Sidney B. Bennett, Civil Pilot Training Program Correspondence

Born in 1906 in Brooklyn, NY, Sidney Bachley Bennett graduated Hamilton in the class of 1928, returning in 1939 as an assistant to the Secretary of the College, Wally Johnson. In 1941, Bennett was appointed to the just-created post of Secretary of Admission. When wartime disrupted college admissions, Bennett administered the War Training Service (WTS) (previously known as the Civilian Pilot Training Program) at Hamilton. After the war, he remained the Secretary of Admission until his retirement in 1971. He died in Clinton, NY in 1987.

In 1938, President Roosevelt approved the Civilian Aeronautics Authority to teach college students to fly in a program called the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Primarily, it was to boost the private flying industry, but secondarily, a reserve of trained pilots was militarily valuable. After Pearl Harbor, the program was exclusively devoted to the procurement and training of men for military service, and the CPTP was renamed to the War Training Service (WTS). Pilots were trained depending on the technical requirements of the Army and Navy, lived in college dormitories, and took flying and ground school lessons. Certification was granted after 8 weeks. Hamilton College’s WTS program was run in conjunction with the Utica Aviation School and provided 3 semester hours of credit. In July of 1943, the WTS program at Hamilton was discontinued due to violations and non-compliance with regulations.

Sources: Hamilton College Necrology, The Putt-putt Air Force: The Story of the Civilian Pilot Training Program and the War Training Service (1939-1944)