1930

Visitors of the month, according to our leading Hanover correspondent, included Carl and Carol Haffenreffer, Bill Blanchard, Sam Adams and Roily Booma. Carl was on a well-earned holiday, having completed the ship-building programs for the Army, Navy and the Royal Navy that kept him so busily engaged at the Herreshoff Yards during the past few years. The Haffs spent most of the time in and near Woodstock at their favorite winter sport. Remember that "Schuss-puss" picture of Carl, taken at Sun Valley, that appeared in this periodical five or six years ago?

It is a fairly safe assumption that Bill Blanchard's mission included some skiing, but we don't know whether Dot and the twins were with him. We don't know what Sam Adams was up to, either, except that he spent about a week with our Inskip, but it will be all right with all Thirtymen if he made arrangements to look after some of the postponed Fifteenth Reunion requirements. Former class president Booma presumably was doing what all the rest of us would like to do—just visiting Hanover.

New York has not been without visitors, some of whom we have seen, talked to others on the telephone, or hea"rd of, via our underground agents. Si Chandler skipped through town and successfully wangled a plane ride to California through Bill Jessup and his Naval Air Transport Service. This enterprising operation enabled Si to get out to the Coast in time to skipper his boat across the Pacific.

Just the other day Alex McFarland dropped in for a good visit and a lunch. Alex was on his way back to Boston after a week's business trip to Charleston, W. Va., where he also had an opportunity to see Hal Knight, of whom little has been seen or heard for a long, long time. It was good to hear about the mountaineer, even if it was a jolt to realize that Hal's son is now in his sixteenth year.

Walt Rosenberry, the Minneapolis lumberjack, was due in these parts recently, and we were hoping to see him, but no word having been received from him leaves our objective unfilled. On the other hand we hope for better success when A 1 Dickerson comes down for his annual meeting with the local class agents.

By this time, no doubt, a great many of you have seen that wonderful Navy movie, "The Fighting Lady," mentioned by Comdr. Jack Smith. The class is to have another able representative on the biggest flat-top built to date, the U.S.S. . Lt. Dave Latham has received his assignment and will be the only surgeon aboard her.

Joe Placak has received his promotion to lieutenant commander, and has returned from the Pacific and is now in the Navy Department's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery at Washington, D. C. Bob Ryan was promoted to lieutenant colonel in February. He is judge advocate of the Division, which is a part of Patton's 3rd Army, and has been serving on the western front since last August. The Montpelier barrister received the Bronze Star medal in January, "for meritorious service in connection with military operations against an enemy of the United States in France."

Fran Horn is also wearing a silver oak leaf on each shoulder, having recently been promoted to lieutenant colonel. Fran is in Washington, attached to the General Staff Corps, and acts as assistant to Brig. Gen. J. F. Battley, deputy chief of staff for service commands, Headquarters Army Service Forces.

Other service promotions recently heard about include Lt. (jg) Herbert F. Parry, Capt. Richard B. Zeigler and Capt. William E. Bragner. Burt Sherwood has joined the Alexander Summer Mortgage Cos., of Teaneck and Newark, N. J., and will participate in the activities of its life insurance and mortgage departments. Burt, a member of Penn Mutual's Quarter Million Dollar Club, will specialize in mortgage-life insurance, partnership and stock-purchase insurance, pension trusts and the general mortgage business.

Nelson Rockefeller has received well-deserved praise for his participation in the InterAmerican Conference on the Problems of War and Peace, held in Mexico City. A few comments of Herbert Elliston, associate editor of the Washington Post, should be shared with all of you, although every bit of the twocolumn article is good reading:—

At Stettinius' side was Nelson Rockefeller, Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Xatin American affairs. Like Stettinius, he is a tyro in diplomacy and in negotiation, armed with nothing more chan a fund of knowledge about Latin America, an idiomatic grasp of the Spanish language, earnestness and faith, and a confiding eagerness to share everything with the newspapermen and the Latin delegations which won them over completely. Nothing more! Would that more of our diplomatic representatives had some of Nelson's qualities! Those qualities are what go into the makings of successful relations with the public and with foreign nations. Nelson Rockefeller, with no background and no particular ideas beyond the general idea of helping to bind the Americas together, was a stunning success.

Nelson Rockefeller bore the burden of the press conferences. He made them meaty. You had his thoughts, all of them, thrown in with the meat and everything was dished out with disarming aplomb As was natural with a neophyte, he allowed himself to be carried onto dangerous shoals, but there was no correspondent there who would have betrayed his confidence..... Veteran diplomatic officers were continually checking him, adding postcripts that what had just been said was "strictly off the record," and Nelson would meekly submit, though with a witticism that made his press conferences amusing as well as rewarding. .... Certainly Nelson Rockefeller passed his first test triumphantly.

And now, with the deepest regret, we announce the addition of a third gold star to our service flag. Lt. Kenneth K. Rull was killed in the Pacific, March a, 1945. Further details will appear in the In Memoriam section of a later issue, but the information received at this writing indicates Ken died as the result of a compound skull fracture when he fell into the elevator shaft on board a carrier.

INTRODUCING SUZANNE JOAN, attractive young daughter of Lt. Cmdr. Alfred F. McGrath '30, USNR. Her father, after 22 months of service, and a citation, has been released from the Navy.

EN ROUTE TO GERMANY some months back, Lt. Ernest H. Moore '31 halts at a European crossroads.

Secretary, 99 Hudson St., New York, N. Y Treasurer, 443 Nyatt Rd., Harrington, R. X.

KENNETH KENELM KULL, Lieutenant U.S.N .R. Hail! And Farewell, Until our Great Reunion