United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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u e m TIMES %ir ■ An June of 1937 when the first members of the class of 1941 arrived at the Naval Academy, the drums of war were still faint and far away. Italy, it is true, had invaded Ethiopia, Germany had remilitarized the Rhineland, the Spanish Civil War had begun, and in the short space of a month Japan was to invade China. But the greatest empire of them all, the British Empire, given new unity by the newly-crowned King George VI, was still at peace with the world, and in Geneva the League of Nations was working to preserve that peace. At home in the United States we were still engrossed in our own peaceful and isolated prob- lems of social security, Pan-Americanism, labor, education, and safe driving. During the next year we paid little heed to the rumblings of Europe ' s fast-growing war machines. We had our own peculiar national sorrows . . . the last flight of Amelia Earhart . . . and we had our own peculiar na- tional entertainments . . . the World ' s Fair. . . . All the while rumblings from Europe were growing stronger and stronger- like mutterings of an approaching thunderstorm. With Munich came a slight lull, but by the time British conscription began in April of 1939 the ominous rumble of the Nazi war machine was a veritable thunder over Europe. . . .

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1,0 t« Klfl V •■ I Ha w ' 5S j ' 4 1 RECREATES SCEIME IIM THE .I T ii - ' - LUCKY BAG THE A] NUAL OF THE REGIJUEIVT OF MIDSHIPMEIV U] ITED STATES 1 AVAL ACADEMY A] I1 AP01IS, MARYLAIMD

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Weleit IN TIMES OF WAR O, N September 1, 1939, the war clouds over Europe unleashed themselves in a blitzkrieg that struck with blinding fury at Poland. In a short time Great Britain and France declared war on Ger- many. That same month Russia invaded Finland. In the spring of 1940 Hitler struck again and again with almost incredible speed. Norway fell, then the Netherlands, and finally Belgium. In quick X succession came the collapse of the invincible French army, the flanking of ;. ««»- iByffr; ' the impregnable Maginot line, and the inevitable separate peace on the part of France. England alone remained. . . . With all the world shuddering at the horrible spectacle of modem mech- anized war, the reaction of the United States was almost instantaneous . . . millions raised by private contributions for aid to the National Defense, plans for a two-ocean Navy and a year. For the Class of 1941... no cruise to Europe America curtailed . . . graduation in February instead than twenty years ago, the class of 1917 was sum- to the defense of its country. Once again Destiny, bounded confidence in Youth, has thrust upon agrad- sufFering . . . billions for fifty thousand airplanes . . . the one to South of in June. . . . More moned, six months early, with her seemingly un- uating class at the Naval Academy responsibilities which ordinarily would not be theirs until later years.