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

Page 30 text:

-■mmmmm k m WEDNESDAY IS ALWAYS THE DAY OF P-WORK AND P-RADES THE PLEBES PRAY FOR RAIN THAT DAY.

Page 29 text:

' iO a group of young men repre n!if% all tl!e States and TerritSf SgPlhis Nation, took an oath to ...well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office... on which they were about to enter. Having taken that oath, they became Midshipmen in the United States Na y- the class of ' 43 was born. Slightly bewildered, a little puzzled by regulat roand discipline to which they were unac- customed, this group — -now plebes — progressed from day to day in knowledge of the Naval Academy and the Navy. We had taken a big step, perhaps the most im- portant step we were ever to take, in choosing the Navy as a profession, a career, a life. We set out upon a four-year voyage into academic and naval training, to terminate on a similar June day in 1943. But Destiny, in her ruthless manner, took a hand. Clouds of war darkened our horizons to East and West, and we found our voyage foreshortened — we were to reach port in 1942, a year early. On June 19, 1942 a group of young men united in thought and spirit, took another oath, another office. Scattered to the seven seas by the Service we have chosen, the Class of ' 43 no longer exists as such. Although we are no longer together in a body, the class will live in spirit until the very last member has started on his last, his greatest voyage. But until that day, whenever two of us meet, we will relive in thought and word those three short years at the Academy. We will recount tales of those years — reliving them Day by Day. umM

Page 31 text:

A year, a week, a day — each day, each week, each year, so vastly different and yet so similar — When we meet and retell our tales of midshipmen days, the tales will be of particular days and particular events. But always we will carry memories of the typical days of the week with their repeating class and drill schedules. For that reason, in order to better preserve those memories, we have set down here the typical day by day story of the typical midshipman. Observing no rules — for there were no rules to observe — we have plucked a typical Monday, a typical Tuesday, in short, a typical work-a-day week to tell the story of life as a mid- shipman. At times we have recorded the transi- tion of particular events that are treasured memories of us all, but on the whole this record has been made a typical one. Our war-shortened course has necessitated the use of pictures taken during years other than First Class Year — the one we prefer to remember. It has necessitated, as well, the sub- stitution, in places, of pictures other than those in- tended, for the desired ones have been censored. Nevertheless, we have endeavored here to preserve for our memory and for posterity the story of a midshipman day by day. WE END THE WEEK AT CHAPEL. SATURDAY FALL OUT THE DIIfERS! .-X f.