1920*

We have been asked to reduce the amount of text in class notes so this month's will be confined to part of one of the best letters I have ever received. If it gives you half the kick it gave me, the writer, our ex-Pres. Tommy Thomson, can feel that he's done a real job. Here it is:

"Practically every time I get the ALUMNI MAGAZINE I swear I am going to write to you. Then, for some reason or another, I let it ride and it never

gets done. But this time it is different, (adv.F. M.)

"The last two or three issues of the MAGAZINE have carried me back—Gosh, was it that long ago —twenty-five years when Hanover was in the throes of helping give birth to another war machine. Remember the sessions we used to have? Every dorm had them and every house. Day after day and night after night, and almost every day saw some of those sessions broken up by someone leaving for the Navy or the Ambulance Corps on the strength of what he got from one of those sessions. Am I not right? And the same thing is happening today which goes to show that youth changes very little from one generation to another. The present outfit will have better tools to work with, but the old spirit is there and always will be.

"I can still remember some of the discussions at the Deke house. Some of the boys were for getting in at once while some did not catch the fire until later. I was one of the latter. I remember the eve- ning I said I was going to write to an uncle in North Dakota and see if he would give me a job on his farm. 'Big Jim' Robertson said, 'Ask him for one for me too, Tommy.' Never will I forget the early morning Jim and I stole out the back way and down the hill to Norwich where we caught the train for Canada and the Dakotas. We did not know when, if ever, we would be back and we felt it would be better to go without the farewells of friends we might never see again.

"During the summer on the farm Jim got caught in the first draft and was off to camp. We did our best to cheer him along the way. After farming it was to the coast for me with attempts to get in the Air Corps and the Navy. Turned down as I was not a citizen. At home to ship-building and the decision one morning bucking rivets to get into it. My Mother's 'What in the world are you doing home at this time of day' when I walked in at noon and answered, 'l'm going to enlist in the Royal Air Force this afternoon.' I have always been surprised at the matter of fact way she took it. What is that stuff that women are made off? I guess it is a part of what men fight for.

"Then to Vancouver where I found I was too tall for an aviator and would have to go in as a mechanic, if I stayed in the Force, or go into the Army. I stayed. To Toronto where I learned soldier- ing from the famous (?????) '590,' that being the number of non-coms sent over to teach the 'dumb' Canadians and Americans about airplanes. From the recruit's depot to an advanced flying school where I was a batman (Kipling calls him the 'low- est worm in the British Army') to a dozen newly- commissioned flying officers. From there to Camp Beamsville where I got my first chance to touch and work on a plane. I was a 'rigger.' One who assembled planes. A 'fitter' worked on the engines.

"Long, more or less, happy days there and came a track meet. Seven events entered and seven events won with lots of loot as prizes. The Sergeant Major who ran the meet telling us we could not place the hurdles where we wanted them when all we wanted to do was place them the proper distance apart after he had scattered them haphazardly down the track. Then on to Toronto where our camp won the big meet from all the other camps in Canada with 29 points. What a load of cups to carry back, most of them were on loose pedestals. Six cups and a 14Kt. gold medal. Luckily a Los Angeles Cadet and I double dated that afternoon and between us we got back to town.

"Then the 'Who is that fellow?' "Why is he a mechanic?' The, 'l'll see General Hore about you right away' from Tommy Church, mayor. of Toronto, and then the wait for the good word that I was going to ground school to start my training as a cadet for pilot. The test in the old 'Jenny' to see how I would do and then the 'latrine' rumour that we were going to Toronto on the 13th. I should have known there was a catch in it then. Came November 11 and it was all over. Well, I had some fun anyway.

"Then the month before being discharged. No flying by our boys. Unshipping of planes, the arrival from the States of a couple of airplanes and the mad scramble to the field to see what the U. S. had been using. The discharge and back to Brooklyn and to work in a garage at night until Harry Hillman was discharged from the Army and then back to Hanover and some of the greatest bull sessions ever.

"Some did not come back. Larry Snyder went to Ohio State, 'Nick' Carter went to Cornell, Jake Gorton stayed in the Navy, Johnnie Collom stayed in Baltimore and 'Chick' Hopkins stayed in France, God rest him.

"What a time we had trying to settle down once again!"

This ends the first installment of Tommy's letter—it will be concluded next month. Who'd ever guess that the old timber-topper's big frame held so much sentimentality and could bring back so vividly those never-to-be forgotten days.

Fund, Contributors for 1941

Contributors: 215 (98% of graduates). Total gifts: $2,938.84. ALBERT W. FREY, Class Agent.

