East High School - Redjacket Yearbook (Pawtucket, RI)

Page 20 text:

Willard L. Beaulac AMONG the most important men in our government today are the representatives of our government in those neutral nations which border the Axis countries. These men form the only diplomatic link with the enemy. We arc proud of the fact that one of the most prominent of these men is a Pawtucket High graduate. He is the United States Consul-General and Counsellor of Embassy in Spain, Willard L. Beaulac. Mr. Beaulac was born in Pawtucket on July 25, 1899. In high school he was active on the school paper, in dramatics, and represented his class on the school debating team. He is well remembered by one of his teachers. Miss Sarah M. Osborn, as a brilliant scholar and a very agreeable person”. Graduating in 1916, he attended Brown University for two years. He then enlisted in the Medical Corps of the United States Navy and for sixteen months served with the A. E. F. On his return to civilian life he entered Georgetown School of Foreign Service during its first year of existence. It is interesting to note that because he was a member of the first graduating class and because his name is so high in alphabetical listing he was given the first diploma ever awarded from that school. They certainly have every right to be proud of him Willard served in the Bureau of Internal Revenue for a short while but soon entered the Diplomatic Service with the post of vice-consul, class three. His first post was the Tampico consulate in December 1921. Next he served in Puerto Castilla and was soon promoted to the post of foreign service officer. Assigned to Arica, Chile, as Secretary of the American Legation, he became affiliated with the Tacna-Arica Arbitration in 1926. This famous Board met to settle the boundary between Peru and Chile, and as he was Assistant Secretary General, he had much to do with the final and successful settlement of the dispute. From October 1927 to April 1933 he served as Third Secretary of the Legation in Port-au-Prince and as Second Secretary and Acting Charge d’Affaires at Managua and San Salvador. In 1933 he was called to Washington. D. C.. where he was made Assistant Chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs. He served a short term at Guatemala but was recalled to Washington as Assistant Chief of the Division of American Republics. In June. 1937, he was appointed First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy, where he served under Ambassadors J. Butler Wright and George S. Messersmith. He was recently sent from Cuba to Spain as Consul-General and Counsellor of Embassy, and is located there at the present time. In the pursuit of his diplomatic career Mr. Beaulac has undergone many interesting and varied experiences. He lived through a severe earthquake in Nicaragua. He is a member of the American Club, the Havana Country Club, and the Havana Yacht Club. It is interesting to note that the two men the Class of 1942 has chosen to honor in their Redjacket were both faced with the same difficulties this class is faced with today. War was declared during their stay in high school and they both must have had the desire to enlist, but they both decided that the most helpful thing to do was to further their education. They both attended college for two years and. as a result, were more valuable in their chosen branch of the Armed Services. Mr. Beaulac's conspicuous success in the Diplomatic Corps is a source of gratification to his friends and should prove an inducement to ambitious students to try to follow his example. In this day of Diplomacy, no boy could go wrong in choosing this work for his career. Harold C. Kinne

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Colonel Royal B. Lord ONE of the most important men in this country's war effort is a Pawtucket High graduate. Colonel Royal B. Lord. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 19, 1900: but as he moved to Pawtucket at the age of three months, he claims Pawtucket as his home town. He attended Pawtucket High School, where he was active for the school paper, Ihe Gleaner. and held the post of athletic editor. He graduated in 1917 and then attended Brown University for two years, where he served in the R. O. T. C. and thus entered West Point in 1919. Here he had a brilliant scholastic record and graduated second in his class in 1923. Here too. in connection with his interest in engineering, he constructed what was then the largest and most modern ice hockey rink in the world. From West Point he went to Fort Munroe Engineering School, where he did excellent work under Admiral Simms. He then went on active duty in the Philippines for three years. In 1926 he returned to the States and was awarded his Master’s Degree by the University of California. Soon afterward he did engineering work on the Mississippi Flood Control system and was given charge of the Passamaquoddy Tidal Project, where he developed a new low-cost home for the $12,000,000 Greenbelt Project. Roy was well known for this five-room castle for $900 . H:, was Chief Engineer for the Farm Security Administration while he developed his pre-fabricated house. His rise in Army rank has been exceptionally rapid. He became First Lieutenant in 1928. Captain in 1935. Major in 1940 (which post he held for only nine months), and finally a Colonel in 1941. For four years he was a professor at West Point. During the past few years he has served as Commander of the Third Engineer Regiment during an eighteen month visit to China and Japan, and has held many vital government positions. Roy also has won his spurs as an inventor. He developed a portable steel pillbox which has rendered the old concrete box obsolete. It is six feet square and holds three men. It is armored to withstand a 75 millimeter shell and. due to the low. protected firing position, can shoot into the underside of a tank and stop it in its tracks. This pillbox takes ten men one and one-half hours to assemble, while the old concrete one takes twenty-eight days to set up. The cost of the Lord pillbox is only one-tenth the cost of the old style model. Roy also has invented a tank trolley which has put the pontoon bridge out of business. This trolley consists of two forty-foot towers between which is strung a heavy wire cable. A tank or truck is driven on to four rope nets, one for each wheel, and is picked up and carried across the obstruction. The cableway is powered by the vehicles it carries and can handle a thirteen ton load on a single installation or a twenty-five ton load on a double hookup. It may be erected in three hours and can carry one vehicle every four minutes. Its cost is one one-hundredth of the cost of a medium pontoon bridge, and it requires only two trucks for transportation as compared with eighty-five trucks needed for the bridge. This trolley also may be very completely and easily camouflaged. At present. Roy is Chief of Operations for Economic Warfare for the United States of America, and is entrusted with the location and allocation of vital raw materials. He is closely affiliated with Henry Agard Wallace and Leon Henderson, and holds a post in the Army Public Relations department under Major General Robert C. Richardson. Jr. The graduating class of 1942 is faced with the probability of Army service. It is not an unpleasant probability. In the Army, as in no other place, the young man has a chance to see himself in his true colors: to discover his true capabilities. Let us all see Roy Lord as an ideal Army man. Let him be an inspiration to each one of us as we dedicate our lives to the service of our country. Harold C. Kinne Wc are deeply indebted to the American Magazine for permission to use the picture of Colonel Lord and his pillbox. Wc regret to state that we were unable to secure a picture of Mr. Beaulac.

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CLASS ODE OF IQ4 . qrcia Loebenst ein Catherine Waddington Through the yearr, through the years,Wh‘t e our liberty brought cheerj. Ed. U. •v Sm’ile and sigh, say good bye, With ijour Courage flying high; Always cation was t nnarching a.- long; With these cheers, of-teri Keep East Highs memo strong. hout on high. Shout the -pLr t -i -1 i-f I.: i. , ’« r- j ij tt ' i ft ft fears Were Ok. Conn panted by teari Still our ctesJnriaKi all Sang freedoms Crg‘ We thave hbertx-j or die' While our classmate all sing freedom •faith m you. is true ; Liber ty, Liberty, LibertyLiberty, )s the pledge of For ty - Tw