Air Cadets

[cadetat6]

This is for Army Cadets

Prior to the end of 1943, Scott Field received its radio students from Basic Training Centers such as AAF Basic Training Center No. 4, Miami Beach, Florida. However, near the end of 1943, the AAF found itself with a large surplus of Aviation Cadets and began eliminating them from the Aviation Cadet program and sending them directly to tech schools.
After Pearl Harbor, the AAF launched a massive recruiting program to enlist every college student they get for their Aviation Cadet program. They knew that the flight training facilities were not adequate to train all that were recruited and planned to maintain a reserve of 54,000 men in the program at all time. The surplus were placed in the Air Force Enlisted Reserve to be held until needed. By October 1942, there were 50,000 in the reserve and another 20,000 already in the service that had qualified for the cadets waiting to begin flight training. At the beginning of 1943, there were 93,000 men waiting to commence flight training. The War Manpower Commission learned about the men in the reserve and brought pressure upon Hap Arnold to get them into the war effort. As a result, the AAF began calling them into active duty in February and by the end of March all of the cadets in the reserve had been called in.
But, the flight schools were full and Arnold had to have a place to put them. As a result, Arnold set up the College Training Detachments and expanded the basic training program to include the cadets to hold the cadets until training facilities were available. Calling all of the men into active duty at one time created a backlog problem that the AAF was never able to solve. Beginning at the end of 1943, the AAF determined that they had all the pilots that they needed, they had to cut back on pilot training and had to get rid of some of the cadets. Many of these surplus Avaiation Cadets ended up as enlisted men in the technical schools of the AAF such
as Scott Field. Even worse, large numbers of them ended up in the Infantry.
From 1 September 1943 to 1 March 1944, 4,931 former cadets were entered into the radio mechanics school at Scott Field alone. In February 88.3 per cent of the students were ex-cadets. The schools student capacity was in excess of 14,000 which meant that something in excess of 12,000 washed out cadets were in the school at this time. This did not include several thousand in Area 4 waiting to be sent to radio operator-mechanics school. Almost all of them wanted to be reclassified. Many complained to the Inspector General's Office. Those with an educational background that qualified them for other duty tried to get reassigned to that work. "To all of these requests, the Army replied with a firm 'No'" The policy of "higher headquarters" to wash out Aviation Cadets and send them to technical schools created a great problem for Scott Field. (See: History of Scott field, 7-7-43 to 3-1-44, Ch. I, pps. 16-19, Ch. XVIII
When the Army Air Force recruited the college students in 1942 as Aviation Cadets from the colleges and universities across the land, they they told the students that they were needed as officers in the rapidly expanding Army Air Force and would become pilots, navigators, or bombardiers. Furthermore, those that did not choose to fly and had two years of college would become an Aviation Cadet Ground Crew and commissioned in armaments, communication, ,meteorology, photography, or engineering. But, when the AAF discovered at the end of 1943 that their over zealous recruiting and over estimation of loss rate had created a large surplus of pilots, they ignored all of the promises made to the college students and began transfering them to technical schools. This did not create a pleasAnt situation for the schools or the ex-cadets.