Valley City, North Dakota, in World War II: Navy Officers and Cadet Nurses

During World War II the people of Valley City, North Dakota, joined the home front in the familiar ways — scrap drives, war bond and stamp drives, manufacturing, victory gardens, civil defence and military service. The town also took part in two distinctive federal education programs: the Navy's V-12 program and the United States Cadet Nurse Corps.

The V-12 program

By late 1942 the U.S. Navy had grown by more than sixty percent. To meet its urgent need for commissioned officers — and to slow falling college enrolment — President Franklin Roosevelt asked the military to bring colleges and universities into its mobilisation plans. The Navy's answer was the V-12 College Training Program, with classes at private and state colleges and universities. Men enrolled in the Navy's Reserve Officers Training Program, enlisted men recommended by their commanding officers, and high school seniors who passed a qualifying exam could all take part.

In 1943 the Navy contracted Valley City State Teachers College, now Valley City State University, to host a program. It began on July 1, 1943, when the first 233 trainees reported to campus. Women's dormitories became barracks, and the trainees joined fully in college life, sports included, with the V-12 Battalion band playing on campus for review every Saturday. After four months of college classes — including seamanship and damage control — trainees went on to 120 days at a Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School. By 1945, 532 men had passed through the college's program.

The Cadet Nurse Corps

A U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps recruiting poster.

Where V-12 trained men, the Cadet Nurse Corps trained women. In June 1943, to ease the country's nursing shortage, Congress passed the Bolton Nurse Training Act, creating the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. Its members pledged to serve in military or essential civilian nursing for the duration of the war.

Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Valley City asked to join, becoming one of 1,100 schools across the country in the program. Its cadets received a monthly stipend and scholarships covering tuition and fees, and senior cadets could be assigned to special training. Graduates went on to staff American hospitals and to care for the wounded when they came home. In all, 180,000 women joined the Corps nationwide, and it was credited with helping to keep civilian nursing from collapsing during the war.

Remembering

Valley City keeps its wartime story alive through oral histories, historic markers, Memorial Day celebrations, the 164 Infantry Memorial Highway, the V-12 Program Memorial at Valley City State University, Veterans Memorial Park and exhibits at the Barnes County Historical Society Museum.

Sources

Based on "Valley City, North Dakota," published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The article's photographs — a 1942 parade credited to the Valley City Times-Record, and the V-12 memorial credited to the City of Valley City — are not reproduced.