Green Squadron

A REPORT ON COLLEGE UNIT WHICH ENTERED ARMY AIR CORPS YEAR AGO

ONE YEAR AGO last month, in January 1943, the Dartmouth Squadron of the Army Air Corps began basic training at Nashville, Tenn. The 45 members of the Squadron, drawn from the classes of 1942 through 1946, were the first such college group to start training as an Army combat unit, just as the Dartmouth Squadron in the Navy Air Corps was the first in that branch of the service.

The Dartmouth unit was approved by the Army Air Corps as a test case, and although the men did extremely well as a whole, it was demonstrated that it is almost impossible to keep such a group together as a combat unit. As the squadron moved on from Nashville to Maxwell Field and then to Jackson, Tenn., and as the training became more intensified and specialized, squadron members without perfect pilot qualifications were shifted into other branches of the Air Corps, some into navigation and others into bombardier training. Still others, because of illness and other reasons, fell behind their squadron mates.

Of the original 45 members of the Dartmouth Squadron, 18 have graduated from pilot training with the rank of Second Lieutenant, and three have graduated as navigators with similar rank. Three are still in pilot training, ten still in navigation training, and two are in bombardier training. This accounts .for 36 men or 80 per cent of the starting group. Seven men were eliminated from air crew training, one is now on sick leave, and one member of the squadron—Arthur H. Stein Jr. '43- was killed in a plane accident while training last July.

The Dartmouth men who have completed pilot training and now hold the rank of Second Lieutenant are: William Alpert '45, Hamilton C. Bates Jr. '44, Frederick H. Bontecou Jr. '45, Tracy S. Breed '43, John W. Cook '43, Richard C. Crabtree '45, Alfred J. Dinsmore Jr. '44, Don W. Hawley '45, Robert W. Huessler '46, Thomas W. Kerley '46, Arthur L. Livermore '46, William R. McDougall '46, Malcolm McLane '46, Campbell Miller '45. Herdmann S. Porter '45, Donald O. Smith '46, William H. Stein '43, and Larned A. Waterman '43.

The three graduates of navigation training are Second Lieutenants Philip P. Brooks Jr. '43, James G. Clark Jr. '44, and George E. Hopkins '46.