United States. Air Force ROTC

The Air Force ROTC unit at Oregon State University was established in 1949. The goal of the Apollo Project at Oregon State University was to construct a three-man space simulator and train a crew for a final 48-hour simulated flight. According to a report in the 16 January 1962 Barometer, the crew would conduct test flights during which they would apply navigation principles to maintain a prescribed course of flight. The simulator was constructed of aluminum and plywood.

The Air Force ROTC unit at Oregon State University was established in 1949. Detachment 685 is known as the Flying Beavs. The Arnold Air Society is a national honorary community service organization for Air Force ROTC cadets. Silver Wings serves a similar purpose of community service and is composed of cadets who are not active members of the Arnold Air Society as well as civilian college students.

The Air Force ROTC unit at Oregon State University was established in 1949. Detachment 685 is known as the Flying Beavs.

The Arnold Air Society is a national honorary community service organization for Air Force ROTC cadets. Silver Wings serves a similar purpose of community service and is composed of cadets who are not active members of the Arnold Air Society as well as civilian college students.

Efforts to establish an Air Force training program at Central Washington University began in the fall of 1942 when President Robert E. McConnell sent telegrams to the United States War Department, the Secretary of the Navy and high ranking military and government officials offering all the facilities of the college to assist in the war effort. The Navy turned down President McConnell, stating that the college was too small for a training program. The Army, however, took up McConnell’s offer and after some improvements to the dorms and dining facilities, two hundred men of the 314th Army Air Force Training Detachment arrived on March 1, 1943. Two hundred more soldiers arrived the following week. From March of 1943 until late April of 1944, men of the 314th A.A.F. were trained to serve as air crews for fighter units. On May 1, 1945, the 3058th Army Air Forces Base Unit replaced the 314th A.A.F. Training Detachment. The 3058th A.A.F. Base Unit trained in Ellensburg until June 23, 1944, before being sent to other military posts.

President McConnell made attempts to retain the program but the war was winding down and the need for training facilities on college campuses were being reduced nationwide. In August of 1945, the Army Air Force Training Command sent a survey to the college in reference to the establishment of a post-war Air Reserve Officers Training Corps. Once again, campus facilities became a factor, along with low male student enrollment and no nearby armory. The Army chose not to select Central. Three years later in 1948, President McConnell applied to the Secretary of Defense for either an Army or Air Force R.O.T.C. unit. His efforts failed. When the United States became involved in the Korean conflict in the summer of 1950, McConnell lobbied regional congressman in Washington D. C. to establish a compulsory R.O.T.C. unit at the college. On April 20, 1951, Central Washington College of Education was selected to participate in the Air Force R.O.T.C. program. The official date of the program’s establishment was on July 1, 1951, and by the fall quarter, training was being conducted on the Ellensburg campus. Currently the Air Force R.O.T.C. Detachment 895 Cadet Wing resides and trains at Central Washington University.

On May 10, 1941, UNM President J.F. Zimmerman was notified by Frank Knox, then secretary of the Navy, that the University of New Mexico would house a unit of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. Chief Gunner's Mate Raymond Clark, Captain J.B. Will and Lt. Commander Brown were the first military representatives to arrive on campus. The first class of recruits comprised 93 students, and instruction began on Aug. 27, 1941. In the 1950s, the unit produced more Rhodes Scholars than any other organization on campus.

The 1960s and '70s saw women begin to influence the NROTC unit at UNM. In the Fall of 1961, Terry Berkshire and Phyllis Forgan founded the UNM NROTC Women's Auxiliary, also known as the Clippers. In 1966, Ilene Mitchell became the first woman to join the NROTC. But it wasn't until 1971 when Marjorie Litchfield became the first female NROTC student to be commissioned.

As people in the United States changed their attitude toward Vietnam, members of UNM's NROTC faced protest and open harassment. Though the first protest of the unit, Dec. 5, 1967, was peaceful, cadets were beaten in later incidents. Other rivalries with the Sigma Chi fraternity and the Air Force ROTC unit were more genial.

In January of 1991, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Barbara S. Pope sent a letter to then-President Richard Peck informing him of the Navy's decision to close UNM's NROTC unit. Later that year, at a 50th anniversary celebration of the unit, Bill Cunningham of the class of '46 moved that a history be written, and the motion passed unanimously. The history began July 28, 1992.

UNM's NROTC unit was to be disestablished Aug. 1, 1995, despite appeals made by members of New Mexico's Congressional delegation and members of the unit's alumni association. The doors never closed, however, as ruled by a congressional subcommittee in August 1993 to be effective that December.

Although Air Force ROTC has been on the University campus since July 1, 1949, the unit was formally established at UNM in an agreement signed in 1951 by UNM President Thomas L. Popejoy and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force James T. Bill Jr. Its first commanding officer was Major Harold B. Frazier, who led the unit from 1949-1951, followed by Lieutenant Colonel John L. Parker, 1951-1953.

Like NROTC, the AFROTC unit on UNM campus was targeted by anti-Vietnam War student protesters during the 1960s and 1970s. During these turbulent years, the AFROTC building was occupied by protesters and subjected to bomb threats.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Edward B. Hanrahan was a cadet with the Columbia University Air Force ROTC. He graduated from Columbia in 1956, although he originally entered Columbia in the Fall of 1951 as a member of the Class of 1955. He served over twenty years as an officer in the Air Force. After retiring from the military, he was the registrar for, and member of the faculty of, Hampton University. Hanrahan passed away in December 2002.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Hanrahan loved photography and took quite of number of pictures during his university years, including events involving Columbia's Air Force ROTC program. There are a number of photographs and related that relate to Columbia University.