Army Specialized Training Program

The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) was a military training program instituted by the United States Army during World War II to meet wartime demands both for junior officers and soldiers with technical skills. Conducted at a number of American universities, it offered training in such fields as engineering, foreign languages, and medicine.

ASTP differed from the V-12 Navy College Training Program in producing technically trained personnel rather than officers as its primary goal, though recruits were expected to become officers upon completion. The program was approved in September 1942 and implemented in December that year.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor sparked U.S. entry into the war, the Army apparently suspended at least certain advanced elements of Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) training (around 1943). This was a particularly problematic situation for the nation's numerous land-grant universities, whose constitutions include the agreement to train "militia." A program which could provide a "continuous and accelerated flow of high grade technicians and specialists needed by the Army" would both help the war effort and offset ROTC enrollment turndown. In addition, a sudden and massive emergency requirement for replacement junior officer during an anticipated amphibious invasion of the Japanese mainland loomed large.

Entry requirements were high: a minimum of 115 (later 120) on the Army OCT-X3 Examination for Officers Candidate School, a Stanford-Binet-type IQ test, compared to 110 for OCS candidates. All new soldiers were required to complete 13 weeks of infantry basic training before being assigned to a college campus. Col. Henry Beukema, a Professor of History at West Point, was named Director of the program. He was responsible for sending 200,000 soldiers to 227 colleges at cost of $127,000,000. While high school graduates at least 17 years of age but less than 18 were offered a chance to apply, the majority of participants were already on active duty in the Army.

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