Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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THE WAR • This announcement, of course, set the stage for another welter of speculation. This | time the topics of discussion were the date of the Army ' s arrival, the number of men to be stationed here, if they would take regular civilian courses, if they would be al- lowed to play football, etc. As usual, rumors flew thick and fast. r As their roommates and lab partners were being called to the colors, Lehigh men 3 had occasion to mourn the death of a man who had done a great deal for football £ } on the South Mountain. George Hoban, ' 15, had piloted Lehigh through a brief period of gridiron prominence. His passing was almost simultaneous with the passing of the period during which football reigned as one of the major factors in college life. Football got another setback when it was announced that the Army trainees would not be allowed to participate in intercollegiate sports, although men in the Navy programs were under no such restrictions. Lehigh faced the prospect of meeting rivals such as Muhlenberg with only civilians. The bulk of the successful 1942 eleven was made up of juniors in advanced ROTC and hence without draft worries, but there were persistent rumors to the effect that they were due for activation. Meanwhile the Air Corps reserves got their notices to report and 244 men in V-l received orders to report to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology if they were engineers, or to Swarthmore if they weren ' t, on July 1 to start training. Inci- dentally, the M.I.T. humor magazine, the Voodoo, had a great time last summer rib- bing the daylights out of the Lehigh boys for the transfer to M.I.T., arch-rival in the engineering field. By March, all the necessary machinery had been set up and the University set- tled back to await the arrival of the ASTP. The dormitory students were to be the first to be dispossessed and campus fraternities would be added to the list of barracks as the unit grew. Lamberton Hall was to be used as the mess hall, a fate the Army hardly deserved according to a few discontented student patrons. The courses were all prepared; all that was lacking was the soldier students. Lehigh waited. Finally after the usual flock of rumors setting the date of arrival at dates ranging from the next day until next Christmas an official date of April 6 was set. April 6 came and de- parted. Still no ASTP. Lehigh waited. And Waited. But Lehigh did more than wait. Men were working, working for victory. The great complexities of modern war had reduced the war to the point of being some- what a conflict between the engineers and scientists of the contending nations. The ability to design new weapons, to improve the methods of producing them, to build superior planes, tanks and ships, and to build them faster and more efficiently than the Axis was one of the most potent weapons in the hands of the United Nations. One of the most war-vital projects carried on at Lehigh was recently completed in the metallurgy department under the direction of Professor Gilbert E. Doan. It concerned welding research that had been carried on at Lehigh in one form or another for about 12 years. The problem facing the Lehigh metallurgists was that certain low-alloy and high carbon steels that were otherwise suited for certain types of constructions could not be used when the welding process was employed, because they became brittle and cracks developed near the junction. A number of special welding techniques were known that could be used to preserve ductility but since every method was not appli- [23]

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. EPITOME t - Just before the Christmas holidays of that year, Admissions Director E. Kenneth tJ- Smiley shocked the interfraternity council with the statement that the war might mean q the end of fraternity life at Lehigh and in fact at all American colleges since the gov- i— I ernment was planning a large educational program for Army and Navy personnel at colleges that would require the use of all fraternity houses as well as dormitories for barracks. It had been known for a long time that the Navy planned to use colleges for their V programs, but this was the first inkling of a similar Army-sponsored plan. And so the boys went home to what for many of them was to be their last wartime Christmas in civilian clothes. Welding research The following men will report to Fort Meade, Maryland — . (SHORTLY AFTER the opening of the spring semester, 28 members of the ERC, - mostly arts and business men, were called to active duty. For a day or so, engi- neers began to wonder if perhaps the Army wasn ' t going to keep them in school after all because of their curriculum. Such hopes were shortlived, however, as just four days later, on February 9, the axe fell and 95 more reservists got their or- ders. The biggest, most ' suspenseful drama in Lehigh history had ended. That week- end Kinney ' s, the ' Chor, the Tally-Ho and many other similar establishments were the scenes of numerous farewell parties given by various living groups in honor of the departing heroes, most of whom were freshmen. Almost simultaneously came an announcement from Washington that Lehigh had been selected as an Army school and would be used in the newly-conceived Army Specialized Training Program. This came to somewhat of a shock to a num- ber of amateur crystal-gazers who considered the Navy diesel and flying programs here an indication that Lehigh would be used for one of the V setups. [22]

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. EPITOME Tf cable to every type of steel, welders were faced with the problem of what method to use - every time they started a new piece of work. Previously, the only way to determine the gs correct method was so time-consuming and complicated that it sometimes slowed down t- production. Moreover, the advent of the mass-production method of building cargo vessels, among other things, made welding more important than ever in the war effort so that in 1941 the National Defense Research Council sponsored a project that was carried on jointly at Lehigh and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the purpose of which was to develop a simple method for finding out how to weld a certain type of steel in order to preserve its ductility. Most of the work here was done by Professor Doan, Mr. Robert D. Stout and Dr. John H. Frye, Jr., of the metallurgy department: Mr. Sadun S. Tor, a graduate student from Istanbul, Turkey; and Dr. Clarence A. Shook, of the math department, whose investigations concerned the flow of heat during welding. The winter of 1943 saw the work come to a successful conclusion, so successful in fact that the American Welding Society bestowed the Lincoln Gold Medal Award on metallurgists Doan, Stout, and Frye for their outstanding contribution to the in- dustry. At the time of this writing, the metallurgy department, far from resting on its laurels, is still up to its collective ears in war work. In fact, every member of the staff is now engaged in essential war research, and a second NDRC contract has recently been signed by the University involving a prob- lem in non-ferrous metallurgy of a secret nature. Professor Allison Butts and Dr. Frye are engaged in this project. Bringing a date up for houseparty 7 ' Might as well. This is the last one. VEN THOUGH it had become quite apparent that there would soon be no m place on the campus to house a date in 1943, 584 men, a high percentage of the student body, brought girls to spring houseparty. After the spring affair, it seemed that the very word houseparty made that nebulous phantom, the administration, turn pale, since it forbid the labeling of any subsequent social function as a house- party and even frowned upon the use of the questionable word in student publications. The only possible reason for such an attitude could have been the pressure, real or imagined, of public opinion which unfortunately seems to regard college houseparties as wild, drunken orgies that serve only as an outlet for man ' s lower instincts. So, Lehigh not only abandoned houseparty as every other school did and should have done under wartime pressure but it went them one better by renouncing the very name. Lehigh wrestling fans, which includes just about all of the student body, were a trifle disappointed that spring in 1943 when the Brown and White matmen finished fourth in the Easterns. After Billy Sheriden had demonstrated for the umpteenth time that he is America ' s outstanding grappling mentor by turning out an undefeated team, his followers were pretty certain that 1943 would be Lehigh ' s year to take the toga. Despite the fact that an incredibly strong Navy squad far outdistanced the rest of the field and that the South Mountain standard bearers didn ' t come up to previous ex- pectations, everyone agreed that an undefeated season was not to be sniffed at and that [24]