Letters from Dartmouth Men in the Armed Forces

JIM ERWIN '42, who is at some Italianport with Jim Rendall and Frank Bartlett,also of '42, writes a fine letter: This is from a guy whom you know as a name and as one of your West-styled musketeers. Your course "13" was too large for you to have remembered even the name, so I carry my identity in the reflected glory of Jim and Bart. I use the familiar salutation possibly because "Professor West" would seem formidable to you who are to Dartmouth always Herb.

I have no particular reason for writing this. I am within a day or so of my release from being hospitalized for jaundice; and in the month that I have waited for my blood to lose its bile I have been doing what I have not done in eighteen months —thinking. I was surprised to find I still could think, and the release from the pressure of living from day to day was a welcome one.

A fellow by the name of Moore has been kind in forwarding us his "Bulletins" as he receives them from A1 Dickerson's stencil. And it was one of these which carried me back to old Virginny, as it were; I spent some pleasant hours calling up ghosts of the Hanover Plain from the haunted middle-distance of memory.

Is it my imagination, or are there quite strong undercurrents of fear for the future of the Dartmouth College—my Dartmouth College—which is justly and temporarily in abeyance? Will Dartmouth weather the financial storm if inflation comes and if the war (God forbid) were to go on, say, until the end of '46? Will Dartmouth lose her identity and that vital thread of continuity which the fraternities and Senior Societies have already given up and from which they cannot help but suffer? A hundred questions could be asked. So I have wondered and hope that some of my apprehensions are without foundation.

One of the things that go unspoken, that we don't dwell upon, is the much-battered question of what we are fighting for. We carry on and don't particularly worry why. However, I know that one of the reasons why I enlisted and why I am here—above and beyond the fight for survival—has its roots in my belief in the way of life that has a Dartmouth in it. We know all too well that the America we shall return to will not be the one we left. And I would be one of the last to wish that it could be. Nothing yet that I have encountered has destroyed my fundamental idealism and the perhaps self-conscious hope for a brave, new world. But that world will need Dartmouth and a thousand like it if it ever is to succeed in becoming brave and new. That is one reason for those questions. A war-conceived theory of education, under the pressure of demands for survival, is an efficient and impressive innovation. I only hope that the impact of it on the minds of the pre-war liberal education skeptics will not be great enough to affect the future course of Dartmouth's eventual return to liberal arts in the finest sense of the term. Can you reassure me there?

As for news, we are busy. Having been in bed here a month, I have somewhat lost touch with what occurs at the port. Jim and Bart are temporarily on night duty on some detail or other. We have at last realized our dream and are trouble shooters in reality. That means, of course, most of the dirty jobs from affairs of an hour to affairs of a month. But it also means a large amount of freedom and responsibility and invaluable training. While I was here, the other four of our group were called to a conference and were the only enlisted men concerned in a highly secret and crucial operation. And that is not conceit but sober truth.

As you may or may not know our group is five in number. Ourselves, a sib little guy of Rutgers, class of '42, and a wild, middle-aged, incorrigible, bald-headed, pot-bellied Irish tool-maker from Wallingford, Conn. Strangely enough, all of us were volunteer enlistments, and none of us could have told a freighter from a garbage scow before we got into this stevedore business. (Please note "stevedore" and not "longshoreman," there is a difference.) But through that barren corridor of endless days and weeks we learned our trade. Somehow we learned it; for not a week went by that we didn't try to get out of the outfit. Infantry, tank destroyer, artillery aircraft fire control (cub planes), we tried them all. But we were not allowed to go by our commander. Now, although they have no ratings to give us, they do think well enough of us to let us live apart from our company, on our own, independent and envied as long as we produce.

Naturally enough, there is satisfaction in "telling off" the ranks and ratings who are simply wrong. And the higher the rank, the greater the satisfaction. The ultimate was reached by Williams, the Rutgers man, when he rather more than profanely chewed a major-general and got an apology instead of a firing squad for his heresy. Some fifty yards from where Williams Was directing an operation on the beach, a command car was parked on the right of way, jamming the frenzied rush of supply traffic. The MP'.s were awed and said nothing. Williams who is Spider Spinney's size, in his ignorance, bellowed across the sand for the occupants of said car to use their "goddam heads and get that command car out of the way of the goddam operation." And as he reached the car, he asked in the same vein whether or not they knew there was a war taking place. Of course, he saluted and apologized when a two-starred helmet peered out at him. But the general only smiled, apologized for being in the way, and moved on. So we have our moments.

