1941*

Fill the foaming flagons, brethren, and let the welkins resound, for 1941 has finally acquired its Class Baby..

At least we have a strong claimant. In an abundance of caution, I'll delay an official pronouncement until any other contenders have had a chance to file their claims. But in the meantime:

Bruce Harriman Baker, all eight pounds and nine ounces of him, was born on October 9th to Jay and Pattie Baker at Albany —thereby becoming the»first '4 infant to meet all eligibility requirements which include being male and having parents who were married after graduation. Jay and Pat were married in August of '41 and were in Portland, Me., for a while, where Jay was a shipfitter for the Todd-Bath Shipbuilding Co. Now he's Lt. Baker USMC, and is in action in the Solomons. His later report, Pat writes, "says they are stacking the Japs up like kindling wood."

Before we leave the subject, however, let it be recorded that B. H. B. didn't make it by much. For only a few days after I received Pat's letter, came one from Lt. (j.g.) Red Higgins announcing that Mrs. Red had just presented him with Lee Higgins '63, weighing six pounds, nine and a half ounces. Lee, however, arrived on Oct. 24, just 15 days too late for the title.

Red has been on a destroyer since a year ago September, and has just been detached to go to a new light cruiser. He says Dean Carleton, also a j.g., hasn't been in the U.S.A. since last March—in the South Atlantic instead.

And so, unless unthroned by a prior but as yet unannounced arrival, young Bruce Baker will succeed to the title of '41 Class Baby. Incidentally, I don't think 1940 has one yet. Terrible, isn't it?

COMMUNIQUES

"In looking back through some of the ALUMNI MAGAZINES," writes Lt. (j.g.) Bill Aylward from somewhere in the Pacific, "I noticed in May's issue you wanted to know about Dusty Rhodes among others. I saw him on an island about a month and a half ago—2nd It., USMCR, probably Ist lt. now, the way those Marines have been catching hell. But anyway he was alive and well. He'd been through the start of the Solomons affair, but had come out O. K. Also Phil Schribman is on the USS c/o P.M. San Francisco. I heard from someone that he had been coxing a landing boat at Guadalcanal, but had come through 0.K., too. Both Rhodes and Schribman are removed from the Solomons now, so I can tell you this much.

"I saw Johnny Everett on a new destroyer the other day and talking about getting married this winter. But where we are is so far from the states that only by sinking the ship is there a chance to be transferred state-side, and that is a little too much to ask for.

"Money is no good here—nothing available to buy. Even the officers' club has a (ed. note: three words censored because of indecipherable penmanship) and only one bottle of beer per day per person so you get the drift. Saw Herb Mattlage '39 in Hawaii safe and sound. Noticed in one of the '39 columns that they thought he had been on the Arizona when it went down.

"Schribman, Everett and myself, along with anyone else in the Naval Reserve who had been ensigns before Dec. 20, 1941, were promoted to It. (j.g.) as of Oct. 1, 1942. Other than that I haven't anything more to say. The weather is fine, but I haven't seen any winter since last year."

We have word of George Cruze, thanks to a letter from his mother. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery at Fort Sill on Oct. 5th, and left immediately for overseas duty. His family had a cable saying that he had arrived safely, but they don't know yet where he arrived at. His address: 2nd Lt. George Cruze Jr., Serial No. 01170334, APO 640 c/o Postmaster, New York City.

A card from Walt Lipman listed him as attending Radio School at Camp Gruber, Okla. He may be gone by now, though.^

On the home front, George Dreher is minister of a little church out in McCall, Idaho, "taking the year off between two laps of theological study." He got his A.M. at Oberlin last spring, and next fall expects to start work on his B.D. He also reports Gordon Ide as a graduate chemistry student at Minnesota University.

YOU-KNOW-WHAT DEPARTMENT

Here's the monthly casualty listEngaged: Ens. George McCallum to Fanny L. Welsh, of Montclair, N. J.; Ens. Johnny White to Anne Simpson, of Little Falls, N. Y.; Ens. Joe Griffith to Alice Ann Cross, of Maplewood, N. J.; Bill Burgard to Phyllis C. Meyer, of Springville, N. Y.

Married: Robbins Barstow to Margaret Vanderbeek, of Plainfield, N. J., on Sept. 18; Ens. Jim Rogers to Marjorie French, of Plainfield, N. J., on Oct. 4; Percy Holloway to Anne Loughin, of Montclair, N. J., on Oct. 17; Ens. Dick Darby to Doris E. Stratton, of Paterson, N. J., on Sept. 25; and Sgt. Cam Hosmer to Elizabeth Carr, of Newport, R. 1., on Sept. 19.

And finally the newcomer-to-Washington-of-the-month: Brud Phillips, newly arrived at the rank of second lieutenant and newly stationed here. He says Frank Myers and Red Conners were just behind him in Officer Training School.

Got any more news?

ENSIGN JACKSON W. MORTON '41, USNR Recently awarded his Navy wings at thePensacola Naval Air Station.

Secretary, City Room, Washington Post Washington, D. C.

Treasurer, 17 N. Park St., Hanover, N. H