1934

Lots of you seem to be interested in what is going to be done about a reunion this year. Obviously nothing very much can be planned, and even though I've searched for some nifty ideas on the subject, the obstacles encountered have prevented anyone from our class or other classes from showing much ingenuity. What seems to be the best suggestion offered so far is to have lots of reunions all over the country. Wherever two or more of you can get together in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, or Peoria; in Camp Lee, Fort Knox, Maxwell Field, or aboard the "North Dakota," a get-together about June 3 will be in order. If there are enough of you in any one spot so that something more extensive than a ham on rye and a bottle of beer can be planned, let's get going and work up some fun. Each of you take it upon yourself to call up a few others and start planning right now. (No, not tomorrow, but just as soon as you finish this issue). Let me know what you work out so I can pass the good word along to others. And see if you can't get me some good pictures for the June issue; groups if possible.

You fellows still in civies will be interested to learn that the Army still has room for a few more men. At least George Klinefelter was able to squeeze in and is now a corporal at Matthews, Va., as well as George Copp, who is also wearing two stripes up in Albany, N. Y. And speaking of the Army, some of you seem to be doing all right. Gardner Bassett is now a lieutenant, Stew Alexander is a lieutenant colonel (yep, you read it right the first time), and Peanut Davies is a major. The major reports from England ". ... I've seen Hank Werner who is in a fighter group over here. We had two days of talk over here and reminisced until late into the night. Ran into Lt. Bill Mock on my only 48-hour pass to London last week. We had just a few minutes together and I didn't get a chance to find out much about him, but he looks fine." Don Sandy is also in England at the present time as a lieutenant in the Navy. Doing a little surmising, it's a pretty safe bet that Bill Richardson and Mac Collins, are wearing some sort of uniform, since their class dues were paid by their wives. And some recent shifting of Army and Navy talent now finds Lt. Ward Harvey in Ardmore, Pa., Capt. George Sayre at the Rhoads General Hospital in U tica, Ensign Bob Wildman in San Francisco, and Ensign Ray Hulsart is in Ventura, Calif.

Many thanks for your swell response on class dues. The part I'm going to miss now is receiving bits of information about you that accompanied so many checks. Let's keep that part coming anyhow. Want to? Hey? And for those of you who haven't gotten around to making out that check, we are going to keep the books open a little late this year and will give special handling to any and all payments received.

A note from Lex Paradis reports, am still with American Airlines, now as office manager of the Department of Economic Planning. Have another son, Joel, born in May, and am pretty busy just working these days " And Lt. (jg) Gail Raphael writes, .. .as of January, 1944, I shall resign my membership in the bachelors' union .... myrescuerisaWAVE (it is a fine Navy, fellows) by the name of Sigrid Shield, Icelandic in ancestry, which certainly presages well for a couple of sons who are better on skis than I am. We are both members of Admiral Woodward's staff in the Industrial Relations division of the Navy." Lt. William C. (better known as Peaches) Ramsey is quite newsy this month; ". ... I'm stationed (apparently permanently) in the Bureau of Ordnance, Washington, D. C Saw Baird a couple of weeks ago in the Armed Guard School at Camp Shelton (Little Creek, Va.). I had two V-mails recently—one from Perk Bass who was en route to India, where he'll be a Combat Information officer. The other from Dudley Tibbits who must be in England, as he'd been to visit London recently. Bill Daniels was in the Bureau until recently, and when he left was headed for an assignment as an aircraft ordnance maintenance man aboard a carrier. Stan Smoyer expects his ulcer not to be any hindrance to induction next month. (He is with WPB)."

Lt. Oscar Cohn has reported back from a short trip overseas and is now stationed at Camp Sibert, Ala. And from Bob Offenbach, ... Was rejected by the Armed Forces in October .... am still merchandising manager of Regenstein's Peachtree Store in Atlanta .... Helene and I are expecting our first addition to the family next May. Hope it's a candidate for admission to Dartmouth " And a word from Milton Spitz, ". ... Am still directing the medical policies of St. Louis County Hospital Son Jeff is six months and daughter Linda is almost two years old now In case you haven't already heard since your December class notes were published, Bob Balgley is an Army Pfc. in the military department at Rhode Island State College at Kingston, R. I."

