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Judith
Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library.
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Previous
Columns
November
2002 How Yale derailed a career in small-town pharmacy.
October
2002 A family's gift of music.
Summer
2002 When rowing went formal.
May
2002 The Eli role in the origin of intercollegiate baseball.
April
2002 The father of the crew cut.
March
2002 After WWI, Yale played a role in forging the peace.
February
2002 Ross Granville Harrison, Yale's near-Nobelist.
December
2001 The many lives of the Governor Ingersoll house.
November
2001 Henry Parks Wright, the first dean of the College.
October
2001 James Hillhouse, the first master of bringing together
town and gown.
Summer
2001 The ironic history of Woodbridge Hall.
May
2001 Beatrix Farrand: landscaper to Yale.
April
2001 Yale's golf course turns 75.
February
2001 Connecticut Hall has housed patriots and physicists.
December
2000 Basketball may owe the five-man team to Yale.
November
2000 The
University's current investment in science can be traced in
part to the influence of Benjamin Silliman, Class of 1796,
who became known as the father of American scientific education.
October
2000 The year 2000 presidential election is not the first
to feature a H-Y-P rivalry.
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Old Yale:
When
Yale Schooled for War
Sixty years ago the Yale campus was transformed into a World War
II military base, and no class experienced the transition more dramatically
than the Class of 1943 -- by graduating in 1942.
December
2002
by Judith Ann Schiff
When
the Class entered Yale in 1939, the war in Europe seemed far away,
and college life was normal.
The "golden days" continued until early 1942 when draft registration
in the colleges put an end to the popular saying: "They don't draft
Yale men, they just ration them." Most of the class enlisted in
reserve units of the Army, Navy, and Marines, a strategy that permitted
students to complete their degrees; others, however, were drafted
or volunteered for active service.
At the time, President
Charles Seymour announced a new college program to be in effect
during the emergency, adding a summer term to the academic year
so that undergraduates would receive their degrees in three years.
On July 6, 1942, the juniors returned as seniors living on "borrowed
time."
The war crisis added
new courses to the curriculum, including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic,
and Malayan, as well as combat training and jujitsu. After the long
hot summer term, the Class of 1943 expected to graduate in February
1943. But in late in October they learned that their graduation
would be further accelerated to December 1942.
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A
Senior Class Dinner was held in place of Class Day, and
"Instructions in Case of Air Raid" were printed in the program.
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The abrupt departure
of the Class was necessitated by the University's negotiations with
the Armed Forces to establish an officers school at Yale. In January
1943, Cadet Advanced Training Center No. 1 opened, and about 3,000
cadets of the Army Air Force Technical Training Command moved in,
taking over half of the residential and a third of the academic
facilities. The cadets attended classes eight hours a day, six days
a week, for periods of 6 to 20 weeks, to qualify as photographic
laboratory commanders, communications officers, airplane maintenance
engineers, and airplane armament officers, each with the rank of
second lieutenant.
Military
programs would soon take over most of the campus, and 20,000
service men and women, including 12,000 aviation cadets, were trained
in all. Yale also conducted an Engineering, Science, and Management
War Training Program in New Haven and Fairfield counties to prepare
thousands of workers for jobs in essential industries.
On December 19, 1942,
nearly 600 seniors received their degrees at a simple graduation
ceremony. Academic gowns were worn only by the faculty, and many
seniors were in uniform. For the first time in Yale history, a Senior
Class Dinner was held in place of Class Day, and "Instructions in
Case of Air Raid" were printed in the program. In the cold of December
the traditional planting of the Class Ivy had to be done indoors
in a silver planter, but it was no less meaningful.
Their ivy ode reads
in part: "We shall quickly be snatched off to arms, for bristling
War grips the whole world, brings fear into our homes, and threatens
every one..It is up to us with bravery to drive off their fury,
their plots, and threats; and when they have been beaten, we must
establish order with moderation and justice. In warlike times.
let us remember the symbol of Light and Truth, the tender ivy."
(Forty-three members of the Class died in the War.)
Still, the seriousness
of the occasion was offset by some humor in the Class History: "We,
the Class of 1943, are undoubtedly the most impressive and brilliant
that ever went through Yale . in three years and four months.
Every other class has had to take four years to do it."
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