Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

Page 17 text:

THE WAR . War affected the faculty, too. Ever since America had changed its status of neu- trality to one of non-belligerency men in the engineering faculty, specially in the me- .. chanical engineering department, had been slipping away into the armed forces or into defense industries. Dr. Adelbert Ford, former head of the psychology depart- K ment, was the first faculty member to leave after Pearl Harbor, reporting to the Navy in the latter part of December, 1941. ry} Almost a year before the war began, Captain Benjamin Mesick, then an assist- ant professor of military science and tactics and now a colonel and the commanding officer of one of the Army ' s largest ordnance depots in California, and Professor Harold V. Anderson of the chemistry department began discussing the possibilities of using X-rays for certain types of tests on metals used in the manufacture of gun parts. The more they discussed the idea, the more they felt that they might be on the trail of something useful. Through the efforts of Captain Mesick, the Frankford Arsenal became interested in the plan; and a few months before Pearl Harbor officers at the Arsenal suggested that the National Defense Research Committee inaugurate an investi- gation of the foregoing idea, with the result that the Council established a research project at Lehigh under the War Metallurgy Committee with Anderson as Technical Representative. At the outset, the N.D.R.C. project staff consisted of Charles W. Tucker, investigator; G. Douglas Nelson, investigator; Dr. Max Petersen of the Phys- ics department, investigator; Dr. C. E. Stoops, of the chemical engineering depart- ment, investigator; Dr. Joseph B. Reynolds as special consultant in mathematics; and Professor Anderson as technical representative of N.D.R.C. A Lehigh alumnus, Lt. Col. C. H. Greenall, chief of the Frankford ordnance laboratories, acted as liaison officer for the project which is being carried on in such a hush-hush atmosphere that at this time only its title, Residual Stresses in Cold-Drawn Non-ferrous Alloys: An X-ray study, can be released. Although the work started almost from scratch and progressed slowly for many months, enough headway had been made by the summer of 1942 that two X-ray dif- fraction units of the newest type as well as other pieces of special equipment were bought for the project. In the spring of 1944, both Professor Anderson and Dr. L. L. Wyman, General Electric research metallurgist, who is the present N.D.R.C. research supervisor, feel for this reason that the work has progressed far enough to be not only a valuable contribution to the war effort but that it will uncover new uses for the X-ray in post-war industry. I hear they ' re going to cut out houseparty this spring. J law, they wouldn ' t dare. There ' d be a stri e or something. 1 HE BOYS came back from their first wartime Christmas holidays to be greeted by an official announcement that there would be no houseparty that spring, and the Brown and White editorially agreed with General Sherman ' s famous statement about war but expressed a confidence that houseparty was not yet dead and that the forces of righteousness would eventually triumph. Meanwhile the Japanese W. H. Chandler Chemistry Building; G. D. Nelson; C. E. Stoops [13]

Page 16 text:

XX- ' ' ' ■ ■■ SaHL -. fc lfJ La = ■ i m. ■= -, —. ■ 1 -?; r: s rH : - , • ,•-■ H

Page 18 text:

. EPITOME ». captured a few dozen more islands and MacArthur was writing Bataan beside such names as Bunker Hill (a battle which we also lost, by the way, in a military sense) in American history books. At about the same time, a plan of acceleration was inaugu- rated that would enable a man to take three semesters per year instead of the usual two by foregoing his summer vacati on. The plan was at the time entirely voluntary, and student opinion was sharply divided on acceleration. Some felt that even though the draft seemed far away at the time (two students who were drafted in February of ' 42 got their pictures in the Brown and White and were rare specimens indeed), it might soon become a factor to be dealt with and that bringing graduation a few few months closer wouldn ' t be a bad idea. The other school of thought maintained that no student could stay sane at Lehigh for more than two consecutive semesters. Besides, they argued, plenty of men need the summer vacation to earn their tuition for the next year. So the question of acceleration became a big topic for bull-session orators, rival- ling even the war, which had by this time become a rather unpleasant topic. Lehigh men were no different from other Americans in that they had been raised on the doctrine of the invincibility of the American soldier even when he was outnumbered ten to one and had no air support. But in the meantime, the Japanese had captured Singapore, a feat that military experts had declared impossible. Lehigh men had been accustomed to see re-enforcements appear at the last minute, as they always do in the movies. But no re-enforcements appeared on Bataan to save the day. It seemed im- possible that we should keep losing. It was just as though the sun had failed to rise one morning; reality had been contradicted. Or had it? Some of the boys began to wonder just what was real after all. They became more pensive, a little morose just as the rest of America became that winter. That February the administration relented and approved a spring houseparty. They also called off finals for the current semester, but warned that the move was not a permanent one. At the same time, t he Navy announced its famous V-l program. Soon everyone on the campus had stocked up with pamphlets and had become an ex- pert on the program ' s physical requirements and the opportunities it offered to com- plete one ' s education. In the spring of 1942 some fellows who said they were expendable took an oversized motorboat called a PT boat and got General MacArthur, who had proven to be anything but expendable, off Bataan. The lift given the public by MacArthur ' s res- cue was offset only a few weeks later by the fall of Bataan and Corregidor and the announcement that thousands of Americans had been taken prisoner. A pall of gloom spread over the country and civilian morale hit its low mark for the entire war. Some people sought comfort in the fact that their friends and relatives on the Philippines were only prisoners and still alive, for at that time it was thought that it was better to be a Japanese prisoner than to be dead. Say, Harry, I hear you ' re going to be drafted. T aw, just an idle rumor. The University is going to as for a 2A deferment for me since I ' m an engineer. That should fix things. I guess that means all of us engineers will he able to graduate. [14]