Evening star., 1951-11-22
Navy Graduate School
Rolls From Annapolis
To West Coast Base
By W. H. Shippen
Stor Sfoff Sorresnondent

ANNAPOLIS, Md. Nov 22.--
The Naval Postgraduate School
here was either packing up or
rolling West for California today
students, faculty, books and
equipment.
Final classes were held Tuesday
in the over-crowded. makeshift
accommodations of Halligan Hall,
a former Marine barracks on the
Naval Academy reservation, which
was repainted a few generations
ago and dedicated to higher
learning.
While Navy Secretary Kimball
and other officials lent a formal
touch to the closing, there was an
air of eXuberance about the
senior students scarcely matched
by their juniors at June Week
celebrations. After many false
starts, they were en- route for
a wider field at Monterey, Calf.
City To Lose 500 Families.
The move means that Annapolis
will lose almost 500 families, in
cluding those of some IS profess
SorS and up to 375 student officers
enrolled in technical courses
running from one to three years.
Vacancies will be quickly filled,
however.
A dozen departments at the
Academy are waiting to move in
to the school quarters, and the
homes are re-occupied immediate
ly by service families on waiting
lists. The personal loss will be felt
much longer, according to Mayor
Roscoe c. Rowe of Annapolis, a
speaker at the schools final as
Isembly in Maryland.
Mr.. Rowe and Vice Admiral
Harry w. Hill. superintendent of
the Academy, told the educators
and students the community has
suffered a cultural loss long to
be remembered.
One consolation, they said, is
the fact that the 42-year- old
school now can find facilities
more in keeping with present and
future needs.
Move Declared Urgent
Secretary Kimball told the as
sembly the move was urgent for
two reasons - the school needs
more space in which to expand and
the Academy needs even the out
moded buildings occupied by the
school. He said, amid applause,
that. as former resident. he well
coined the school to California.
The school was established in
1909, when the increasing COM
plexity of naval operations in an
industrial age demanded higher
engineering skills and more spe-
cialization in various fields. En-
gineering courses include elec-
tronics, aeronautical ordnance,
communications, metallurgy and
the like.
The school is said to be the only |
service institution authorized to
grant masters and doctors de-
.grees. A few students are ac-
Icepted from other branches of the
services and from foreign coun-
tries. |
Trek Planned in Detail.
The 3,000-mile transcontinental
trek. planned in detail by the
Navy's Bureau of Supplies and
Accounts, is perhaps the first yet
undertaken by an institution of
higher learning in this country.
The move is being made by
truck. rail, sea and air transport
and by private automobile. Equip
ment ranges from delicate chem
Iical balances and microscopes to
huge testing machines, boilers and
wind tunnels. A library of some
10000 books is included.
The new school will be located
on 606-acre tract near the beach
at Monterey. The technical
branch will be consolidated with
a general school for graduate line
officers in a f1ve-story former
hotel building. |
Rear Admiral E. E. Hermann,
of the Postgradu-
ate School, said construction of aI
new engineering building probably
will start in May or June, followed
by a library, auditorium and other
buildings. The plans call for COM
pletion in four or five years.
Glasses Resume February 18.
The students now pulling out OF
Annapolis will resume classes on
February 18 for the second half of
the school year. Many of them
already have departed with wives
and families.
Behind them they left black
boards scraWled with California
or Bust" slogans and cartoons.
The professors were loath to erase
the sentiments-some even added
a few of their own.
Ever since 1919, the expanding
school has been seeking larger
quarters. Classrooms were impro-
vised in Railways and Easements,
a 1nh