USA > New York > Bronx County > Navy service : a short history of the United States Naval Training School (WR) Bronx, New York > Part 2
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There were, in addition to those recruits whose civilian lives were in every respect normal, untouched by tragedy or conflict and who consti- tuted the general run of recruits, those who had joined the Waves because their husbands, fathers, brothers, sweethearts had been killed in action; there were young women tired of the restrictions of parent-supervised life or dissatisfied with civilian jobs. They made better "copy" than the average Wave, and it was indeed a problem for the Public Relations Officer to direct this "copy" away from lines unacceptable to the recruits themselves.
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There were other problems, as well, that faced Lieutenant (jg) Knox. One might be exemplified by the objection she made to a cartoon which had a Procurement Selection Board by-pass "boot" school and classify a recruit named Marsha as a radio operator; pictured her, in winter time, wearing a white hat cover and carrying a brown bag; had her graduate from radio school at Wisconsin as an Ensign. Then, after replacing Bill Jones, radioman, she was described as a salty radioman third class but still pic- tured as wearing her Ensign's stripes.
This cartoon, which the Training Department had called to Miss Knox's attention because recruits arriving at the training school were coming im- bued with information derived from such sources, was one of many such problems that beset the Public Relations Office before Waves became familiar figures throughout the country, and the press became more aware of their duties and the type of women wearing Navy blue.
At first, the photographs and press releases concerning the "U.S.S. Hunter" originated from District Public Relations. In time, it became necessary to establish a Public Relations Photographic section of the I. D. Photo Lab, which operated under the Senior Medical Officer, and to handle both photographs and press releases without the assistance of District Public Relations which would, however, remain in a consultative capacity.
The establishment of such a service relieved District and Washington Public Relations of routine "home town" material. The simplest way of fulfilling requests for releases and photographs of recruits from a particular district was to do so through officers "on the spot."
The Public Relations Form A which recruits filled out, giving their personal, professional and educational background were used to discover special feature stories and to serve as a file in fulfilling requests.
In August, 1943, when Lieutenant (jg) Knox was detached and Lieu- tenant (then Lieutenant junior grade) Helen Jacobs became Public Rela- tions Officer, it was necessary to amplify the volume of material dissemi- nated to District Procurement and Recruiting Offices. The Form A was revised to include more personal information and the Form B instituted to give a comprehensive personal background of some 5,000 recruits a month and to indicate the assignment of every recruit after graduation from "boot" training. The Form B, filled out by the recruits before leaving the station, is mailed to the District Procurement Offices concerned as soon as the drafts leave.
Charts are kept of the numbers of recruits from every state for every regiment, and are consulted in servicing districts where recruiting appears to be falling down. Requests made by District Procurement and Recruiting
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Offices for photographs and stories of their enlistees are fulfilled up to an average of 1600 a month.
In January the Photographic Laboratory and the station newspaper, "Conning Tower," were put under the direction of the Public Relations Office. Lieutenant (jg) Elsie Thomas, the officer-in-charge of the Conning Tower," which was formerly under the Recreation Office, has brought the newspaper from its mimeographed form up to its finished form, editing, doing page make-up, supervising its publication and organizing a staff composed of recruits in training and ship's company to assist her and to contribute to the paper. In addition to this job, Lieutenant (jg) Thomas, with the aid of one enlisted assistant, did the layout for "A Boot's Eye View," a publication compiled in January, 1944, by the Public Relations Office from contributions of recruits for the purpose of telling their story of the training school.
As more than 60,000 enlisted Waves, graduated from the U. S. Naval Training School (WR), Bronx, have gone on to further specialized training and their Navy billets, the success of the Women's Reserve as an integral part of the war effort has aroused more and more interest throughout the country, and as a consequence, their "boot" school has become the object of ever-increasing publicity.
