Saturday, May 22, 1943
CLOUDBUSTER
Page Five
lighlights of the Past Year
® at this U. S. Navy Pre-Flight School. Across the top are shown views of
^ Hon. Josephus Daniels, who was Secretary of the Navy during the last war,
of the School last May 23, and C^det Regimental Commander F. B. Har
nessing, USN, the first Commanding Officer, in the lower center. Comdr.
^^mber 26 before leaving for duty afloat. Pictured in the inset, left to right,
Ending Officer; Lt. Comdr. James P. Raugh, USNR, Executive Officer; Lt.
L. Hamilton, USNR, Head of the Academic Department, and Lt. Comdr.
USN (Ret.), who was a shipmate
of Capt. Kessing when they both
served in the destroyer U.S.S.
Reuben James twenty odd years
ago.
Comdr. Graff has figured prom
inently in the growth of the Pre-
Flight School from its inception.
He was the first line officer to
arrive here and directed much of
the organizational work involved
in establishing the new Naval
Station. As the School’s first Ex
ecutive Officer, he was respon
sible for administering the pol
icies set forth by Capt. Kessing,
and he took over command of the
station last November when Capt.
Kessing left for duty afloat.
When Comdr. Graff took over
command, the Regimental Com
mander, Lieut. James P. Raugh,
USNR, a graduate of the Naval
■Academy, was promoted to the
position of Executive Officer. He
has since been made a Lieutenant
Commander, and is still serving
in that capacity.
About the Pre-Flight program
itself.
It is designed to turn out not
only fliers but fighters; not only
officers but real leaders who can
think in a flash and decide correct
ly ; men who not only can take pun
ishment but who are schooled to
win. It is the ultimate in phys
ical and mental conditioning.
It’s tough.
Training for the cadet is divid
ed into academic, athletic and
military courses. In the classroom
he takes the following subjects:
Mathematics and principles of
flight, Essentials of Naval Ser
vice, aerology, and recognition of
ships and aircraft.
“We begin with fundamentals,”
says Lieut. Comdr. Howard Ham
ilton, USNR, head of the Aca
demic Department. “You might
call it a refresher course, but we
take nothing for granted. You’d
be surprised at the things these
boys don’t know that they should
know.
“In teaching American history
we are anything but objective.
We’re inspirational. We have no
patience with the recent debunk
ing trend which has been so de
structive of national ideals. His-
I
tory as we teach it is an anecdotal
record of the gallant exploits of
such heroes as John Paul Jones,
Stephen Decatur and other fa
mous naval heroes. Through
their example the cadet is re
minded of what is expected of him
in the moments of his future bat
tles.”
Essentials of Naval Service
aims to indoctrinate the cadet in
Navy law, traditions, regulations.
This course teaches him how to be
an officer; it is training for lead
ership. He gets history of naval
aviation, organization afloat and
ashore, enemy organization and
methods. Important is the study
of ideologies of Germany and
Japan, the issues of the war, the
essentials to victory, the moral
values and the need for winning
both the war and the peace.
“In mathematics we start at the
beginning,” continued Lt. Comdr.
Hamilton, “simple arithmetic,
fractions and decimals, and then
building up to algebra, plane
geometry and trigonometry.
“Aerology takes the practical
view of weather problems. It is
non-scientiflc; we have weather
scientists on the ground who do
all the theoretical work for us.
The pilot, however, must have
certain principles to guide his de
cisions and there are special prob-
leitis such as icing conditions, fog
and so on which he must under
stand.”
Recognition of ships and air
craft develops the skill of the eye,
and there is no more serious prob
lem than this. Eleven weeks of a
cadet’s time is spent on this
course. He must learn to know in
an instant whether a sighted
plane or ship is friend or foe.
The school is officered with the
finest of teachers, men who would
do credit to any university fac
ulty. Although there are 10 PhD’s
Mail It Home
The detailed anniversary
story appearing in this issue
of the CLOUDBUSTER will be
of particular interest to the
folks back home, since it traces
the development of the Pre-
Flight training program and
also describes the various phas
es of training here. Why not
mail them a copy of this issue?
on the staff, any one of them can
mix it up on the athletic field with
the cadets. They are about as far
away from the cartoonist’s idea of
a college professor as can be
imagined. Chosen for their force
of character and ability to pre
sent a subject, each had a
thorough knowledge of his field.
The athletic course is divided
into two sections: (1) the train
ing department in which activity
is concentrated in those sports
which have the highest carry-over
for military usefulness; (2) com
petitive, combative sports, de
signed to sharpen the will to win.
There is a preliminary testing
period in which cadets are ti'ied
out for strength, speed and agil
ity, physical fitness and swim
ming. At the end of the training
period, cadets show an average in
crease of 16 percent in strength,
a gain of 22 percent in physical
fitness, an average gain of V2 inch
in height, a gain of 2 inches around
the chest and a loss of 21/2 inches
in the waistline.
Posture deviations are auto
matically corrected. Weight
shows a variance of 8 to 22
pounds. The fat ones lose and
the thin ones gain.
“They get training table food
here,” declares Lt. Comdr. Har
vey Harman, USNR, in charge of
athletics.
Activity is divided among 10
sports: swimming, boxing, wrest
ling, hand-to-hand combat, bas
ketball, football, soccer, gym and
tumbling, military track, and labor
engineering. Participation in
each is preceded by a 20-minute
tune-up every day. In the huge
University of North Carolina
gymnasium is a large amount of
equipment, much of it with a nau
tical twist, and it is all used.
As a cadet participates in these
sports and shows a preference for
certain of them, he is assigned to
competitive teams. In this the
cadet’s wishes count about half
and the other factor is designed to
be corrective. For instance, a lad
of retiring temperament will be
assigned boxing whether he
See ANNIVERSARY, page 6