Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Learning To Fly: Military Aviation Training At Middle Tennessee State University And The Transformation Of Southern Higher Education In World War Ii, Christopher T. Crawford Jr.

History Theses & Dissertations

In December 1942 the Army Air Forces created the Army Air Forces College Training Program (AAFTP) to reduce the backlog of aviation recruits. This program, designed to provide recruits with basic flight instruction and education, established 153 units known as College Training Detachments (CTD) on college campuses throughout the U.S. This thesis provides a history of the AAFTP and examines the wartime role of universities and the effect of military training on colleges in the American South. The first chapter examines the AAFTP from the military perspective, the state of the AAF leading into WWII, and the forces that drove …