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.

THE CLASS OF ‘40

...THE VOYAGE BEGINS

June, 1936. After four years of the New Deal, our country was beginning to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression, but with seven million unemployed and ten applicants for every job, times were still hard. 98% of American families lived on an annual income of less than $5,000, with an average individual income of only $1,348. College tuitions, incredibly modest by later standards, were nevertheless beyond the reach of all but a fortunate few. Those attempting to work their way through school competed desperately for jobs paying 25 cents an hour.

Abroad, the Japanese were in Manchuria, the Italians in Abyssinia, the Germans in the newly occupied Rhineland. But this meant little in an America that was not only at peace but determined to stay that way. Most Americans were confirmed isolationists. Some were pacifists. Undergraduates at Princeton had organized the V.F.W.-Veterans of Future Wars. Throughout the country, over 700,000 young men had signed a pledge that they would refuse to serve in uniform for whatever cause. The armed services were tight-reined and severely rationed. More people worked for Henry Ford than served in the U.S. Army. The Navy's aging battleships spent most of their time swinging at anchor, to save on fuel. Promotion, for officers and men alike, was slow and extremely competitive. The result was a core of exceptionally able and experienced professionals at all levels.

Against this background, in that distant June, 775 young men filed through the gates of the U. S. Naval Academy, to come together as the Class of 1940. We came from all of the then 48 states, and from Alaska and the Philippines. We came from high schools and prep schools and colleges, and (some fifty of us) from the Fleet. We were in many ways a product of our time. In other significant ways, we were different. We did not seek to avoid service, but to serve. And for us, the opportunity to serve as officers of the U.S. Navy was both an honor and a privilege. As we stood in the hallowed shadows of Memorial Hall to take the oath from a starched commander of distinguished presence, we felt a strong sense of dedication and commitment.

Our dedication was, however, soon tested. Transition from self-centered civilian or self-assured bluejacket to humble plebe was abrupt and shattering. It began with the ritual scalping of our already meager locks, followed by issuance of a wagon-load of uniforms, books, bedding, and gear, all stuffed into laundry bags and thrust upon our shoulders. Loaded like pack mules and whipped along by screaming second classmen, we ran to our rooms and set to work stenciling all of this mass of stuff with name and laundry number (who ever forgets his laundry number? Or the pungent odor of stencil ink?). Somewhere in the mass was a canvas-backed tome entitled "Naval Academy Regulations," which we were presumed to have absorbed in its entirety at first glance. Splattered with ink, dripping with sweat, many of us found ourselves on report for breaches of those unabsorbed regulations before sunset of our first day. Some of us, apprehended twice, were despondently convinced that our careers were ended before they had even begun.

For all of us the first day was daunting. For one of us, it was conclusive. On day two he submitted his resignation. On day three, he was gone, our first casualty.

The rest of us pressed on, and learned. We learned, first off, that we had a lot to learn. We learned that we must learn it ourselves, on our own, without help, hint, or guidance. And must learn it quickly, forthwith, despite the fact that there was, by any reasonable standard, no time to learn. No time, as time is normally reckoned, to do half the things we were expected to do in the course of a hectic day. No time to dress, no time to eat, no time to get from pressing here to urgent there. No time to read, no time to rest, no time to relax. No time ever, to slip, stumble, or err.

No time. Life lived on the double, always rushing, always a step behind. This was the way it began and this was the way it continued. The days flashed by, the weeks blurred into months, the months became years. Like an old movie, the action jerks and flickers across the screen with here and there a scene standing out. From these fragments we piece together a story, a patchwork of memories.

We marched in the sweltering heat of plebe summer, footsore and blistered. Then, hardly before we knew it, we were marching, sodden and shivering, in the icy rain and chill mist of Roosevelt's second inaugural. Then in another twinkling, we were marching, our ranks thinned by over a hundred, in the brilliance of a June Week parade.

Marching, in the latter case, on lighter feet, heading for the liberating moment, the blessed deliverance of "No more plebes!" It was, in our view, a liberation earned. We had done push-ups beyond number. We had cut square corners, and braced at table, and memorized and recited obscene ditties whose words were to stay with us long after more useful knowledge had been forgotten. We had lived in monastic confinement, with very occasional liberty and even more limited contact with girls. We had suffered but we had survived. And though we were to suffer worse and survive more in the years to come, there was something about this first milestone, this first small victory, that made it forever memorable.