There have necessarily been changes in the set-up of both the Photo Lab, whose personnel has been increased by one seaman photographer, in addition to a Specialist (P)3c, and the Public Relations Office itself in order to meet the growing requests of Procurement and Recruiting Offices for action photographs of trainees. With the aid of two assistants - Lieutenant (jg) Jean Pierson and Ensign Priscilla Morgan - where there was formerly one, the duties of the Public Relations Officer, in addition to those described above, include the following which can be said to be typical of Public Rela- tions responsibilities at any Wave training school:
1. Receive and act upon all correspondence directed to the Public Relations office.
2. Supervise all stories for any and all publications concerning the Naval Training School. This includes giving information of the school activities to reporters, escorting photographers and reporters on tours of school activities and arranging interviews.
3. Approve all publicity matters received by individual trainees.
4. Arrange all publicity appearances of members of the school staff and trainees in the nature of speeches or special interviews and photographs.
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5. Proof-read and approve professional articles written by members of the school staff or trainees for publication.
6. Escort on tour of the school all visitors when directed by the Com- manding Officer.
7. Arrange press conferences when directed by the Commanding Officer.
8. Draw up certain designated correspondence for the Commanding Officer.
9. Hold bi-monthly meetings of the "Conning Tower" staff and pro- vide "Conning Tower" Officer with written and photographic material for publication in the newspaper.
This does not, of course, include the duties, in addition to clerical work, delegated to the Public Relations Yeomen who maintain the newspaper clipping file, contact all recruits required for various purposes by Public Relations, assist in escorting press representatives and photographers over the station and interview recruits when numbers to be interviewed make their assistance necessary.
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Writing Releases.
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Interviewing Recruits.
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Press Conference with Captain McAfee and Educational Council.
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Public Relations Photographer.
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Yeoman Replies to Procurement Request.
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Identification Picture.
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Contact Printing of Identification Cards.
Printing Pictures.
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Photographic Laboratory Office.
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Checking Form A for Stories.
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Conning Tower Office.
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Layout for Conning Tower.
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CONNING TOWER
T HE recruits' view of the Navy and of "boot" training in particular is reflected in the station newspaper, the "Conning Tower." Lieu- tenant (jg) Elsie Thomas has had charge of this publication from the very beginning of the school.
Formerly under the Recreation Office, and since January under Public Relations, the "Conning Tower" covers station activities, and features information about station personnel. The first two issues were mimeo- graphed, while Lieutenant (jg) Thomas (then Ensign) investigated possi- bilities of having it printed. Arrangements were made with a local printer for the tabloid size newspaper printed on glossy paper. The first printed edition was four pages, but after that it varied from six to eight, depending on the amount of news material. The fifteenth issue, which featured the Third War Loan Drive, expanded to sixteen pages.
Each regiment coming aboard has its turn at issuing the "Conning Tower." The recruits write all the copy except the Ship's Company column, and Miss Thomas edits the material and does the page make-up of the paper.
Although the "Conning Tower" is published by and for the "boots," it has developed into a recruiting device, evidenced by the interest shown in it by Procurement and Recruiting Offices. The mailing list, which totals 350 addresses, includes Naval Districts, Procurement and Branch Procure- ment Offices and Recruiting Stations throughout the United States.
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PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY
T HE Photographic Laboratory is divided into two parts: the section concerned with Identification Cards, and the photographic section concerned with Public Relations material. Both phases come under the Public Relations Office and the same dark room is used for the developing and printing of Identification Cards and publicity photographs.
The Identification Photo Laboratory, under Ensign Priscilla Morgan, turns out 1,680 Identification Cards every two weeks. This process includes picture taking, developing, printing, typing the information on the cards, fingerprinting the cards in the barracks, putting them in glassine folders and grommeting them.
Recruits' negatives are sent to the Personnel Office and put in the serv- ice jackets. Officers' negatives are given to the officers to keep in their pos- session and civilian negatives are kept on file in the Photo Laboratory. Also filed there are copies of letters from the Personnel Office authorizing the issuance of Identification Cards to replace those lost.
Identification Cards are among the most "secure" material on this sta- tion. Appropriate precautions are taken for the protection of material used in the making and the procedures for issuing them.
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RECREATION OFFICE
T HERE have been many changes in the Recreation Office since it was established under Lieutenant (junior grade) (then Ensign) Kathleen Quinn with the beginning of the training school. Then, one desk, a bare office and a broken-down movie projector constituted Recreation at this activity.
