Letters

Big Green Scores Again

To THE EDITOR:

With Dartmouth men fighting on every front all over the world, you must have lots of stories of their meetings and their thoughts of Dartmouth and Hanover. I think that you might be interested, however, to know that the first Dartmouth group to hold a session on the continent of Europe during the past three years consisted of Lieutenants (j.g.) Howard C. Van Riper '39 and Thomas T. Brooks Jr. '39 and the writer. What is more, we; met on a sandy beach designated "Green Beach" by the Allied authorities, and on the conning towers of our ships were painted seven foot squares of Dartmouth Green with a onefoot horizontal strip painted white running through the center. The three ships of this type which we are commanding were among the first five to hit the beach during the recent Allied landings in Italy. Interesting, too, is the fact that the Executive Officer of one of the two remaining ships, Lt. (j.g.) Franklyn Delaney of New York City, is an adopted son of Dartmouth, He was a member of the first class of the Naval Indoctrination School which was held in Hanover, and he is as loyal a wearer of the Green as any Dartmouth man I have ever met. All of us took part in the Sicilian operations also, but here, quite by accident, we were picked to go in together during the first hour of the assault. As you may have guessed, the meeting was rather short and a bit nervewracking and not quite soundproof, but legally we think it fulfilled all the functions necessary.

Fleet Postmaster

New York City