Thayer School
THE SECOND YEAR of the Navy V-12 got under way early last month with the largest civil engineering enrollment to date, sixtyeight in two classes taking full-time work at the School.
Dean Garran has been laid up with an infection for some time but is on the mend and we all hope will be back on the job before this letter appears.
The Trustees gave well-deserved promotions to five members of the faculty in June. These were John H. Minnich '29 and Edward S. Brown Jr. '35, promoted to Professor of Civil Engineering; Joseph J. Ermenc promoted to Professor of Mechanical Engineering; S. Russell Stearns '38 promoted to Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering; and John M. Hirst '39 promoted to Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering.
On my way to the Lake Mansfield Trout Club for obvious purposes in June, I stopped in Barre for lunch and bumped into Lt. Gordon Lane '33. Gordon has been in the Navy practically since the start of the war and has been on sea duty a large part of that time. He was home on a 30-day leave and expected to return to sea duty.
Robert E. Parker '11, who was Office Engineer for Monsanto.Chemical Company on the construction and equipment of Plant No. 2 of the Longhorn Ordnance Works, has been made Chief Engineer of the project. This is an 8,000,000 dollar plant manufacturing the propellant used in aerial torpedoes and jet propulsion motors.
The School enjoyed a visit last month from the Rice family, consisting of Russell J. Rice '16 and Mrs. Rice, their son Lt. (jg) Dick Rice '44, CEC, USNR, and his wife and two brothers. Since graduating in October, 1943, Dick has been stationed at Davisville, R. I., in the CEC Officers School.
Interesting letters have come in recently from several alumni in the Army and Navy. Any of these letters, quoted in full, would make better reading than this column as it is set up, but to maintain a consistent policy I'll try to skim the highlights.
Pvt. John Sewall '43 has been in the 99th division in an infantry regiment since leaving Lockheed a year ago. John is now attached to Headquarters Company in Lohr on Main, Germany. He had the rare experience of crossing the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen a couple of days after its capture. John reports that, fascinated as he was by the bridge as an engineering feat, that particular morning he was even more interested in reaching the other side as expeditiously as possible under the rather heavy and definitely unfriendly barrage which finally led to its collapse.
Ensign Bob Anthony '45, CEC, USNR, wrote from Luzon about the middle of June. Things move fast in the CEC. Less than eight months before that, Bob was an apprentice seaman at Thayer School. Now he and most of his class are in the thick of things about half way around the world from here. This class has kept in pretty close touch, for Bob was able to give, us a pretty good line-up of his ensign classmates as follows: Bob Aldom, Craig Cain, and Tom Candler are also in the Philippines; Fletch Clark, Bob Roberts, and Vic Smith are in the Marianas; Dave Davidson, Jim Eckels, and Ralph Tyler are on Okinawa. According to Bob Roberts, three members of the preceding class, also CEC, are in the Marianas: Gordon Ross, Paul Talbot, and Bill Wallace.
A good report from Tom Chandler '45, in the Philippines as noted above, talks about construction conditions on his island contrast- ing them with the somewhat smoother conditions of civilian construction, and notes that he has seen Ensign Del Field '44, CEC, recently.
Of the four civil engineering students who completed the curriculum in June, two, Cal Gurney and Bruce O'Brien, have been assigned to Camp Endicott and the other two, Frank Alschuler and Dave Nassif, have gone to Columbia.
One alumnus, who appears to prefer anonymity in connection with his various generosities to the School, which may be a characteristic of contractors in the Buffalo vicinity, has followed up Fred Munkelt's hint in his Dartmouth Engineering Society letter of June that the School needs all kinds of engineering equipment to implement its postwar plans. The list of our needs has been sent to himit's about eighteen pages of mimeographed material—and there are plenty of copies left in the office which will be sent free of charge, postage prepaid, no strings attached, to anyone interested (Adv.).