Here's Dick Herman's story on the sinking of the "Helena" as told in a radio talk by Richard over station WQXR (plus a very bad job of editing on my part to make it fit in the allotted space) .... "On July 2 we did a routine job of shelling Jap shore installations at Kolombangara and Bairoko. Figuring that was that, we put in at Tulagi, and then set out for our home base. We were doing fine a couple of days later on July 5 when all of a sudden they ran up a flag hoist reading: 'Turn one-eight; full speed.' Everybody aboard ship could read the signal, and, as usual, my stomach dropped down into my little black shoes All the way back we kept joking that this was our thirteenth engagement and that we had none of our usual lucky tokens with us. Commander Chew had shaved off his lucky beard; I'd put my battle socks in the laundry; every man had something like that, and because we'd been on our way home, nobody had his lucky piece with him. Of course we forgot all about that when we established our first contact with the enemy at one o'clock and opened fire, and I really mean opened fire I don't think we'd been at it more than ten minutes when the first Jap torpedo hit us pretty far forward. Everyone in Number 1 gun turret was killed, and the bow was knocked clean off. It floated around for a while in the middle of the battle. As a matter of fact our ships detected and challenged it. When they got no answer, they opened fire on it and gave it a pretty thorough pounding. Then the order went out to investigate, and a destroyer that had been through almost every battle with us threw a spotlight on it. I hear the captain actually had tears in his eyes as he reported to the admiral, 'Sir, we are sorry to inform you that it is the "50." ' That was our number. He probably thought the whole ship was under. But we were still fighting.

"Just a little after the bow broke off, a second torpedo hit, stopping us dead. I was looking over the side a moment later and saw the wake of a third torpedo coming at us. I shouted to my gun crew and we dropped to the deck. That one broke what was left of us in two. The communications were out, but nobody had to tell us to abandon ship. We could see the water coming up and knew what to do without being told. My crew and I climbed down onto the deck which was now a foot or so under oil and water. I cut loose the liferaft, and we floated it out over the rail into the gulf. Of course everybody had life-belts on, so there wasn't too much danger. But a number of men were wounded or delirious from the shock, and I had to swim out from the raft three or four times to pull some poor guy to comparative safety. At first there was just one raft, and I was the only officer. In fact I got to feeling pretty heroic until I swam out to get my fourth guy. Then, chugging calmly through the water just a short distance .away, I heard someone else making his way toward us. And then his slightly amused voice said, 'Attaboy, Richard.' He was the funniest sight I ever saw. His waterproof watch was still running, and he was so proud of it that he couldn't help asking everybody what time it was. Then he'd glance at his wrist and say, 'Well, what do you know, my watch is still running.' After he'd pulled that on each of us, he couldn't think of anything else to do, so he swam away to another raft to ask them what time it was. He must have visited every raft in the gulf to talk about his watch.

"Of course, all this time the battle was still going on all around us. There were explosions and tracer bullets, and every once in a while, the water would get all fizzy from the wake of a torpedo passing under us. All the time we were in the water one of the kids on the raft, who had been torpedoed twice before, kept muttering, 'Three times is too much; three times is just too damn much.' About four o'clock a destroyer pulled alongside in one of the most beautiful pieces of seamanship I ever hope to see, and we climbed aboard. There were destroyers picking us up all over the gulf. I remember one destroyer signalled the admiral: 'Request permission to stay and pick up "Helena" survivors.' The admiral signalled back, 'What is your ammunition conditions?' The destroyer said, 'Pretty fair.' So the admiral said, 'How many torpedoes have you?'—and the destroyer said, 'None.' The admiral asked, 'How many shells have you?' The destroyer said, 'None.' Those guys must have planned to throw tooth brushes and light bulbs at any Jap ship that came along. But destroyers are valuable, so they were sent into base The battle was still going on, and a little guy with a wonderful Brooklyn accent elbowed his way through us, saying: 'Pardon me, Buddy, but I'm the pointer on this gunmount, and we gotta do a little shootin.' So we kinda got out from under while they helped sink a Japanese light cruiser and a destroyer. The X hung around picking people up out of the water for quite a while, and then it really got pretty thick, with Jap torpedo planes on the way and all, so we beat it down to Tulagi. The destroyer boys hated to leave, but us survivors just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. I guess we missed the old 'Helena.' "

Secretary and Treasurer, General Box Co. 816 S. 16th st., Louisville 1, Ky.