SIXTIETH GRADUATION ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1940

This is a transcript of "The Long Voyage of the Class of Forty-U. S. Naval Academy" taken from the book The Class of Forty After Fifty Years © W. M. Carpenter 1990. Original text by C. H. Hall and W. D. Lanier.

WE TAKE DEPARTURE

"Four years together by the Bay
Where Severn meets the tide.
Then by the Service called away,
We're scattered far and wide."

The scattering began in the first minutes after graduation. 400 graduates were commissioned as ensigns, U. S. Navy. Dave MacInnes, who graduated from a hospital bed, battled tuberculosis until his medical discharge a few months later. Dick Heath resigned to follow his calling to the priesthood. The other 398 departed to report to battleships, cruisers, and carriers, and the 25 newly commissioned second lieutenants, U. S. Marine Corps, headed for Basic School in Philadelphia.

Abe Campo returned to his native Philippines. Buck Buchanan, who had lost a leg to a mooring line in subchaser drill, left to join Sperry Gyroscope, starting a journey that would eventually lead to Singapore and a Jap prison camp.

The remaining 29 graduates, denied commissions because of inability to read the eye charts, went their various ways. Mike Alpert, Barney Barnett, Bill Lanier, and Jack Newbould accepted commissions as ensigns, USNR, and were ordered to active duty at the Naval Academy. Joe D'Arezzo and Fritz Freund found a home in the Army. 17 others in this group would return to the Navy within a year, and some would stay. In total, the "eye unsats" produced five captains, six commanders, six lieutenant commanders, a brigadier general and a major general. Included in the total, one aviator and one submariner. So much for eye charts.

Stormy Karl, taking prompt advantage of his temporary status as a civilian, married his high school sweetheart in the Chapel, one hour after graduation, and, three hours later, Bill Colson followed suit. The first acknowledged marriage would in a proper time produce the Class Baby, Richard Louis Karl, jr. Other marriages would have less pleasant consequences, since we were forbidden to marry during our first two years of commissioned service. Ed Donley, Vaughn Andres, Dusty Rhodes, and Art Wagner had their commissions revoked when their marriages became officially known. Ed went into the Army, eventually to wear two stars, and Vaughn returned to the Navy as a reserve officer. Unlike young people today, none of our class "lived together" (so far as any of us knew, anyway). It was always marriage and the career risk that went with it.

About the time we graduated, Ed Mason, who resigned in 1938 to get married, joined the FBI to become during WWII the youngest special agent in charge of a field division, finally retiring as an assistant director to J. Edgar Hoover.

Flushed with wealth, a princely $125 a month, some of us acquired cars. A brand new Chevrolet, with white sidewall tires, seat covers, and a radio, could be had for $740 cash or $75 down and 24 easy payments.

Most of the new ensigns headed for the Pacific. 97 of us traveled to Hawaii in the luxury liner MONTEREY, and Cary Baldwin, Ned Bent, Pat Clancy, Whiff Caldwell, Ted Hechler, Jonse Hughes, Chick Obrist, Pete Peters and John Wier were still talking about this fabulous, bibulous interlude years later. Some of our class, including Bill Fly and Herman Klare, for reasons unknown, were sent to Oahu in destroyers, standing watch all the way. Eddie Cloues and most of the other ill-fated ARIZONA ensigns made the transit in CIMARRON. Reporting for duty, we took our assigned places at the bottom of the totem pole and settled in to learn the ropes. In battleships, the ensigns had their our own junior officers' mess, slightly rowdy, all sworn companions, even until now. The JO messes on weekend nights and the ensign tables in cruisers and carriers were graced by many lovely young women dinner guests. We were forbidden to marry, which made these short peace-time years a time of sighs and plans and anticipation of a future delectable beyond imagination.

We were supposed to rotate between engineering and deck duties, between gunnery and communications and navigation departments, with temporary assignments in every phase of shipboard operations. And we were expected to keep Notebooks, dutifully completing a series of written assignments. But few captains had much regard for the rotation idea, and the Notebooks, in most cases, went by the board. Generally, we stayed where we were put, and were patiently taught by the chiefs and senior petty officers, as generations had been taught before us. Our teachers, with years of service, were experienced and able, and welcomed us into their profession.

Another supposition, that we would remain in our first ship for two years, also went by the board. Mac MacMurray left ARIZONA and, with John McMullen, Pete Peterson, Ed Hearn and Bob White, went to destroyers before the end of the year. JJ Jackson reported to EDISON, a brand new destroyer, in December of 1940. In early 1941, John Clagett, Earle Childs and Pappy Dupzyk went to PT boats. Later, Ajax Hiller and then Wally Utley, our radio expert as a midshipman, went off to school to become our first specialists, with designation as radar officers. The first orders to new construction sent Bob Harris, Jake Heimark and Paul McArthur to WASHINGTON, and Julian Burke, Ned Garrett, Rex Rader and Ken Simmons to NORTH CAROLINA; and then, a few months later, Mat Cain and Tom Wells to HORNET.

When the class of l941, graduating early, arrived on the scene, together with the first of the reserve ensigns from the V-7 program, we moved up a notch on the totem pole. We became "senior," each of us charged with building the knowledge and the experience of several of the new ensigns. In the Atlantic, Fritz Freund became our class's first commanding officer afloat with the command of an Army mine planter. Bill Lanier had the first naval command when he took over a subchaser. Stan Wagenhals became the only one of us to qualify for "prize money" when, as a member of the OMAHA boarding party, he helped salvage the Nazi blockade runner ODENWALD when she attempted to scuttle. His share of the salvage money, $3,000, got to him seven years later.

As the Atlantic war intensified, close to a hundred of us left Hawaii suddenly and secretly in IDAHO, MISSISSIPPI, NEW MEXICO, with attendant cruisers, for Iceland. This was not considered an improvement.

By December, with HOUSTON and BOISE in the Philippines, and the carriers and their escorts at sea, 150 of us were left at Pearl Harbor.