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A train slowly pulled into the Marietta station early in March 1943. On board were 250 officers and cadets who would transform the struggling Marietta College into a training center for American pilots.
Male enrollment at the college had dropped dramatically as young men by the millions headed off to war instead of college. The infusion of students would provide the college with a needed boost and provide the young men with a welcoming community as they prepared to be pilots.
The members of the 25th training detachment of the U.S. Army Air Corps took up residence in Fayerweather Hall and Dorothy Webster Hall. The "Dorothy" part of the name was dropped temporary from the traditionally female dorm's name. The students who had been living in both dorms were moved to several other buildings that had quickly been converted to dorms.
The cadets took classes in physics, mathematics, geography, map reading, history and English from both the existing facility and from several instructors added to help.
They also took military and flight lessons. The flight portion of training took place in West Virginia, where they each had to have 10 flight hours at the Parkersburg Airport.
The men in the Marietta group came from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Marietta College was one of 280 colleges and universities used as training centers with about half of those helping to train the Air Corps units. The Army Air Corps eventually turned into the U.S. Air Force in September 1947. The group was far from your typical college students. They all passed the physical tests to become a pilot, so not a one of them wore glasses. They had been split off alphabetically from a larger group so they all had last names between Stone and Webb. Their wakeup alarm went off at 0550 in the form of reveille with taps closing out the day at 2200.
They would march to and from classes and would march down the city streets singing the Air Corps "Off we go to into the wild blue yonder…"
The group even established their own newspaper called the "Flypaper" that among other things encouraged the cadets to attend area churches and take advantage of the area pool that had been open for their use.
The female students at the college established a USO type group for the cadets and staged parties and dances for the cadets. The cadets reportedly had a good relationship with residents, attending churches and accepting invitations to dinner.
By April 1944 the need for additional pilots was starting to drop and the programs at Marietta and other schools were discontinued.
Following the end of the war, returning soldiers would again fill the college as they started taking advantage of the benefits of the G.I bill.
Art Smith is online manager for The Times, he can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com. His column appears in the Weekend edition.