New PMS & T to Command Army Trainees

Colonel William S. Wood, FA, new PMS&T and head of the Quartermaster Corps and Field Artillery ROTC units, will be commandant of the entire Army Specialized Training program upon its inception here, he explained early this week. Taking over official command of the Harvard ROTC organization, Colonel Wood explained that the exact date for the new program's beginning is still foggy.

Former commander of Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont, Colonel Wood said, "The AST will begin at Harvard just as soon us the Army can get it in motion." When the new men do get here, the Colonel hopes "to inculcate in them the high standards that have been set by the Harvard ROTC's during the past two decades."

Knows ROTC

Colonel Wood has previously trained ROTC units. His post in Vermont was the site of the summer camp formerly attended by members of the reserve corps after their junior year, and he supervised the Yale and Harvard Field Artillery cadets during their drills there until they were abolished last year.

Colonel Francis A. Doniat, former head of the unit, who left on March 11, is now in Washington for a short term of "indoctrination" before reporting to Omaha, Nebraska, to take command of War Manpower Commission activities for a large sector of the mid-west.

The new PMS&T, who will live at the Hotel Continental while on duty here, explained that many of the details on the Army program are of necessity vague, but he did state that from 2,000 to 3,000 men are expected to comprise the Harvard contingent.

They will be taught presumably by civilian faculty men, but a staff of about 65 officers will also be required to take care of the large group. The present Shannon Hall organization will be retained only as long as Field Artillery and Quartermaster ROTC men are left in College, which, according to present plans, will be until the end of May.

V. M. I. Graduate

Born in Virginia in 1879. Colonel Wood was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in Artillery in 1902, after graduating from Virginia Military institute. During World War 1, he was a Lieutenant Colonel and later a Colonel overseas reverting to a Major in 1919. He was re appointed a full Colonel in 1984.

In his long term of service. Colonel Wood has seen duty with both the Quartermaster Corps and the Inspector General's Department, as well as the Field Artillery, his first and present love.