Newly liberated, we went to sea, most of us for the first time, in the venerable ARKANSAS, NEW YORK, and TEXAS. In between bouts of seasickness, we holystoned decks, shined brass, chipped rust and wielded paint brushes. In Germany, we' visited Berlin or toured down the Rhine, catching a fleeting glimpse of a swaggering Third Reich, jackbooting its way on stage for its brief and bloody appearance in the spotlight of history. In Funchal, we enjoyed free samples of Madeira wine, bought linen on graduation terms and slid down cobblestoned streets in iron-shed contrivances without brakes. In England, we saw "this scepter'd isle" in the gentle radiance of its evening hour, when it was still the throne of kings and the seat of empire. And when it was still complacently deaf to Churchill's warnings.

Homeward bound, we descended on Norfolk and Virginia Beach, to become reacquainted with that near-forgotten species, girls, and to learn the "Big Apple". Then September leave, our first extended break, marred for some by a polio epidemic that placed their home states under quarantine.

It has been said that nobody forgets plebe year. It has also been said that nobody ever remembers youngster year, or cares to. We grappled with calculus and confirmed what we suspected. Given its way, the Department of Mathematics would happily bilge the lot of us, down to the last man. As it was, they counted their victims by the score. Physics, despite the efforts of "Slipstick Willie," an eccentric who actually tried to teach, claimed its share. Our ranks further thinned, we marched for Hollywood ("Once again for the movies!"). The picture, "Navy Blue and Gold," starred James Stewart and Lionel Barrymore, with a cast of thousands. We were the thousands.

Second class summer. We were introduced to naval aviation with thirty-minute hops in a lumbering P2Y and hours of movies of carrier crashes. We were introduced to submarines with dives in a leaky and asthmatic old boat that broke down periodically, to rest on the bottom of Chesapeake Bay while repairs were made, with loud bangs and colorful profanity. We were introduced to destroyers with cruises to Norfolk, New York, Newport and Marblehead, in aged four stackers. Most of us enjoyed this first taste of the informality of destroyer duty in spite of crowded and austere conditions and close contact with various forms of insect life.

September, 1938. The deadliest hurricane in U. S. history nearly wiped out Long Island and left much of New England in shambles. Those detained in returning from leave found that natural disaster provided no excuse. The offense, in at least one case, was recorded as "Wind, not anticipating."

On the day we returned from September leave, Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich, bearing the pact that promised "Peace in our time." Most believed him.

Halloween. On the radio, the doom-laden tones of Orson Welles, describing the onslaught of monsters from Mars. And the never-to-be-forgotten words of the Midshipman Regimental Commander, sword girded, reporting to the Superintendent: "Sir, the regiment is ready!" (We were not, in fact, ready. Our rifles had no firing pins, and we lacked ammunition. But perhaps he was thinking of bayonets.)

The last full-dress occasion most of us were to see came when the regiment was paraded, with officers in frock coats, cocked hats, and epaulettes, to escort the ashes of the Japanese ambassador, being embarked in ASTORIA for the long voyage home. ASTORIA's final voyage would end in Ironbottom Bay, August 9, 1942.

Spring, 1939. The Germans marched into Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, we listened, quite contentedly, to scratchy and tinny 78 rpm records, and to the "Lucky Strike Hit Parade," and, looking forward to the Ring Dance, argued the merits of Glenn Miller, the two Dorseys, Benny Goodman, Hal Kemp, Ted Weems, et al. Dickie Long touted Spike Jones, but Sam Forter and Ash Little settled in the end for Larry Clinton.

The Ring Dance. Tradition called for us to pass, by couples, through a large replica of the ring, where our partner of the evening would slip the ring on our finger and reward us with a kiss. Tradition was flouted, however, when the Commandant, reacting to an unfortunate photo in the Washinton Post, promulgated a ban on "public osculation." The ban was observed, technically. It just so happened, mysteriously, that, just prior to the ring ceremony, all the lights in Bancron Hall went out, and the darkness was enlivened by suspiciously osculatory noises. When the lights came back on, we filed primly through the ring and exchanged handshakes. Without, however, bothering to wipe either the grin or the lipstick off our faces.

Some of us, at the Ring Dance, were privileged to dance with our very special guest, Mrs. Roosevelt, and found her a most charming, gracious, and graceful First Lady. When Life magazine featured "June Week in Annapolis" some of us, and our ecstatic drags, enjoyed national exposure in five million copies of the issue.

