Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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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]

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. EPITOME Tf ing office at its own plant with a machine that Mains helped to design, Frit: lah t}- served as a real war plant, working three eight-hour shifts much of the time with 0 s both students and faculty members aiding in the work. Summerill Tubing estimates i-H that the new process has stepped up their production over 500 per cent, a real contri- bution to the war effort. Only a few hundred yards away from Fritz lab in the chemistry building a dif- ferent brand of know how was serving the war effort. Under the direction of Dr. Albert Zettlemoyer, both graduate and undergraduate students worked on projects such as a plastic tile to be used in flooring on ships and in buildings such as barracks At the same time, experiments in heat flow that provided data useful in the operation of marine diesels were carried on, and a new type of finish for metal products that had to be transported on the open decks of ships was being developed. At about the same time, Dr. Harvey Neville completed work on the new type of paint brush bristle that has been put on the market by Devoe-Reynolds Paint Company. What ' s the matter, too much beer? J [aw. Just thinking about the way things have been dissolving around here. It seems that Lehigh is just a shell oj what it was before the war. Gee, I wish I could have been born a couple oj years sooner and had been able to have a real college life. 7 HE WAR really began to make itself felt on the South Mountain during the summer and fall of ' 43. The tremendously decreased enrollment and the loss of campus housing facilities were the main factors in killing off a great many items that are labeled college life. It was more than the losing of the beloved relics of the good old days that helped to alter the feelings of Lehigh men during the fall and winter of 1943. The wave of unfounded optimism that swept over the country after the surrender of Italy carried in its wake realization that presaged a grim struggle ahead. The draft was be ' ginning to tighten up on student deferments, thus throwing a feeling of anxiety and uncertainty into most of the student body. In addition, many of them had that vague notion so well expressed by one man as, You feel that whatever you ' re doing here even though you know it ' s helping the war effort in the long run, is unreal, that it isn ' t really living, that l ife is only going on out there. Then, too, every once in a great while a man would get a copy of his home town newspaper and read that a fellow who had graduated from high school with him had been killed on Attu — or Tarawa; and two powerful forces within him would immediately start pulling in op- posite directions. As the Americans pushed forward slowly but determinedly on all fronts during the winter of 1943-44, Lehigh took less interest in football, basketball and even wres- tling as well as other extra-curricular activities. Lehigh men no longer having the physi- cal unity afforded by living on the campus and disturbed by a vague feeling that something important was missing, felt that they were playing in a big complicated game that was beyond their understanding. [28]