The Daily Alaska Empire

UW ROTC UNIT IS
COMING TO JUNEAU

Student officers of the University of Washington's ROTC Unit will be off to Alaska on a training cruise during their spring holiday. This will be the second annual trip north aboard the Army Transportation Corps vessel FS-210. Leaving the University dock at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 19, the ship, with forty cadets aboard, will proceed directly to Juneau along the inside passage.

Enroute the students will receive on-the-job training in various departments of the ship, observing and assisting the regular army crew member assigned to each station. They will also fill all the positions of the Transport Commander and his staff, rotating jobs so as to learn as much as possible. There will be, in addition, conference and demonstration type training in navigation, seamanship, stevedoring and cargo handling, gear usage and other subjects.

The ship is completely equipped with special devices for instruction and aids to navigation. It has the same radar and gyrocompass equipment as a vessel three times its 180-foot length.

This type of training is unusual and entirely new since the war. Special permission had to be obtained from the Department of the Army, and the University of Washington ROTC Unit is the only one in the country which has so far been so venturesome, according to Major James D. Donlon, Jr., the officer who will be in charge of the trip.

Another unusual feature of this year's trip is that several Naval ROTC students will be taken along. This type of inter-service co-operation is evidence of the carrying out of the spirit of the merging of the armed forces, according to Captain Charles D. Emory, Naval ROTC head, who will make the selection of honor students of his unit to accompany the army cruise.

Arriving in Juneau on the evening of March 22, the cadet officers will have the following day and evening as a break in the routine of the ship's duties to enjoy sightseeing and entertainment which may be provided ashore. The hospitality extended by the people of Juneau to the students on their last visit was almost overwhelming, the boys reported at the time.

Following the stop at Juneau, the ship will turn southward again and stop for a time at Wrangell and then at Ketchikan and Prince Rupert. They will return to Seattle on Sunday, March 28.

All the students who go on the trip will be in the status of volunteers. Selection of the actual sailing list from more than 120 applicants has been made on the basis of scholarship and demonstrated leadership in Military Science. In fact, they will be paying for their rations, for, as civilians, they are not authorized to be fed at government expenses. However, by the standards of the previous trip, their ration money will buy them some wonderful "chow" in very large quantities.

The cadet officers will be in the uniforms issued them for wear at the University for the duration of the trip. special equipment such as cold-climate parkas will be issued during the voyage.