June in December

The Regiment stiffened slightly; the flutter of programs stopped. Midshipman Isaac Campbell Kidd Jr. marched quietly up the ramp, saluted smartly, grasped his commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox.

The U.S. Naval Academy and its guests broke into a thunderous cheer-- an unprecedented demonstration in honor of Ensign Kidd and his father, a rear admiral who commanded a division of the Pacific Fleet, was killed at Pearl Harbor.

The class was eager for action; most of them will soon get it. Certain changes in assignments will be necessary: a few men had been assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona; many had applied for service in the Atlantic (before war broke in the Pacific).

Most, like Ensign Kidd, asked for submarine duty. Of the 547 graduates, 25 top men remained at the Academy for four months to instruct Naval Reservists, some went to engineering schools for a few months' further technical instruction in radio, etc., the rest, after a month's leave, will go straight to naval aviation or to sea.

The Class of '42 was the first in the Academy's history to graduate in December. Its course had been cut from four to three and a half years; for the rest of the war's duration the course will be three years. But this "June Week" was distinguished from normal ones only by the weather (frosty) and an extraordinary guard: midshipmen stood watch everywhere with pistols; enlisted men at the gates made even officers' wives identify themselves. But midshipmen, not to be done out of the brightest week of their tough Academy grind, entertained their "drags" as usual, had their customary hops, "tea fights," farewell ball.

The Academy (in Annapolis no one ever calls it "Annapolis") occupies a peculiar place in U.S. defenses. To a man, the top line officers of the U.S. Navy are Academy graduates. If the Navy is the nation's first line of defense, the Naval Academy is the key to U.S. security. And through 96 years the Academy has educated its "young gentlemen" according to a prescription written by the nation's great naval heroes, notably John Paul Jones, who said that a naval officer must be not only a competent sailor but "a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy and the nicest sense of personal honor."

Above average in intelligence (candidates are nominated by Congressmen, but must pass a stiff entrance examination), midshipmen are trained in a strict code of regulations that governs every detail of their lives down to gum-chewing. By the time he graduates, a midshipman can be recognized anywhere by his straight carriage (not as stiff as West Point's), his poise, his fluency (every midshipman is trained in after-dinner speaking), his robust health.

The Academy student body, known as "the Regiment," is all housed under one roof, huge Bancroft Hall, recently enlarged by two new wings to take care of the present record enrollment of 3,009. A midshipman is roused from bed at 6:20, thereafter kept busy with classes, drills, athletics and a required study period (8 to 9:50 p.m.) until he turns in at 10:05 (except Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, which are free). About 55% of his studies are engineering and mathematics, 25% professional (seamanship, navigation, gunnery, naval history), 20% cultural (English, history and government, U.S. foreign policy, foreign languages). Every midship man must learn to handle small boats (oars and sails). To graduate, he must also pass tests in swimming, life saving, muscle strength, boxing, wrestling.

The subject midshipmen like best is seamanship. Hardest: ordnance (largely theoretical instruction in ballistics, etc.). Biggest disappointment to the class that graduated last week was the loss of some of its summer cruises: in a world at war there were no warships to spare to practice on. Because future war classes will have to study during summer to finish in three years, midshipmen will practice on ketches, YP (yard patrol) boats and subchasers on the Severn.

To telescope its course, the Academy is also cutting down cultural studies. This may ruffle critics who complain that U.S. Naval officers lack learning, but the Academy agrees with Rear Admiral David F. Sellers, former Superintendent, who once gruffly declared: "Is the fleet ... to be judged by the standards of the liberal arts, or by hits per gun per minute? . . . Let us be concerned more whether the Naval officer is a first-class fighting man than whether he can compose a sonnet."

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