First classmen at last, we acquired a personal grudge against all parties in the Spanish Civil War when our scheduled cruise to Italy and Greece was cancelled in favor of a shorter range cruise substituting Halifax, Quebec and New York. Our consolation prize was a visit to the World's Fair, where we sampled its vision of "The World of Tomorrow," and provided our own entertainment specialty, a parade, in whites. Between times, we gathered with the rest of the college crowd at the German-American Club, for exuberant choruses of "Roll Out the Barrel."

Then, Sepember 1, 1939, and suddenly the vision of tomorrow darkened. The Nazi blitzkrieg smashed into Poland; England and France declared war, and Russia began to move in for a share of the spoils.

By the time we returned from September leave, Poland had been crushed and dismembered, and the massed armies were settling down on opposite sides of the Maginot and Siegfried lines for the strange lull that some called the "Phony War." America, hunkered down behind her own wall of Neutrality Acts, seemed more determined than ever to stand aside and stay aloof. "America First" became a watchword, and Roosevelt's efforts to expand the Navy and take other preparatory measures carried narrowly, against bitter opposition.

Our own small world, when we returned to it, seemed remarkably undisturbed by these developments. Things continued as before, in the same familiar, established routine. We continued to study weapons, systems and procedures that were obsolescent (some of them so obsolete as to be forgotten in the Fleet) and to sketch and describe equipment we would never see. There was no hint of developments already underway--radar, new guns and directors, new planes and submarines, anti-submarine equipment--and no briefing on conditions, already changing, that were certain to differ from our expectations. We listened, with one ear tuned, to the nightly news, but when, after a winless football season, a makeshift team (with Dick Shafer as hero) scored an unexpected victory over Army, it far overshadowed anything that was happening, or not happening, in Europe.

On the last lap, with the once distant goal clearly in sight, we paused for a lottery more fateful (life or death for some of us) than we could imagine. Drawing numbers for ship assignments, Warren Smalzel pulled number one, John Chase, number 456. Lucky numbers, both.

456 was lucky in another sense. The magic number. The number of those agile enough, determined enough, and fortunate enough to make it through the rocks and shoals of four hazardous, testing years to the finish line.

456 out of 775. Along the way we had lost 319 (41%) of our original number. Some of the departed we had known briefly. Some we had known well. Good friends, good roommates, good men, all. Just a shade less nimble or adaptable, a bit less lucky.

Some of the missing would return to us, as shipmates for the duration. Most would serve in some branch of the armed services, and in Allied forces. At least sixteen (the records are incomplete) would be killed in action or in line of duty. Some would remain in uniform. Sam Edelstein and Fred Pennoyer would retire as captains, USN; Andy Lyman, Dave Randall, and Gordon West as colonels, USMC; Tom Riggs and Dan Williams as colonels, USA; Ellis Sheat as colonel, USAF.

Meanwhile, as we neared the end of this first stage of our journey, the world reached another grim turning point. The panzers moved, the stukas struck, and the grey columns slashed through the Lowlands. By the end of May France was on the verge of collapse and Britain, still reeling from the shock of Dunkirk, was bracing herself against invasion. The indomitable Churchill, hurling defiance in Hitler's teeth--"we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"--provided a rallying cry, but these were dark days for the cause of freedom.

The darkness of the hour could not, however, entirely dim the brightness of our day--our very special day--when we stepped forward to receive our diplomas from Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison, son of the famous inventor. We marched with heads up, proudly, confidently and exultingly. Joseph Paul D'Arezzo graduated number one.Dickie Long, happiest of the happy, was anchor man. In between, when Virgil Gex was called forth as "Gecks," the entire class stood and shouted as one: "JAY, sir!" Then, the final, triumphant roar, as caps flew and we turned to shake hands and pound backs. "We did it! We really did it!"

We had indeed done it. We had come a long way from those first groping and uncertain days in 1936. We had worked hard and learned much. A little from books, a great deal more from the toughening and tempering experience we shared. We had learned the uncompromising code of trust and truth that was to govern our lives. With faith in ourselves, and in each other, we had overcome the obstacles and defeated the odds. We had lived together, matured together, grown together. We had become comrades. And of all the things we took with us as we left the Naval Academy, none would be more valued than this sense of comradeship. It would light our way across the years.