Offices of ROTC Write of Busy Summers Passed by Military, Naval Harvardians

The following article was written for the CRIMSON by Captain Lawrence B. Bixby, assistant professor of Military Science and Tactics.

The Harvard and Yale Juniors who are enrolled in Military Science at their respective institutions buried the hatchet, smoked the pipe of peace, and united for six weeks of practical military training at Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont this summer. Camp opened on June 27 and the first two weeks were spent in the concurrent camp at Fort Ethan Allen where the formal training was done. The last four weeks were spent deepen into the Green Mountains, under the slopes of Mount Mansfield, where facilities were available for artillery firing and the more practical side of field training. All hands agreed that the latter camp was the more enjoyable, placed as it was beside a cold mountain brook that had been dammed to make a swimming hole and, incidentally, a ducking pond for people who knocked more than a fair share of home runs in the inter-section soft ball league.

With twenty-four students from Harvard and twenty-nine from Yale the honors of the camp were evenly distributed. Harvard topped the lot when Francis X. Leary, '38 was awarded "The United States Field Artillery Association Medal for that Field Artillery student who, during the 1937 ROTC Camp, best exemplified, in outstanding soldierly characteristics, the high standards of the arm." Albert E. Brunelli, '38, topped the list of pistol shots in the camp by qualifying as a Pistol Expert with an average of 90.7. An average of 85 per cent is required for such qualification. Phillip M. Andress, '37, also qualified as Expert. Richard G. Labovitz, '38 and Wallace H. Cox, '38 qualified as Sharpshooters with averages over 78 per cent. Alfred M. Torrielli, '38, John Fox, '37, Keith H. Higgs, '37, Lawrence E. Marcus, '38. Joseph Franklin, '38, and Philip A. Lief, '37, qualified as Markmen with an average of over 60 per cent.

In the artillery firing Alfred M. Torrielli, '38, Joseph Franklin, '38, and William P. Bittenbender, '37, distinguished themselves by their ability to conduct the fire of the 75 mm Guns.

Among those who acted as Battery Commander for the student battery during the camp was Joseph H. Nee, '38, whose commanding presence enabled him to discharge his duties in an excellent manner. He proved himself equally adept at kitchen police the following week, for all of the duties at camp are assigned by roster in order to give each student as much first hand knowledge of practical military matters as is possible in the short period of training.

One of the high spots of the field work was a night occupation of gun positions without benefit of lights or moon, and subsequent firing at daybreak, with service ammunition, to check the accuracy of the tpographical operations by which the guns were pointed at their respective targets. The rigors of field service were profusely illustrated on the night of July 30-31st when the Harvard-Yale Battery marched, by truck convey, to Fort Ticonderoga and bivouaced for the night beside the old stone ramparts. It was the first night spent in the open with only pup-tents overhead. Mother Nature celebrated the occasion with a generous baptism of cloudbursts, first from the east, then from the west, and some claim that it rained up as well as down. Dawn came, at long last, with a rising sun, a clear sky, and the fatigue trousers of Robert V. Smith, Yale '38, fluttering wildly in the breeze from the flagstaff on the old fort.

At the close of camp the members of the Class of '37 received their commissions an Second Lieutenants, Field Artillery Reserve. These were Philip M. Andress, William P. Bittenbender, John Fox, Keith H. Higgs, Philip A. Lief received a certificate which will entitle him to be commissioned when he reaches his 21st birthday.

The members of the Class of '38 departed from camp with pockets full of "pay and allowances," ready to return to college and assume their duties as cadet officers in the ROTC unit this fall. The class of '38 was represented by John Briggs III, Albert E. Brunelli, John F. Casey, Wallace H. Cox, Edwin C. Davis, Joseph Franklin, John H. Hewitt, John F. P. Hill, Shepard Jerome, Jay W. Kaufmann, Richard G. Labovitz, Francis X. Leary, Lawrence H. Marcus, Joseph F. Nee, William P. O'Connor, Jr., Edward H. Osgood, Jr., Philip N. Stamas, Robert Sullivan, Alfred M. Torrielli