1920

Adams, L. Sherman £ Ainsworth, Thomas H. £ Aitken, Edward C. Allen, John G. I Amsden, John P. J Amsden, Kendrick M. 1 Anderson, Oscar F. I Andretta, Salvador A. I Ashton, Charles M. J Ayres, Benjamin "W., Jr. J Baketel, H. Sheridan, Jr. J Barnes, Aldrich B. J Bartlett, Gordon1 Bennett, Philip E. Beranek, John G. Bernkopf, Harold E. Bidwell, Clyde C. Bidwell, Harold F. Birch, Ledyard H. Blaine, Irving E. Bowen, Edmund J. Bowerman, Paul Brewer, Joseph H. Brotherhood, John O. Bruce, Earl H. Calhoun, Salteau F. Campbell, Ralph E. Canada, Paul M. Carr, Wesley G. Cart, Theodore S. Carter, Joseph E. Carter, William A. Gate, Allan M. Chandler, Horatio H. Charlock, Richard W. Cheney, Elliott W. Chilcott, James C. Clark, Harold E. Clarkson, Lawrence W. Conway, Stanley T. Corbin, Franklin N., Jr. Cotner, Russell M. Crathern, Charles F. H., Jr Curtis, Edward M. Davidson, Thomas B. Davis, Lendall E. Dearborn, Henry W. Deßouville, Edward M. Dewey, Maurice A. Dorney, J. Frank Dow, Robert B. Dudley, Thomas M. Eaton, Dana H. Eddy, Randolph L. Elliott, Roscoe O. Farnham, William H., Jr. Farwell, Robert R. Felli, John C. Fielding, Walker Fiske, George A. Foley, Allen R. Foster, F. Beardsley, Jr. Frey, Albert W. Frost, James W. Fuguet, William D. Gault, Warren S. Gibson, J. Ralph Giffin, Paul S. Glines, Thomas J. Goddard, Richard H. Gooding, Arthur F. Graves, Stephen M. Greene, Thomas C. Gross, Francis P., Jr. Haas, G. Albert Hale, Arthur C. Hamm, Frederick B. Hardy, F. Kenneth Harvey, Murray C. Hasbrook, Ed. F., Jr.

Hill, Carroll E. Hill, John E. Hitchcock, Howard A. Holt, John W. Holway, Lowell H. Huntington, Harold G. Hutchins, F. Irving Hutchinson, Paul L. Johnson, Clinton C. Johnson, Stephen W. Jones, Russell K. Jones, Wesley R. Kay, Paul D. Keep, C. Russell Kimball, Richard S. Kitfield, Philip H. Koelb, Ralph H. Koski, Elmer J. Lappin, John H. J. Lawson, Archibald, Jr. Lee, Francis H. Lenz, Carl K. Lindsay, Edwin B. Lindsey, Joseph 8., Jr. Loeblein, Trueman T. Loehr, George R. Lombard, Marshall L. Lord, G. Frank Lucas, M. Grant, Jr. Lund, James Lux, Richard C. McAllaster, John P. Mac Donald, Donald McGlynn, Frank E. McGoughran, Charles F. MacKay, Donald H. C. McKenzie, Charles W. McLeran, Donald O. Macomber, George H. Maling,. Edwin A. Marden, Frederic T. Mayer, Frank D. :.Mayer, John S. Maynard, Leroy E. Merritt, Melville P. Miller, Erwin C. Millspaugh, Theron L. Miner, Robert J. Minnis, James L., Jr. Moody, F. Raymond Moore, Robert H. Moore, Walter C. Morey, Frank B. Morrill, Olney S. Morse, Robert F. r.Moulton, Francis G. Munroe, Stanley M. Myers, Edwin E. Nelson, William H. Newcomer, Stanley J. Newell, Herman W. Newton, Carl E. Osborn, Albert D. Page, Dudley W. George E., Jr. Pearson, Benjamin, Jr. Pearson, Dana E. Pearson, Richard M. PfeifFer, Arthur E. Phillips, Hosea B. Phillips, Reuel G. Pierce, Arthur E. Plowman, E. Grosvenor Pope, Roger W. Potter, Ben H. Potter, Waldo B. Powell, James C. Prentiss, John W. Pullen, Howard J. Richardson, Norman B.

Richter, Paul G. Roberts, Ralph S. Rogers, Donald A. Roland, Phillips H. Rollins, Henry B. Rounseville, Cyrus C., Jr. Rubel, Roy L. Sackett, George S. Sample, Paul S. Sampson, Harry W. Sargent, Charles H., Jr. Schinz, Walter S. Sheaffer, Craig R. Shoninger, Richard A. Sigler, Wendell P. Small, Lyndon F. Smith, A. Kelvin Smith, Arthur F. Smith, Lloyd E. Smith, Wade W. Snedecor, Spencer T. Southwick, Richard C. Southworth, F. Lyon Spalding, Kenneth W. Spero, Henry Stahl, Eric C. Steinbrecher, Albert H. Stern, Edwin M. Stillman, Allen P. Stone, Gerald S. Stratton, Samuel S. Sullivan, William B. Sunergren, Ralph A. Swezey, Carroll M. Thomson, Arthur D.

Thomson, Earl J. Tillson, Ernest F. Tobin, Gregory J. Turner, Warren O. Ungar, Leo M. Vail, James D., Jr. Van Iderstine, Robert, Jr. Van Orden, T. Durland Vincent, George F. Wallace, Eben Weis, Erwin T. Welch, Richard E. Weymouth, Burdette E. Whitaker, Howard W. Whiteside, Nathaniel H., Jr. J. Vrooman Willard, Leslie T. Winslow, Basil L. Winter, George F. Worth, I. Harry Yuill, Ralph W. IMemorial gift fromhis mother, Mrs. SamuelC. Bartlett. MEN CARRYING INSURANCE WITH THE COLLEGE AS BENEFICIARY Baketel, H. Sheridan, Jr. Harris, Donald G. Merritt, Melville P. Steinbrecher, Albert H.

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