OFF TO WAR

Just before William D. Shambroom left for Notre Dame midshipmen's training school in May of 1943, he donated all of his clothes, except a tuxedo, to a Phillips Brooks House clothing drive, got rid of almost all of his textbooks and carted his overstuffed chair from his Dunster House common room to his girlfriend's Cabot House suite in the Radcliffe Quadrangle.

Shambroom skipped Commencement exercises 50 years ago to spend his last civilian days with his girl-friend and then boarded a train to South Bend, Ind., the following day. Like many Harvard and Radcliffe graduates of the class of 1943, Shambroom says his Harvard memories were largely shaped by the impact of World War II.

The Harvard campus, as well as its students, was transformed. Perceived as an imminent threat to the safety of the United States, the war provoked few protests and little doubt about United States participation, and the Harvard and Radcliffe communities adapted quickly to the many precautions and demands of the war effort, according to 1943 graduates interviewed last week.

"[The war] wasn't Vietnam, it wasn't Korea and Hitler was a real, definite menace," says Nelson R. Knox. "It seemed a war was going on and we were going to be a part of it. At 21, you're immortal."

Immediately following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, both Harvard and Radcliffe mobilized quickly to meet the demands of World War II's unexpected escalation.

On the morning of December 8--the day after the bombing--then University President James Bryant Conant '14 summoned all Harvard students to Sanders Theatre, where he broadcast the famous "day of infamy" speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and then pledged all the resources of the University to the war effort.

Within several weeks of this guarantee of support, Harvard's traditional university landscape metamorphosed into an army base. Soldiers arrived in the Yard, and khaki uniforms settled into the first year dormitories converted into Navy barracks. First-year students moved to the upperclass houses

By day, life for Harvard students

The University mobilized quickly to meet new demands. revolved around classes. But by afternoon, many Harvard men reported to Soldier's Field for drill practice offered under the auspices of the Athletic Department. Senior ROTC students took charge of the drilling, which lasted for approximately two hours per week.

Designated students within each house also served as air raid coordinators, who hurried students out of their dorm rooms to makeshift basement bomb shelters whenever practice air sirens sounded throughout the Boston area. The air raid coordinators, trained in disarming thermite bombs, were required to wear helmets and armbands whenever a siren sounded.

Shambroom, as a coordinator for Dunster House, several times led students in his entryway in bomb drills to basement squash courts doubling as shelters. Canned water and food stocked shelter shelves, and radio announcements blared during the drills assuring the public that there was no emergency, Shambroom says.

With the numerous volunteer and training efforts and what many 1943 grads call a "tremendous sense of patriotism" dominating campus, many Harvard students accelerated their studies and graduated early in order to serve.

Many men received their degrees at a special January Commencement ceremony held in Memorial Church, with overflow seating in Memorial Hall, listening to the radio broadcast of the exercises. Remaining members of the Class of 1943 participated in the June 1943 exercises, actually held for the Class of 1944.

"There was a feeling of patriotism in the air and almost all my friends and I felt we would serve when the time came because it was the patriotic thing to do," says Richmond N. Hutchins, a retired Episcopal member of the clergy residing in Ovid, N.Y.

Despite being told by the draft board that he could finish his college studies, Hutchins was drafted in December of his senior year and immediately began his officer training. He returned for summer school in 1946, weeks after he finished his service.

Approximately 40 percent of Harvard men in the Class of '43 served in WWII, according to estimates of several graduates interviewed. Almost all men volunteered to fight in the war and there were practically no draftees, according to Ramer B. Holtan.

Holtan, a retired lawyer currently living in Naples, Fla., completed his studies early in 1942 and served in the ROTC artillery unit. With diploma in hand, he left Harvard and headed to Fort Sill and eventually to Europe.

"There was a sense that people were leaving [campus] and within a couple of years, people were dead from Guadalcanal," says Thomas R. Goethals. "There was a feeling of the fleetingness of life and there was a tendency to eat, drink and be merry--to hell with our studies, we thought."

For Goethals, the decision to volunteer for service was a matter of carrying on a family tradition. A sophomore when Pearl Harbor was bombed, Goethals says the war was a "troubled time" for him because he had difficulty deciding if he should complete his years at Harvard or enlist as many of his classmates did.

Although his "first inclination was to enlist immediately," Goethals, a retired teacher from Vineyard Haven, Mass., says he decided to remain at Harvard and join his father later, who had dropped his medical practice and enlisted before the war started.

