Batteries was organized in 1915 under the direct guidance of Lieutenant Robert M. Danford (now Major General and Chief of Field Artillery). The first battery formed in the fall of that year, was, in early 1916, expanded into a regiment of four This unit, reorganized in January, 1919, was, batteries, manned by 486 undergraduates, and by over two years, the Senior of the Field Artillery designated 10th Field Artillery, Connecticut Reserve Officers ' Training Corps Units established. National Guard. On June 20, 1916, in the midst Major (now Brigadier General) R. E. D. Hoyle of commencement activities, the Regiment was was the first of a distinguished line of Field called into Federal Service, mobilized on the old Artillervmen to head the department as Professor campus, and in July sent to Tobyhanna, Pennsyl- of Military Science and Tactics. Over $500,000 vania, preparatory to service in Mexico. Later, the worth of equipment was made available by the Mexican situation having improved, the Regiment War Department, and with the finest plant in the was returned to the National Guard Camp at countr - the unit had an auspicious beginning. Niantic, Connecticut, and there in September dis- Under Regular Arm - officers detailed by the War charged from Federal Service. The fall of 1916 Department, instruction was offered in Field was a period of reorganization for the unit. Under Artillery, Ordnance and the Engineer and Signal I