From the first Regiments when the single movie projector had to be changed between reels while the audience sang, to today's two modern projectors, operating without a single mishap in Walton High School and during clement weather, in the Amphitheater, movies alone have come a long way. "Westerns" issued from the Brooklyn Navy Yard have been supplanted by the newest releases from motion picture distributors.
Working closely with the Welfare and Recreation Officer of the THIRD Naval District, the Recreation Office at this school succeeds in giving the "boots" both entertainment and participant recreational activi- ties. Lieutenant (jg) Quinn was assisted in her duties from 3 March 1943 by Lieutenant (junior grade) (then Ensign) Ruth Hagenbuch who was attached to her office. Miss Hagenbuch became Recreation Officer when Miss Quinn was sent to temporary duty with Paramount Pictures in California.
USO concerts are the highlight of many recruits' training, affording an opportunity to see and hear famous artists. The Welfare and Recreation Officer of the THIRD Naval District schedules the dates for USO concerts and entertainment after which the Recreation Office here contacts Mr. Gino Baldini, head of the Concert Division of the USO. Mr. Baldini informs the Recreation Officer what the artists will need in the way of stage facili- ties, and acts in a liaison capacity.
Many of the world's leading artists have performed for the Waves at this training school, among them: José Iturbi, Helen Jepson, Alec Tem- pleton, Igor Piatigorsky, Vladimir Horowitz and Leopold Stokowski. Radio and movie notables such as Frank Sinatra, Ray Milland, Hildegarde and Kate Smith have contributed talent and time to the entertainment of the Waves.
Recreation's Specialists (S) work with the recruits in putting on the Thursday Regimental Variety show and the inter-Company sings. Recrea- tion secured, in addition, the Armed Guard show which appears every other Sunday night and has made the bi-weekly journey from the Brooklyn Navy Yard since the earliest days of the school.
Under the auspices of the Recreation Office with the assistance of the
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Band, which functions under the supervision of Lieutenant L. A. Mind- ling, Assistant to the Commanding Officer, a dance is held every other Friday night for the Outgoing Unit of Waves. Men for the occasion are secured through any Naval activity in the District.
The Specialists (S) who have been assigned to the Recreation Office in the past year have taken over the responsibilities of the Art Committee which holds regular sessions with recruits and furnishes them with materials to make posters and informative visual aids for barracks smoking-rooms. The Specialists (S) have also set up a Shore Liberty Service which operates on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday between 1100 and 1400 from a booth on the mezzanine of Student Hall. Here they dispense information about busses and train schedules, give out subway maps and maps of New York and admission tickets to dances and broadcasts.
The Recreation Office is responsible for the upkeep of the West Lounge, the recruits' glorified living-room, equipped with piano, music, record player, magazines, writing tables and games.
During the course of station reorganization, many projects that once came under Recreation were delegated to other offices, among them the station newspaper, "Conning Tower," which is now under the supervision of the Public Relations Office, and the Singing Platoon which is now under the supervision of the Band Officer.
Always anticipating the recruits' need for leisure time activities, the Recreation Office is well serving its purpose of morale building through entertainment, diversion and environment.
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Practice for Regimental Show.
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Posters in the Making in the Art Room.
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Tennis Exhibition - Dorothy Round and Mary Hardwick, Former British Wightman Cup players.
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Phonograph Records.
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Ping Pong.
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Vladimir Horowitz.
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Leopold Stokowski and Wave.
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Alec Templeton, a Favorite.
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Grand Opera Performance of "Barber of Seville."
Helen Jepson and Wave Rose.
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EXECUTIVE OFFICER'S OFFICE
A S personnel officer charged with the responsibility of seeing that the Commanding Officer's orders are carried out, the Executive Officer, Commander Charles H. Morgan, USNR, has had a very important and constructive hand in the establishment of the U. S. Naval Training School (WR) as it operates today.
