Battalion History
The University of Cincinnati traces its heritage
back to January 22, 1819, when the General Assembly
of Ohio created a new corporation called Cincinnati
College. It was not until the beginning of the Spanish-American
War that the United States Army began to enter into
the university history. As the United Sates began
to drift toward war with Spain, the Board of Directors
in June 1897 made written application to the Secretary
of War for the detail and assignment of an officer
of The United States Army for service in the University
as instructor in military science. The request was
declined on the grounds that the full allotment
of officers by law for such special service had
already been made, and there were no vacancies.
The University’s leadership in April 1917
founded the Department of Military Science, following
the entrance of the United States into the First
World War, to support the war effort. The College
of Engineering with the Colleges of Medicine and
Liberal Arts contributing provided military instruction.
At that time, the success of attending the vocational
training in the universities and colleges caused
the Committee on Education and Special Training
of the War Department to request that universities
and colleges of the country make a more extensive
utilization of their resources. The result of
this request was the organization known as the
Students Army Training Corps, SATC. Under the
plan devised for the SATC, students were to become
by voluntary induction uniformed soldier in the
United States Army subject to military discipline,
and were to receive the pay of privates. The SATC
was established at U.C. on October 1, 1918. Due
to the U.S. late entry into the war, the operation
of the SATC was never sufficiently settled to
make possible a fair comparison between the interest
shown by the students in the academic work under
the SATC and peacetime conditions.
On January 1, 1919, the war courses at the university
were closed. With the demobilization of the SATC,
the government established units of the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) to provide
a limited amount of military training in selected
colleges and universities throughout the country.
U.C. was designated one of these universities
and the government authorized the establishment
of five ROTC units --Engineering, Ordnance, Coast
Artillery, Signal Corps and Infantry. Army officers
were placed in charge. A Professor of Military
Science and Tactics, Colonel Sidney H. Guthrie
of the Coast Artillery Service, was detailed as
commandant.
History does not record any significant activities
concerning ROTC for the next twenty years other
than the assistance provided by University ROTC
units during the great flood on January 18, 1937
in Cincinnati.
With the outbreak of World War II, U.C. President
Raymond Walters convinced the American Council
of Education to approve a plan to extend ROTC
basic units in American colleges and universities
in the event the United States entered the war.
A course in military medicine was approved at
U.C. as an elective at the college of Medicine.
After the U.S. entry into WWII, in order to
arrange
for Army training courses and to integrate the
programs of the various colleges and schools
of
U.C., the Board Of Directors on January 5, 1943,
appointed an Administrative Committee on War
Training
Programs. The Reserve Officers Training Corps,
under the command of Colonel Sidney Guthrie,
who
had established the ROTC at the university after
WWI, gave basic and advanced training courses.
The varying enrollments of soldier-students reached
a maximum of 2450 in the academic year 1943-44.
Soldiers became the feature attraction of the
annual Homecoming. A former U.C. student of
the
class of 1938, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, was the
pilot of the plane that dropped the first atomic
bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. There
are no definite figures of the number of university
men who served during WWII. There had been, since
1919, a total of 6,201 U.C. men enrolled in
ROTC who were trained as Army officers. Four
U.C. men
held the rank of General in World War II.
With the close of WWII, ROTC again lost the preeminent
position it held, and even with the advent of
the Korean War, never regained a strong position.
ROTC maintained its host status throughout the
1950’s and 60’s and graduated at least
15 officers per year until the steady decline
in 1968 and reaching a low point in 1975. As a
result of the reduced number of officers being
commissioned throughout the Cincinnati area, a
consortium of Xavier, U.C., and Northern Kentucky
University was formed by the Department of the
Army to better utilize the number of active duty
personnel assigned to these institutions.
Eventually, the shadow of Vietnam dissipated
and in the summer of 1982 U.C. began commissioning
enough officers to regain host status. On June
10 1986, the first commission under the new four-year
program was commissioned. Today, the program again
is growing and contributing significantly to the
future officer corps of the United States Army.
Today, Army ROTC and UC has over 100 students
taking ROTC and is recognized by former UC President
Steger as an important member of the UC community.
He wrote, “It occupies an important
place in the University’s curriculum offerings,
options for professional training, and efforts
to recruit outstanding students.”
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UC ROTC Battalion History
