Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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. EPITOME - f I wonder what the idea is of having IS- and 9-year-old J(ids register for - f the draft. Q Don ' t worry about it. They probably want you guys to register H so they can draft you as air raid wardens or something. )N JUNE 30, the 18-20 year-olds signed up with Uncle Sam so that the old f J gentleman would know how many youngsters were available for home guard duty or some similar occupation. Thus, the draft card passed out of use as a cre- dential for buying a drink at bars where they were cautious about serving minors. The chemistry department hummed with war work that summer. Professor A. A. Diefenderfer, the inimitable Dief, went to work for the Navy analyzing copper castings. Dr. Robert H. Lafferty was doing research on a war project for DuPont and Dr. Frank Fornoff was at the Pratt- Whitney plant for some time doing paint re- search. The Alien Property Custodian called in Professor Edwin Theis, the leather authority, to look over some plants they had confiscated from Axis owners. Gosh, those Nfivy guys oo snappy. Do they always march to their classes li e that? Sure. It ' s a great thing. A springing of uniforms and some march- ing tones up the appearance of the campus. j HE MECHANICAL engineering department began its Diesel engine courses for naval officers in the spring of 1941, thus becoming the first branch of the Univ ersity to do educational work for the armed services. Even before this, as long before the war as 1939, the mechanical engineering department had been utilized by the government for a sort of indirect military training in the form of the Civilian Aeronautic Authority flying program. The CAA courses continued until the summer of 1942, and in July of that year a contingent of 30 V-5 trainees moved in to take an 8-week flight course similar to the CAA program. During the summer they lived in Price Hall which was vacant due to the small summer semester enrollment. However, at the start of the fall term, they were shifted to Taylor Gym. The fliers left early in 1943 at about the same time the diesel program, which kept 25 ensigns at Lehigh, was discontinued. Besides doing educational work for the Navy, the mechanical engineering de- partment has also carried on quite a bit of research of a highly secret nature for them. Ever since Pearl Harbor, Packard laboratory has been visited intermittently by officers carrying documents inside of four envelopes. Everything is on a strictly secret basis and all the precautions that one might expect to find only in an E. Phillips Op- penheim spy story are being taken. Not only the Navy but also the Army, more specifically, the Frankford Arsenal, is getting the benefit of the particular brand of know-how found in Packard lab as Professor Caleb Stuart is being employed as a thermodynamics consultant by the Arsenal. Look before you leap!; Frosh; Yale game petition [16]

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THE WAR • ?N MARCH, 1942, just as the University J announced it would request deferment for all engineers and science majors in good standing, it was revealed that the number within the charmed circle of goodstandmg had fallen to a new low. During the fall semes- ter Lehigh men as a whole had been able to bring out only an unimpressive 1.88 average, and mid-semester reports of the following term brought valentines to no less than 46 per- cent of the student body. Although the scho lastic tailspin brought the usual amount of viewing with alarm no one was very surprised. At that time no one could be expected to con- centrate on books with a war going on. E. D. Amstutz The Navy began to publicize its V pro- grams. These posters are still to be seen around the campus showing a young naval officer (wholooks like a fugitive from a collar ad) ing the advice Look before you leap. The Brown and White published many pages of information about enlistment in the various Navy reserves. Lehigh men were im- pressed by the reasonableness of the look before you leap proposition, which re- ferred of course to the idea of quitting school and enlisting. Consequently, the number of men leaving by the enlistment route — the route that many thought such a large proportion of the student body would take immediately after Pearl Harbor that the University would be left a hollow shell — amounted to an infinitesimal fraction of the enrollment. While many men decided to take the Navy up on its offer about finishing their educations in a reserve status more preferred to take their chances with the draft. Dean Congdon announced in May of that year that freshmen and sophomores need not expect deferment even if they were engineers. This troubled the frosh and sophs but little, however, since most of them were only 18 or 19 and hence had no draft worries until their 20th birthday by which time they would be juniors with a good chance for deferment. The pinch of the wartime paper shortage caused the Brown and White to adopt its present tabloid size at the beginning of the optional summer semester in 1942. Only 658 men (at that time about one-half of the enrollment) chose to fight it out on the South Mountain line all summer, the rest preferring temporary jobs that would fill pockets and soothe frayed nerves. Donald Nelson, War Production Board head, addressed the old grads at their annual gathering held that June. The alumni made this, their last reunion for the duration, a memorable affair climaxed by the usual colorful parade, a phenomenon unfamiliar to all but a few students. [15]

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THE WAR • Did you get one of those applications for this ERC that the University has been sending out 7 Yes, and I ' m taking advantage of it, too. Whv, even if they should call you, you ' d he sent to Officers Candidate School. ' ULY OF 1942 is notable in that it marked the first appearance of that imporant character The Army Enlisted Reserve Corps, or ERC, in the Lehigh drama. Like the Navy programs, it did not attract many upperclassmen, many of whom were already Army reservists through advanced ROTC; but its appeal to the fresh- men, arts and business men for whom the University could not request deferment, and especially to the then sub-freshmen to whom information concerning the pro- gram had been sent during the summer, was considerable. Certain cautious characters began to pencil into the ERC after the look before you leap of the Navy posters. The relative peace and quiet of the summer term was shattered in mid-September, 1942, by the arrival of over six hundred members of what was then termed the class of 1946 almost all of whose survivors are now in the June ' 4? group. As Lehigh ' s largest entering class it taxed campus housing facilities to overflowing and spilled over into the rooming houses of South Bethlehem. When Arcadia president Bob Whipple introduced Dean Neil Carothers to the freshmen at a meeting held in Packard auditorium during rush week, he mentioned that the dean would soon be heard over a nationwide radio hook-up in a debate on the question of lowering the draft age from 20 to 18. Everyone laughed. The war seemed very far from Lehigh during those warm autumn days. Fra- ternities announced the pledging of 291 men, the largest number since the gay days of 1924. All four dormitories were filled to capacity, and the campus swarmed with brown-tied-and-socked freshmen wearing those brown caps with white numbers that one still sees worn now and then on rainy days. The first pep rally of the year spon- sored by the sophomore class packed Grace Hall to the doors. Peculiar rites accom- panied by strange chant ing concerning whales were performed almost nightly in Tay- lor Quad. . . . College life was going full blast. C 5 [17]