LT. THOMAS N. SCHROTH '43,USAAF, writes me from Bermuda.

Sorry I didn't get a chance to answer your letter sooner and acknowledge that wonderful picture you sent to us. Just after they came I was shipped here to Bermuda. Perhaps in your travels you have been here, but it is nothing like what it used to be. All the big hotels are closed and only the native population, mostly black, remains to entertain us. But of entertainment, there is very little. We are away from everything and even if it were easy to get into town, there would be very little to do there.

I think that this sojourn of mine in Bermuda is going to be a long, dull affair. It is really very pleasant as far as weather, accommodations and what-not are concerned, but it is even farther from the real war than New York or Chicago. I can't tell you what I'm doing here, but it is what I trained for at Chanute, and although that is very necessary, even here, it lacks the excitement and feeling of full participation that I think I could get, say, in Italy or China. But I have not given up hope of getting there some time before the war is over. I agree with you that the people who say the war will be over soon seem to be over-optimistic. I'd like to agree with them, but it is obvious that even they are preparing for a war that will last more than another year.

This war is awfully big and will have a tremendous effect on the world, not only in the next few years, but for many years. We will spend the rest of our lives in the shadow of this war.

In the year and few months that I've been out of Dartmouth and in the army, I have been more and more conscious of the influence which my years at Dartmouth had on me. There was a certain part of Dartmouth that is clearly apart from my general four years experience there, and that I feel is an ideal which I'll always have. It is hard to put in words. It wasn't just companionship with others, or love of nature, or beautiful buildings with a lot of tradition. Yet all that had something to do with it. I think of it as a sort of wholesome, peaceful vantage point from which to view the rest of my life. That doesn't adequately describe it, and perhaps I'm trying to describe something that can't be defined. But you feel it too, I know, and if you can tell me what it is, please do, because it's very good and I'd like to know more about it.

I bring that up about Dartmouth now because it is helping me see the war and perhaps beyond it in a much better light.

NICHOLAS BERNARD '23 writes toBasil (Doc) O'Connor 'l2 from somewhere in New Guinea:

At last, after three long months of waiting, my mail is starting to arrive and until you are thousands of miles away, one can never appreciate what a morale builder mail can be.

We are in the midst of the rainy season and when it rains here, it is something. In one three-day period it rained 36 inches and New Guinea mud is something out of a novel. You know the roads here were built by the Army, out of a jungle. You can imagine the rest. Dry clothes are a luxury.

We live in native huts, when available, and tents at other times. Between termites and spiders eating away the huts, and trees falling, it sure is fun to go to your quarters at night and find that everything has caved in and you are homeless. However, we laugh and get a terrific kick out of it.

Thank God the Americans have a sense of humor. That is the one thing that keeps us going. We can laugh at anything. I saw marines coming out of an invasion and after 20-odd days of laying in jungle mud, without a bath or shave, they came out laughing. You can't beat that, can you?

Yes, I do get up there too. So far I have been in two air raids and on one of my trips I sat in the nose of a bomber when we sighted a Nip ship. Honestly, I was plain scared. However, the official communique said: "Ship sighted, ship sunk."

The second night, after making a beachhead on a certain invasion, I brought in motion pictures on a P.T. boat. I can never tell you the thrill I had when I saw those kids' welcome. I would not have swapped the greeting I got for a million dollars.

If you have time, please have the ALUMNI MAGAZINE let every Dartmouth man in the S.W.P.A. know that there is a welcome sign out at Headquarters 6th Army, no matter where we may be.

OFFICIAL BUSINESS IN EGYPT was interrupted long enough for three Dartmouth men to view the pyramids, the Sphinx, and the desert. They are, left to right (mounted) : Art Cox '42, son of Prof. Sidney Cox, Frank Hutchins '45, and William McNeely '45.