"Much of my undergraduate years consisted of great night-long bull sessions deciding whether to enlist or enroll in medical school," says Goethals, adding that because of this internal struggle, he "didn't enjoy Harvard at all."

He also says he felt isolated from world events within the walls of Harvard Yard because "the day after Pearl Harbor, I went to Latin class and the professor droned on as if nothing had happened in the world."

The war, however, did touch upon the personal lives of Harvard and Radcliffe students with insidious discrimination directed toward "the enemy."

The day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a Japanese-American member of the Radcliffe Class of '43 was in Harvard Square purchasing supplies. On her way back to the Radcliffe Quad, she was stoned and bloodied.

Still, the campus remained relatively peaceful during wartime. While most men participated in drill practice or served in ROTC, Radcliffe students also aided in the war effort by volunteering in local hospitals, working part-time jobs after class, or participating in women's volunteer corps such as WAVES and WAACS.

And some accelerated or shortened their studies to marry before their Harvard sweethearts went off to war.

"[The war] made women more independent," says Rochellc Mirsky Cohen, a retired social worker living in Montreal. "We all got jobs straight out of the University and a number of classmates left campus, either to marry or to follow the [war] camps."

In the wake of the hundreds of drafts issued to men across the country, Cohen herself accelerated her studies to marry, graduate early and join her husband, Maurice S. Cohen '41 in New York.

Many women also donated hand-knitted sweaters, mufflers and caps to the fighting Americans in Europe. "Everyone was always carrying knitting around," Cohen remembers. "I couldn't imagine [the products] were very useful, but they took it to lectures often and instead of taking copious notes, they would knit."

Frances E. Hermann, a 1943 Radcliffe graduate who served as a weather forecaster through the WAVES program, remembers Radcliffe during wartime in her submission to the 50th Reunion Report:

"We witnessed WAVES drilling in our quadrangle; we saw some of our classmates participate in the communication program; we attended five o'clock socials with the naval officers studying at Harvard; and danced with busloads of service men from Fort Devans," writes Hermann, a part-time publications specialist from Bridgeport, Conn.

Although members of the Class of 1943 were only at Harvard for two years of the United States' involvement the war, the impact it had on them greatly influenced their college remembrances, 1943 graduates say. The gravity of the war also influenced and perhaps shaded their once youthful outlook on life after Harvard.

"Within a period of 12 hours, I went from my home in Brooklyn to the midst of a ship And I said to myself, 'What am I doing here? I am a Harvard student?,'" says Shambroom, who had volunteered to serve with a friend from Dunster after seeing an advertisement in the New Yorker magazine.

But like his classmates, Shambroom, a retired advertising executive living in Teaneck, N.J., says he quickly adapted to fighting in the war, says that his Harvard education allowed him to continue his post-graduation plans.

And when he returned shortly after the United States dropped the atomic bomb that would end the war, he left active duty, married and entered factory and production management.

His college tuxedo?

He donated it to another clothing drive.Courtesy Radcliffe College ArchivesA member of a 1942 Radcliffe firefighting class assiduously tends to a smoky fire, in preparation for air raids or potential bomb threats.

Designated students within each house also served as air raid coordinators, who hurried students out of their dorm rooms to makeshift basement bomb shelters whenever practice air sirens sounded throughout the Boston area. The air raid coordinators, trained in disarming thermite bombs, were required to wear helmets and armbands whenever a siren sounded.

Shambroom, as a coordinator for Dunster House, several times led students in his entryway in bomb drills to basement squash courts doubling as shelters. Canned water and food stocked shelter shelves, and radio announcements blared during the drills assuring the public that there was no emergency, Shambroom says.

With the numerous volunteer and training efforts and what many 1943 grads call a "tremendous sense of patriotism" dominating campus, many Harvard students accelerated their studies and graduated early in order to serve.

Many men received their degrees at a special January Commencement ceremony held in Memorial Church, with overflow seating in Memorial Hall, listening to the radio broadcast of the exercises. Remaining members of the Class of 1943 participated in the June 1943 exercises, actually held for the Class of 1944.

"There was a feeling of patriotism in the air and almost all my friends and I felt we would serve when the time came because it was the patriotic thing to do," says Richmond N. Hutchins, a retired Episcopal member of the clergy residing in Ovid, N.Y.

