Though it may seem surprising that the University of Michigan, well inside the coast line of the United States, has a long established Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, operating one of the very few large experimental model basins in the country, and that the Navy and Marine Corps count heavily upon the University in their war training programs, nevertheless it is not so queer when one looks at all the facts. This State has a shore line of 2,213 miles on the Great Lakes and their connecting rivers, and a tremendous amount of shipping annually passes through its waters; the tonnage on the Detroit River is five times the normal foreign tonnage of New York harbor and greater than the combined tonnage of Hamburg, Liverpool, and London before the present war.
The man who started to put salt in these inland waters was Dean Emeritus Mortimer E. Cooley, an Annapolis graduate who came as Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1881 and that same year offered our first course in Naval Architecture. In 1809, on his recommendation, the first appropriation to establish a department of Marine Engineering was made, and when the West Engineering Building was erected in 1904, Dean Cooley took advantage of the desirability of a large reservoir of water for hydraulics to get the present 300-foot naval tank included in the structure. In the meantime, in 1900, Dean Emeritus Herbert C. Sadler was added to the staff. For many years he headed the instructional and research work of the department, being succeeded by E. M. Bragg, the present chairman, in 1928. The tank has been the means of improving the design of hundreds of craft, including cargo ships, racing yachts, towing barges, fireboats and submarines.
So Michigan was, even before December 7, 1941, on more than nodding terms with the Navy. In 1940 a highly successful Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps was established, and North Hall became, to all intents and purposes, a ship. This summer the connection becomes even closer, when more than 1300 Navy and Marine Corps men in the College Training Program are expected, and, besides, the Navy's Postgraduate School of Naval Architecture, with a personnel of 80, is to be brought here from Annapolis. The Marine Corps contingent is expected to include 200 men in the basic course and 100 advanced engineers; the Navy men will be distributed between the basic course, advanced engineering, the N.R.O.T.C., and the premedical course. The University of Michigan will be one of only 27 institutions in the country to have both Army and Navy contingents, and one of a very much smaller number with trainees from Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.
The Michigan Alumnus
Jun 19, 1943, Page 428
