Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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THE WAR . such wrestlers as Christ, Zackey, Snyder, and Fulton were to be ranged close to such an immortal as Ben Bishop. Other doings on the sports front that spring included the replacement of Jim Gordon, director of Athletics, who got a Navy commission, by Eb Caraway, and the designing of an underwater obstacle course by Swimming Coach Dick Brown that at- tracted national attention. The school ' s collective sense of humor was given a boost by the production of the hilarious, original Mustard and Cheese revue, Bottoms Up, but was accelerated in the opposite direction by the voluntary suspension of publication of the campus humor magazine, the Bachelor, for the duration. The Bachelor had made quite a hit that year, especially the issue that parodied The New Yorker ; and present fresh- men who weren ' t in school during the publication ' s life-time who happen to get an old copy always put it down with a sincere Gee, what a neat magazine. Gee, I ' ll be glad to get that four-wee vacation. Don ' t be so happy; they ' ll probably draft you during that time. T the end f th e spring semester, ' 43, the University decreed a four-week J break in the pleasant pursuit of knowledge but provided a special session for men with draft boards so tough that they would be slapped into 1A as soon as they so much as stepped outside of South Bethlehem. Most men realized that the drive would probably continue without pause from this point and tore themselves away from school for the rest. Meanwhile doubts were beginning to form about the Army ' s coming to Lehigh at all, but when the five hundred odd students returned at the end of June they found that the trainees were moving in and learned that classes would begin for the G.I. ' s on July 12. The United States Army was moving into American colleges that summer, and it was also preparing to move in on Fortress Europe after having licked the day- lights out of the vaunted Marshal Rommel in North Africa. From the north, Ger- ASTP Classes Underwater Obstacles [25]

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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]

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. EPITOME -rj- many was absorbing a terrific air assault from what was now a clearly superior Anglo- t - American air force. People began to smile when reading the newspapers, whereas a Q year before they had almost been afraid to look at the headlines. i— I And so amid this atmosphere of general good feeling that pervaded Lehigh as it did the rest of the country that summer, a new institution, the Army Specialized Training Program, made its appearance on the South Mountain, and it was soon shown that the anxiety that had prevailed in some quarters about possible friction be- tween the civilian students and the trainees was entirely uncalled for. There was some good-natured kidding back and forth but certainly no group animosity was ever in evidence. There have been some isolated cases of bad feeling, however, such as the time the Brown and White published an editorial claiming that a good deal of cheat- ing went on in the Army classes and got a rather irate reply from a soldier who accused Lehigh men in general of being snobs who looked down on the G.I. ' s who hadn ' t had the benefit of a college education. But such incidents were isolated and the esprit de corps between soldiers and civilians was heightened by the arrival of a group of advanced Lehigh ROTC men who were sent back pending openings in OCS. This group, our boys, as everyone called them, was really the deciding factor that set up a healthy relationship between the two groups of students. Come down to the office right away, you ' ve got to help remade the paper. What ' s coo mg, another fire? J o, the President has resigned. C HAT ' S HOW the desk staff of the Brown and White got pulled away from their books and from Kinney ' s one Tuesday night after they thought the paper had been put to bed. Dr. Williams ' announcement that he would leave Le- high at the end of June, 1944, came as a complete surprise to everyone and left the majority of students speechless. Soon, however, they began the grand old game of rumors, this time with the future president as the subject, a game which is still pro- ceeding merrily at the time of this writing. Guesses range from Herbert Hoover to Joe Kinney. However, Lehigh ' s most unusual and one of its most spectacular contributions to the war effort was taking place that summer behind the locked doors of Fritz lab. The huge press that is usually employed in testing the strength of materials was now be- ing used to taper metal tubes by forcing them through dies, and other pieces of test- ing equipment were being used in the manufacture of airplane parts that would eventually be used on Douglas planes on a sub-contract from the Summerill Tubing Company of Bridgeport, Pa. The company had been swamped by demands from the Douglas plant and had called on Robert Mains, acting director of Fritz lab, for aid. Mains not only developed the original process of tapering the tubes, which saves a tremendous amount of steel, but also converted Fritz lab into a factory — a move that has been imitated since by many other testing organizations. From July 1, 1943, until February 1, 1944, when the Summerill Company was prepared to perform the taper- Research, Dr. Neville and paint brushes. Frits Laboratory, War Work in Fritz lab [26]