Despite being told by the draft board that he could finish his college studies, Hutchins was drafted in December of his senior year and immediately began his officer training. He returned for summer school in 1946, weeks after he finished his service.

Approximately 40 percent of Harvard men in the Class of '43 served in WWII, according to estimates of several graduates interviewed. Almost all men volunteered to fight in the war and there were practically no draftees, according to Ramer B. Holtan.

Holtan, a retired lawyer currently living in Naples, Fla., completed his studies early in 1942 and served in the ROTC artillery unit. With diploma in hand, he left Harvard and headed to Fort Sill and eventually to Europe.

"There was a sense that people were leaving [campus] and within a couple of years, people were dead from Guadalcanal," says Thomas R. Goethals. "There was a feeling of the fleetingness of life and there was a tendency to eat, drink and be merry--to hell with our studies, we thought."

For Goethals, the decision to volunteer for service was a matter of carrying on a family tradition. A sophomore when Pearl Harbor was bombed, Goethals says the war was a "troubled time" for him because he had difficulty deciding if he should complete his years at Harvard or enlist as many of his classmates did.

Although his "first inclination was to enlist immediately," Goethals, a retired teacher from Vineyard Haven, Mass., says he decided to remain at Harvard and join his father later, who had dropped his medical practice and enlisted before the war started.

"Much of my undergraduate years consisted of great night-long bull sessions deciding whether to enlist or enroll in medical school," says Goethals, adding that because of this internal struggle, he "didn't enjoy Harvard at all."

He also says he felt isolated from world events within the walls of Harvard Yard because "the day after Pearl Harbor, I went to Latin class and the professor droned on as if nothing had happened in the world."

The war, however, did touch upon the personal lives of Harvard and Radcliffe students with insidious discrimination directed toward "the enemy."

The day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a Japanese-American member of the Radcliffe Class of '43 was in Harvard Square purchasing supplies. On her way back to the Radcliffe Quad, she was stoned and bloodied.

Still, the campus remained relatively peaceful during wartime. While most men participated in drill practice or served in ROTC, Radcliffe students also aided in the war effort by volunteering in local hospitals, working part-time jobs after class, or participating in women's volunteer corps such as WAVES and WAACS.

And some accelerated or shortened their studies to marry before their Harvard sweethearts went off to war.

"[The war] made women more independent," says Rochellc Mirsky Cohen, a retired social worker living in Montreal. "We all got jobs straight out of the University and a number of classmates left campus, either to marry or to follow the [war] camps."

In the wake of the hundreds of drafts issued to men across the country, Cohen herself accelerated her studies to marry, graduate early and join her husband, Maurice S. Cohen '41 in New York.

Many women also donated hand-knitted sweaters, mufflers and caps to the fighting Americans in Europe. "Everyone was always carrying knitting around," Cohen remembers. "I couldn't imagine [the products] were very useful, but they took it to lectures often and instead of taking copious notes, they would knit."

Frances E. Hermann, a 1943 Radcliffe graduate who served as a weather forecaster through the WAVES program, remembers Radcliffe during wartime in her submission to the 50th Reunion Report:

"We witnessed WAVES drilling in our quadrangle; we saw some of our classmates participate in the communication program; we attended five o'clock socials with the naval officers studying at Harvard; and danced with busloads of service men from Fort Devans," writes Hermann, a part-time publications specialist from Bridgeport, Conn.

Although members of the Class of 1943 were only at Harvard for two years of the United States' involvement the war, the impact it had on them greatly influenced their college remembrances, 1943 graduates say. The gravity of the war also influenced and perhaps shaded their once youthful outlook on life after Harvard.

"Within a period of 12 hours, I went from my home in Brooklyn to the midst of a ship And I said to myself, 'What am I doing here? I am a Harvard student?,'" says Shambroom, who had volunteered to serve with a friend from Dunster after seeing an advertisement in the New Yorker magazine.

But like his classmates, Shambroom, a retired advertising executive living in Teaneck, N.J., says he quickly adapted to fighting in the war, says that his Harvard education allowed him to continue his post-graduation plans.

And when he returned shortly after the United States dropped the atomic bomb that would end the war, he left active duty, married and entered factory and production management.

His college tuxedo?

He donated it to another clothing drive.Courtesy Radcliffe College ArchivesA member of a 1942 Radcliffe firefighting class assiduously tends to a smoky fire, in preparation for air raids or potential bomb threats.