This year's congressional and presidential approval of
bills authorizing more than $160 billion
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan makes one wonder what
Johns Hopkins administrators in July
1942 would have thought about such staggering sums. During
that time they were hard-pressed to find
a few hundred dollars to purchase wooden rifles for the
Officers Training Corps.
Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec.
7, 1941, and the country went into
high gear to build up its military capability, the Army
recalled all the rifles being used by ROTC cadets
across the country. They were old Springfield rifles from
World War I, and they were used mostly
for drill purposes, but the Army said it needed every one
it could get. What to do? The officers at
ROTC suggested that a wooden rifle would enable the Johns
Hopkins battalion to continue to drill on
Homewood Field or on the lawn in front of Gilman Hall.
The unit needed 400 dummy guns, and quickly, before
the fall semester began. A Capt. Reeder,
under the direction of the unit's commanding officer, Col.
Lawrence Barrett, drew up the
specifications. It was estimated that the cost of making
the guns would be $800. Reeder told Provost
P. Stewart Macaulay that the Army had no funds to reimburse
the university for the cost.
In a copy of a memorandum, dated July 22, 1942, now in
the Hamburger Archives of the
Eisenhower Library, Macaulay informed university President
Isaiah Bowman that Barrett believed that
"no other ROTC unit in the country would be so equipped and
he believes that we have a jump on all the
rest in the appearance and economy of the model we
"Without any authority, whatever, " Macaulay wrote to
Bowman, "I have told him to go ahead
and order the lumber so that production can be started at
once. If your decision is against this
expenditure, there will not be any appreciable loss since
the lumber can be used for other purposes."
Macaulay said he thought that the project should go ahead
"and that we should speed it up in every
practical way." Bowman replied in a large, bold scrawl
across the bottom of the memo, "Approved
An order for 400 wood rifles was placed promptly with
G.S. Robertson, 4623 Wilmslow Rd.,
Baltimore. The final cost was $500. The amount the Army
awarded the university for developing the
rifle was $19.
This is part of an occasional series of historical
pieces by Ross Jones, vice president and secretary
emeritus. A 1953 graduate of Johns Hopkins, Jones returned
in 1961 as assistant to President Milton
S. Eisenhower and was a close aide to six of the
university's 13 presidents.