6 ROTC members from GT hold flags

Tech History

100 YEARS OF ROTC AT GEORGIA TECH

From their roots in a student-run Signal Corps, Georgia Tech’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs have trained thousands of military and industry leaders.

Winter 2017 Vol. 93 No. 4 | BY MICHAEL PEARSON


More than a century ago, Georgia Tech students watched with what must have been foreboding as World War I swept across Europe. They decided to form a student-run Signal Corps, to begin wearing uniforms, and to do what they could to help defend the United States should war come calling. From that beginning, a rich tradition of military service was born. This year, the Institute celebrates 100 years of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).
GT ROTC members pose with Buzz and the Wreck

1. GEORGIA TECH HAS A RICH TRADITION of developing leaders. This is true in academia, government and industry. It's true for the military, as well. Since the earliest formal military education at Georgia Tech, in 1917, thousands of Georgia Tech students have gone on to become generals, admirals, Medal of Honor recipients — game-changers in their field.

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GT Students in 1917 marching across campus

2. ROTC IS A TRAINING PROGRAM for young men and women who want to become officers in the Army, Navy, Marines or Air Force. Most cadets and midshipmen spend four years learning about the military and leadership in a highly regimented program spelled out by each service. It wasn't always so formal, however. Way back in 1915, students organized their own Signal Corps, and they started wearing uniforms on campus and began to practice marching around the time the United States entered World War I in 1917. Here, Tech students are seen in a photo from that year labeled, simply, "our hike."

GT School of Military Aeronautics, 1917

3. THE FIRST KNOWN MILITARY TRAINING PROGRAM known to have taken place at Georgia Tech was the School of Military Aeronautics, an 8-week ground school for pilots that wasn't open to regular students. It opened in the summer of 1917, helping train some of the first pilots for the United States in World War I. As war needs shifted, it closed the following winter and was replaced by an aviation supply officers school.

Lt. Elmer Hubbard in uniform

4. LIEUTENANT ELMER HUBBARD was the first in a long line of military science professors to be assigned to Georgia Tech. The Army roused him from retirement in 1917 to lead military education at the school. He was an artilleryman, a mathematics-heavy military discipline that current Army ROTC commander Lieutenant Colonel John Meister says fascinates some of his Georgia Tech cadets to this day.

GT President John Matheson oversees ROTC drills

5. GEORGIA TECH PRESIDENT JOHN MATHESON, himself a veteran, presided over the formal establishment of ROTC at Georgia Tech on March 30, 1918. Here, he reviews cadets.

Student Army Training Corps at GT, 1918

6. ROTC HASN'T BEEN THE ONLY MILITARY TRAINING PROGRAM for Georgia Tech students. In October 1918, the entire student body was sworn into the Student Army Training Corps, a short-lived program to train college students for the military during World War I. Around this time, Georgia Tech's faculty voted to make participation in military training compulsory for all freshmen and sophomores. That requirement would stay in place for nearly 50 years.

ROTC students sit in a truck bed

7. IN ITS EARLY YEARS, Army ROTC at Georgia Tech focused on engineering and math-heavy disciplines, such as the Signal Corps and Coastal Artillery.

Ellis Bullock posing with a plane

8. LATER, TRAINING EXPANDED to include infantry tactics and even the then-new-fangled world of military aviation.

ROTC students boarding a ship, 1927

9. WHILE LAND-LOCKED ATLANTA doesn't come to mind as a mighty maritime city, it has a strong tradition of producing well-trained officers for the Navy. A highly technical service, the Navy chose Georgia Tech as one of six universities — and the only one in the South — to host its new naval ROTC units in 1926. The training involved sailing whaleboats around Piedmont Lake. Here, Navy ROTC cadets from Georgia Tech board a ship in 1927 as part of their summer training.

Former GT logo, patched onto a sleeve

10. WORLD WAR II saw the Georgia Tech campus transform into a largely military encampment. Thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines were assigned here to attend class as part of specialized training programs. The school built temporary barracks around campus. Athletic fields were used for gunnery practice in addition to sports. ROTC programs continued to operate, but few graduated due to personnel needs.

Members of Navy's V-12 program at GT stretching

11. ONE SUCH PROGRAM was the Navy's V-12, designed to produce technically minded officers at an accelerated clip. But, like all military personnel, they spent plenty of time doing physical training, as seen here in this photo from 1943.

ROTC students practicing gunnery skills

12. LIKE THESE ARMY ROTC PARTICIPANTS participants demonstrating gunnery skills during World War II, many of today's ROTC cadets can expect to spend time deployed in combat, or in support of combat operations, around the world as the United States continues to fight terror.

Air Force ROTC program at GT

13. THE END OF WORLD WAR II allowed Georgia Tech to return to its roots as a civilian institution, but ROTC rolled on. In 1950, the Air Force established an ROTC program at Georgia Tech.
Female member of ROTC stand with male members

14. FIVE YEARS LATER, IN 1955, the Air Force ROTC program would become the first at Tech to allow women to take military training courses. Today, 29 percent of ROTC students enrolled in ROTC programs hosted by Georgia Tech are female.

Navy ROTC float used in GT Homecoming Parade

15. IN 1965, THE UNIVERSITY ELIMINATED the requirement that all freshmen and sophomores participate in ROTC. While some campuses were rocked by protests over the presence of ROTC amid growing anger over the Vietnam war, little such clamor occurred at Tech. Here, the Navy ROTC sails the "USS Fubar" as part of the Ramblin' Wreck parade in 1969.

GT Army ROTC members holding rifles

16. WITH THE END OF COMPULSORY ENROLLMENT IN ROTC, the cadet corps was smaller, but continued to turn out officers. This is a photo of Army cadets from the 1970s.

Air Force ROTC members marching on West Campus

18. THE AIR FORCE HAS 40 CADETS enrolled at Georgia Tech. Its graduates go on to military careers as pilots, security officers, and technical experts.

Army ROTC members standing

19. ARMY ROTC INCLUDES 32 Georgia Tech students. Once commissioned, many become infantry officers. Some carry on the Tech tradition of producing Signal Corps and artillery officers, among many other specialties.

Navy ROTC members stand in formation on the SAC Fields

20. NAVY ROTC IS THE SMALLEST of the ROTC programs based at Georgia Tech, but has the highest percentage of Institute students enrolled — 57 of the program's 72 midshipmen. These officers in training will go on to careers as aviators, surface warfare officers, Marine infantry commanders and more.

Army ROTC member stand in front of McCamish Pavillion

17. TODAY, ROTC CONTINUES TO THRIVE on Georgia Tech's campus. Army ROTC, for instance, has grown by more than 31 percent in the last five years. About 130 Georgia Tech students are enrolled in one of the three programs.


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