Phillips High School - Phillipian Yearbook (Phillips, ME)

Page 26 text:

24 THE PH Who transports our troops to foreign shores? The Navy. Who carries supplies to them and to our allies? The Navy. Who makes it possible for us to help our allies? VVho guards our shores? The Navy. The class of 1945 wishes tonight to'pay tribute to the 33 boys and girls from Phillips who are serving with the United States Navy, and special tribute to the boys who, if they were not serving our country, would be receiving their diplomas with us tonight -- Mahlon Ross and Everett Caton. Carmond Moore TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND THE ARMY AIR CORPS ROM the time of the Revolutionary War to the present time the army has played its heroic part in our history. ln the year 1940, before Pearl Harbor, we had a moderately small standing army. Now we have an army totaling over 8,000,000 men and women, the various branches of which are fighting together in one great unit, the like of which the world has never known. A very important branch of our mighty army, and one which appeals greatly to the youth of the nation, is the Army Air Corps. Ask any boy of grammar or high school age what he plans to do when he gets older and without a moment's hesitation he will say, loin the Air Corps. And no wonder. The fiier's life is full of glamor, thrills, danger. Death and destruc- tion to the enemy! The saving of a life for our friends! All through the Army Air Corps. A Somewhere we'll find you is the official motto of a group of mercy fliers organized to save the lives of American air men forced to bail out in enemy territory. It is no easy motto to live up to, for sometimes this group of fiiers has to cover territory where no white man has ever before set foot. A certain Captain Spruell, a medical offi- cer with the rescue unit, was aboard a mercy plane, when word was received that a C-47 had crash-landed in the Himalayas after a lap attack, and the engineer had a broken ILLIPIAN back. XVithout hesitation Spruell bailed out over the wreck, strapped the engineer's back, hired native stretcher bearers from a nearby village and personally led the party on a perilous three-week journey over the moun- tain passes back to India. Such incidents as these make us proud of our army and proud of the 182 men and women of Phillips who help to make it the great organization that it is. We pay special tribute to Leslie Adley, Elwood Campbell, Richard Stinchfield, Vinton Kennedy, Ger- ald Corson, Floyd Norton, Lawrence Kelley, Glendon Smith and Leon Works of our own class. Delvine Vose VALEDICTORY - I THE YOUTH OF AMERICA N the days before the war, Phillips, like other towns, was a thriving center of business. Saturday nights many cars lined Main Street, and every day countless num- bers of cars and trucks went to and from this town. Garages did an enormous business. Gro- cery store shelves and refrigerators were well stocked. One could see at almost any time during the day a crowd of loafers, older boys as well as high school boys, collected in front of the post office or barber shop. War, cruel war, has changed all this! Ex- cepting for an occasional truck or car, Main Street is so quiet that every day seems like Sunday to a passer-by. ' Our class, more than any other, has felt the effect of this war! While we were soph- omores, the first boy from our class, Elwood Campbell, was drafted. Since then eleven boys who would have graduated tonight have been called into the armed forces! During those carefree days before the war, we young people thought only of pleasure outside of school hours. The serious side of life never occurred to us. Boys fiocked to the bowling alley and pool room, and we girls were making plans for dances. Our elders called us soft-and we were.

Page 25 text:

