1928
Our first war casualty is Harry Bennert, captain in the Medical Corps, who was injured in Iceland. He was making sick calls one rough night on a ship in the harbor and as he was going over the side on a rope ladder to the tender he slipped and fell, fracturing two vertebrae. Fortunately there was no injury to the nerves and no paralysis. He was shipped to the States and kept in a plaster cast for a month at the hospital at Fort Devens. Just before Christmas the cast was removed and he was given a month's furlough, which he is spending with Elizabeth and their two children in Manchester, N. H. He will return to Devens and expects to be able to be assigned to limited service.
Sergeant Technician Larry Miter wrote in mid-December that he "had time off to go on a sightseeing trip to Cairo—a large, dirty, busy place these days."
Corporal Harry Davis and Elizabeth Hammet were married December 17 in the Little Church Around the Corner, New York. They are living at the Waldorf Astoria. (Pretty nice barracks you're living in Harry!)
Lt. Jack McLaughlin USNR was ordered to Puerto Rico and then to St. Lucia. He writes, "There isn't much I can write....
but I can say that this is pretty good duty. It's a tropical island. As you can see on your map, Martinique is next door. The food is good, the climate is delightful—a little warm but there is always a breeze. Of course I miss Lois, and all of my friends, but Sherman was right. Maybe we'll all appreciate the normal lives we led that used to seem commonplace—when this is all over. The boys down here are a great bunch, and among them is Nick Nichols '27."
Craw Pollock had dinner in Chicago with Major Ed Sawyer, who had just had milk, cheese, poultry and butter added to his fish purchasing duties for the Army, and is really loaded down with work. He is living at the Medinah Club.
Lt. Willis Mitchell and Grace spent a Sunday with the Pollocks in Claymont, a suburb of Wilmington, before Willis was transferred to the Lakehurst (N. J.) Naval Station.
Chris Hackett has been approved for Officer Candidate School and is waiting for the Army to tell him to report.
Officer Candidate Jack Phelan at Miami Beach was lucky to get Christmas off and considered himself even more fortunate to be invited to Frank Hankins lovely home in Miami for dinner. Jack will graduate March 3.
Wendell Phillips graduated as a shavetail from O.C.S. at Camp Davis, N. C., December 4 and was sent to a barrage balloon outfit in Bayonne, N. J.
. . . .Roy Myers graduated with the same commission from the same school two weeks later and was assigned to a coast artillery regiment in Paterson, N. J.
Lt. Jerry Luellen is teaching a course called "Training Management" at the Signal Corps' O.C.S. at Ft. Monmouth, N. J.
Dave Russell has been promoted from lieutenant to captain in the Air Corps, is still at the New Castle Air Base, Wilmington.
Capt. Pete Bennett of the Chemical Warfare Service is at the Huntsville Arsenal, Alabama Capt. Buck Serrell is at the 16th Hospital Center, Camp Bowie, Texas.
On the civilian front, our classmates are active in vital jobs. For over a year Lloyd Sammis has been superintendent of a factory in Des Moines with 2,000 employees which is turning out one million .30 cal. cartridges a month.
Chuck Bruder is in a new job, with the Diehl Manufacturing Co., the electrical division of the Singer Manufacturing Cos., at their new plant at Findern, near Somerville, N. J.
Harry Jewett is working for Columbia University, Division of War Research, at the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, Fort Trumbull, New London, Conn.
Jack Herpel of N. J. Bell Tel. speaks for most of us when he says, "Working nights and weekends is now so much of the regular routine that even Corine and Jay have stopped griping about it."
When Kewp and Betty Munson moved from Buenos Aires to Wilmington last winter, the ship carrying all their furniture goods was torpedoed and sunk. They got a slight break there—they were on another ship. But trying to furnish a house with priorities on everything from stoves to doormats is no picnic. The oil rationing board had Eskimos in mind when they gave them their coupons, so they live (like many another '2Ber) in front of the fireplace, and wood is so precious that they keep it in the garage and the car in the driveway.
You men in uniform (and your families) are urged to send me pictures of yourselves for the '2B Army and Navy Albums which I >am keeping for future reunions. Each man has two pages with his name at the top, allowing plenty of room for all the pictures I can get. The albums are well filled already.
Walt Simpson is now in the Tax Department of the Western JElectric Co., 195 Broadway, New York. He and Ethel have a son, Walter Booth 2nd, born November 20.
WASHINGTON DINNER
The first '28 dinner in Washington was held December 21 with 13 present at the Taft House Inn. Four others, all in the Army, who had planned on attending, were' at the last minute kept away by an Army meeting. Those on hand were Sam Dennis, Mai Halliday, Hammie Hammesfahr, Bill Harris, Vic Hartjens, Lt. (j.g.) Art Holden, Woody Isham, Abe Kerr, Paul Kruming, Major Curley Prosser, Lt. Howie Rogers USNR, Lt. Arnold Van Benschoten USNR and Lt. Fran Young USNR. Another dinner is planned for February 2 at the same place. Much credit is due Vic Hartjens, the '2B Dinner chairman, tor successfully launching these dinners, and also for sending the news which follows.
Due to his experience in the Navy, Van Benschoten finds it easy to withhold information, but Vic finally pried loose from him the news that he was married in Washington December 13, 1941, to Marion Matz of Atlantic City.
Mai Haliday of the NLRB returned from a business trip to Florida just two hours before dinner time, but turned up to lend his support Woody Isham has been in Washington the past two years, representing the Standard Register Cos. He adopted on September 17 a five-day-old boy, who has been named Willard Hart Isham.
Lt. Fran Young has just arrived from Boston and is at the Navy Department. He is the only '2Ber to have served in both the Army and the Navy. He was drafted November 16 before his Navy commission came through. However, a month later he managed to get an honorable discharge from the Army and was sworn into the Navy the same day.
Bob Maclellan has been promoted from captain to major Fred Cheever has returned to Boston after having been "loaned" to the War Dept. by the Pepperell Cos. for several months Abe Kerr is with the OPA, having moved over from the Security Exchange Commission. Vic says he ran into Jud Whitehead, who comes to Washington once a week, but that he was unable to make the first '2B dinner.
Ed Lockett left recently for England to take over the London office of Time Magazine. Ed's wife, who lives in Washington, says she knows he would be glad to see any '2Bers who might be in London. His address is—Time Building, 1 Dean St., London.
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AMONG '28ERS IN ARMY SERVICE ARE A CAPTAIN, TWO LIEUTENANTS, AND A MAJOR Capt. David K. Russell '2B, left, is Statistical Officer for the Army Air Corps at New Castle Air Base, "assembling, tabulating andtransmitting primary data in the form of basic statistics required by higher authority." Center, Lieut. Ed Warren '30 pins the goldbar on the collar of Lieut. Dick Rendell '28 upon graduation from Quartermaster School, Camp Lee. Right, Major Jerry Pitts '2B,assistant director of purchasing, Army Exchange Service, explains a point to Col. K. D. Gardner, director of purchasing.
Secretary, Van Dyne Oil Co., Inc., Troy, Pa