Commander Morgan reported for duty at the "U.S.S. Hunter" on 20 April 1943 from the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (WR), North- ampton, Massachusetts, where he served a tour of duty from October, 1942, until detached in April, first as Officer-in-Charge of Communications and then as Instruction Officer Arriving at Northampton at the same time as the first class of V-9 officer candidates, Commander Morgan had a part in the growth of the Wave officers' school as he did in the enlisted Waves' school.
But the experience he brought to both activities goes back to his duty at the Naval Training School, Great Lakes, Illinois to which he was or- dered to duty from inactive status on 31 May 1940, and where he served at different times as Assistant District Communications Officer. Assistant District Enlisted Personnel Officer, Assistant Training Officer and Officer- in-Charge of Training, all for the NINTH Naval District.
By the time he was detached from the Great Lakes station, Commander Morgan had been instrumental in setting up forty-one training schools, many of them at colleges and universities in the District.
Believing that the Waves' training school should conform to the estab- lished set-up for Navy men's training schools, Commander Morgan was instrumental in carrying out the reorganization, under the Commanding Officer's orders, of the Regiments on the company plan calling for eighty recruits to a platoon, three platoons to a company in charge of a Company Commander with Specialists (S) - one to a section, where possible. For- merly, the size of the platoons and the numbers of recruits in each varied.
A believer in the delegation of authority, Commander Morgan gave to Company Commanders full responsibility for the activities and training of their companies and they, in turn, were authorized to place supervisory responsibility upon the Specialists (S). The result was a highly coherent unit of trained women.
In the matter of setting up, by authority of the Commanding Officer, departments and offices on the Navy men's training school plan, several offices not having a counterpart outside the "U.S.S. Hunter" were abol- ished, and others not formerly in existence, were established. Commander
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Morgan had confidence, as did the Commanding Officer, that Wave officers with qualifications for the jobs were as able as male officers to head the departments and offices and as a result of this belief all but five, today, are headed by Women Reserves. The five exceptions are the Medical Department, Supply and Disbursing, First Lieutenant's Office, Selection Office and Provost Marshal's Office.
There is not space here to set down the many detailed progressive changes in the training structure of this school that are attributable to Commander Morgan's belief in the ability of the Women's Reserve of the Navy to conform to the pattern laid down for the men, and to his energies and vision as an organizer. The smoothly functioning "ship" that is the "U.S.S. Hunter" is itself, testimonial to these things as it is to the faith and force of its Skipper.
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Commander Charles H. Morgan, USNR - Executive Officer.
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Commander Morgan and Yeoman at Work.
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PERSONNEL OFFICE
W HEN a new regiment arrives aboard the "U.S.S. Hunter," the first official action is logging them in. This is one of the principal duties of the Personnel Office, which keeps all records on recruits from the time of their arrival to their departure.
From Regiment One through Regiment Forty-one, 69,482 recruits have been logged in by the Personnel Office which also compiles their service jackets. Keeping the records of all under-age enlistments, medical discharges, neuro-psychiatric observation cases, as well as the service jackets for all recruits and Ship's Company, and entering medical, selection and instruction data on these jackets, keep the growing staff constantly busy. The minute detail necessary in keeping service jackets is exemplified by page nine of the jacket, on which is entered official recognition of a Wave responsible for recruiting another Wave into the service.
Working in the Personnel Office requires rigid training and accurate knowledge of official Navy procedure, forms and correspondence, in addi- tion to practical experience. Because of the thorough training and experi- ence necessary, the enlisted personnel of that office was predominantly male at the beginning (all thoroughly trained in that work) and until this spring, male yeomen were still on the muster. As Waves were trained by the men in the meticulous routine of Muster, Receiving, Transferring and Changing Rates, they gradually replaced the men, and on 6 June of this year, the last male yeoman was replaced by a Wave.
When Lieutenant (jg) (then Ensign) Cecilia Gabriel was assigned to the Personnel Office upon the commissioning of the "U.S.S. Hunter," she was the only Wave in an office of four male yeomen, including Chief Yeo- man Lawrence Christiansen. The office had expanded by 12 March 1943, to fourteen male yeomen and eleven Waves, and on 26 May 1943, under- went another increase of complement. Ensign Rita McDonough was assigned as Assistant Personnel Officer on 14 February 1944, and replaced Miss Gabriel as Personnel Officer on 6 July.