THE PHILLIPIAN 23 THE UNITED STATES MARINES OMEVV HERE in the South Pacific three lapanese landing barges approach the shore of a tiny island. On the shore, 50 feet from the water's edge, wait two Marines about 19 years old, a machine gunner and a loader. The rest have gone inland to make their stand. The laps make their landing. The ma- chine gunner waits till the leader is 12 feet from the muzzle of his gun, then opens fire. These laps never went back. They were killed to a man by this gunner of the United States Marine Corps, who was found by his mates, dead, his fingers tightened on the trigger of his gun even in death. 'This is but one of many examples of hero- ism performed by the U. S. Marines. . You will find the Marines everywhere. They sail the seven seas, guard the shores of the United States, and go wherever else Uncle Sam needs them. The U. S. M. C. was first organized in 1775. Since then they have played a very important part in all the big and little wars of our country. They are a rapid moving, quickly mobilized body of men, pledged to serve their country anywhere and under any condition. In the course of its 169 years of existence, the Marine Corps has developed many fine traditions. The Marine emblem, for example, is not just a pretty trinket. It symbolizes Leather- neck employment. It explains in a glance that Marines take active parts in engage- ments on land, at sea, and in the air, hence the combination of the eagle, the anchor, and the hemisphere. The appellation Leatherneck relates to the Marine uniform. The fact that Marines in early days wore a black leather stock gave rise to a name that has been current for many generations. The Marines are, in fact, hard boiled, but only when their mission requires it. In the present war the Marines are mak- ing history again. They are the fellows who travel to the out of the way battlefronts, the Marianas, Saipan, Tarawa. I don't need to recount the retaking of these places lost to the laps. There isn't one of us here who hasn,t read about it and rejoiced. The class of 1945 wishes to express appre- ciation tonight to the boys of Phillips who help make the U. S. Marine Corps .the won- derful Hghting unit that it is. In all we have had four boys in the Ma- rine Corps. To those four boys, the class of 1945 wishes to pay tribute tonight. To Harvey Lovett, killed in action on Guadal- canal, to Tommy Thompson and Malcolm Hardy who were recently discharged, and to Azel Campbell, somewhere in the Pacific. Corydon Hardy TRIBUTE TO THE NAVY N the days before Pearl Harbor, when we thought of the Navy, we thought of glamour, adventure, of seeing the world. Today the thought of the Navy brings en- tirely different pictures to mind. Perhaps we see a convoy zig-zagging its way across the Atlantic carrying badly needed supplies to our fighting men. Or maybe we see the men of the Coast'Guard patrolling our shores on the lookout for submarines or spies. Or the Seabees, or the Merchant Marine. For all are branches of the United States Navy. On December 7, 1941, at 7:55 a. m., there arrived at Pearl Harbor 135 lapanese planes, to rain destruction on the most beautiful targets ever offered an aerial bombardier. Anchored side by side, without steam up, lay a long line of United States warships. VVhen those 155 lap planes left, half the battleships in the entire United States Navy were either sunk or rendered powerless for months to come. It was an awful blow and dearly we paid for it. But soon new ships were slipping off the ways-and more-and more, until again we took our place as a great naval power.

Page 27 text:

THE PHILLIPIAN 25 This war, with all its heartaches, has done much toward strengthening the character of the youth of the Nation. With the young men gone to war we who were left were faced with new duties and responsibilities. Most of the boys who were old enough ioined the Home Guard. They, too, wanted to do their part to win the war. There was the metal scrap drive, the young people doing their part and earning enough money to buy the chairs for this Community Building, as well as helping the war effort. Young people have learned to save, too. It is astonishing to see how much the school children have put into the war effort, through war bonds and stamps. We've also learned to work. We've had to. We've wanted to. And work is a good character builder. Children and teen-agers, far from being liabilities, have become the nation's greatest assets. Clean, healthy, serious-minded, young Americans are now growing to manhood and womanhood in the shadow of a tragic world conflict. The challenge of the war has brought out the best and noblest in our boys and girls. To predict what will happen to the char- acters of the boys who are in the armed serv- ices is impossible. We who have remained at home, away from the bombs and other horrors of war, can have no conception of what they have been through. It is safe to say, however, that they will take life more seriously than they did before. If this war has made us strong, let's'see to it that we stay strong, let's fight for the right always- not only in battle, but in our daily living- and be a credit to those who fought and died for us. fTribute to the boys who will not returnj The class of 1945 wishes to pay tribute to- night to those who have made the supreme sacrifice during this war: Harvey Lovett, Melvin Prescott, and Hartley Fairbanks, who fought and died that we might keep the four freedoms in this, the Land of our Hearts. ln the words of Lincoln, we pray that these dead shall not have died in vain -that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earthf' fFarewell Speechj Tonight marks the end of one phase of our lives and the beginning of another. Tonight we realize as never before the re- sponsibilities we must shoulder-responsi- bilities to ourselves, to our school, to our nation. Probably we shall never know how many times during this great war we have come near to losing our country, our America. The thought gives us pause. It makes us, the class of 1945, determined to do our ut- most to keep this land of our hearts, the land of the free! Superintendent and School Committee: VVe are especially indebted to you for your hearty encouragement and support. You have labored most earnestly for the benefit of our school and we wish to express our gratitude and thanks. Teachers and friends: VVe are unable to render compensation to you for your zeal and faithfulness. But as you have been faithful to us, so will we be faithful to others. With a deep sense of our obligations to you, and of gratitude for the ability, zeal, and care which you have ever exercised in our behalf, we, one and all, bid you a kind farewell. My classmates: As we linger for a moment around the altar of friendship to enjoy the pleasant recollections of the past, we hardly realize our school days are ended. Outside of these walls, which kind parents have thrown around us, are engaged a band of workers, earnestly striving to promote the four free- doms and the welfare and the happiness of the human race. Let us resolve to discharge fully the obligations we owe to parents and not disappoint their expectations. With the noble purpose that is born of true genuine- ness of character, and that inflexible deter- mination which knows no failure, let us pass out the gate that now opens and enter into the field of life's active duties. Classmates, tonight marks the parting of our ways. Never again shall we meet as a class, but wherever you go, whatever you do, may the best of luck be with you always. Marilyn Mecham