From occupying one room in Gillet, the Personnel Office enlarged with its growing personnel to the present three offices it occupies. In addition, Mimeographing and Distribution were placed under Personnel in January.
The trained Wave yeomen, who are now carrying on so splendidly in the Personnel Office, owe their ability to perform their jobs to the Navy men who taught them, with painstaking care and infinite patience, the many details and mazes of official forms necessary for the work.
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The background of the Personnel Office emphasizes the task that is being done in training Waves to replace men, so that when the latter shove off with their sea bags over their shoulders, they go with complete confidence in the women remaining ashore, whom they know are doing a competent job.
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Personnel Office.
Service Jackets.
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EDUCATION OFFICER'S OFFICE
TIEUTENANT BERNARD J. MULLER-THYM, Education Officer,
came aboard when Regiment I was in training at the "U.S.S. Hunter." The Education Officer's work consists of training enlisted per- sonnel for proficiency in a rate and keeping account of the number of ratings available for station personnel. All applications for rates and acceptance and rejection of applicants go through this office.
The boards of examination work in close cooperation with the Educa- tion Officer, suggesting what factors should be stressed in preparing an applicant for a rating examination. Since Lieutenant Muller-Thym has been here, fifty new ratings have been created, although not all of these are avail- able on this station. During the past year and a half, qualifications for most . of the rates have been changed and rewritten. At the present time, a Spe- cialist (S) manual is being prepared by the Education Office.
In addition to his duties in regard to ratings, Lieutenant Muller-Thym is Unit Voting Officer, in charge of administering the Service Men's Voting Law. He is responsible for the dissemination of all information concerning elections to all hands and for the issuance of Federal war ballots for voting.
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T.H.RULE
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Interview for Advanced Rating.
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Advanced Yeoman Class for First Class Yeomen.
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EDUCATIONAL SERVICES OFFICER
E DUCATIONAL Services was inaugurated shortly after the draft bill calling up eighteen-year-old boys for military training was passed because it was considered desirable to continue these interrupted educations. In February, 1944, Lieutenant (jg) Phyllis Bemiss (then Ensign) was sent to Washington to take the course which would qualify her to become the Educational Services Officer at this activity, a position which she has filled since 23 March 1944.
Through Educational Services, Ship's Company and officers at the U. S. Naval Training School (WR) are assisted in continuing their education by taking high school, college or college graduate courses. It supplies text- books for the classes conducted by volunteer lecturers on the station and supplies personnel with self-teaching books.
The services of this office are divided into two types of correspondence courses: the U. S. Armed Forces Institute courses with its headquarters at Madison, Wisconsin, and those given by schools and colleges through- out the country. Any course offered by the U. S. Armed Forces Institute is two dollars and courses given by schools or colleges cost military personnel one-half the published cost; up to twenty dollars, the Navy pays the other half.
High school credits earned up to the point of graduation have been completed on this station by male and Women's Reserve personnel with the assistance of Mrs. Bemiss who went over the lessons with the students in order to help them compensate the lack of a correspondence class.
At present, thirty-five members of Ship's Company are enrolled in extension, mostly college, courses. Renaissance of learning at the "U.S.S. Hunter" is in full swing. One hundred and fifty-eight members of Ship's Company and officers are enrolled in classes held on the station. Volun- tarily taught and attended are six different courses with promise of more to come.
Lieutenant Elizabeth Reynard is teaching American Literature; Ensign Merry Coffey and Lieutenant José Davila teach Spanish; Lieuten- ant Mary Bowman teaches English grammar; Lieutenant (jg) Helen May teaches Psychology; Lieutenant (jg) Eleanor Hyde teaches French and Specialist (T) 3c Mary Rossi teaches shorthand. Some of these courses are offered with college credits.
The Educational Services Office possesses several linguaphones, one being used by Lieutenant (jg) Hyde's French class. Linguaphones are widely used by troops en route for foreign bases and have proven successful in teaching foreign languages to beginners.
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