1925
Southern visitors have been the Whites who motored to Florida, flew to Cuba, and spent 11 days at the Havana Country Club. ParkMerrow is currently vacationing at swank Verado Beach in Cuba, according to a letter to Larry Leavitt; and the George Newmans sailed on a United Fruit boat to Guatemala for 3 weeks.
At the Boston Dartmouth Dinner were the following: Ham Thayer, Tippy Tower, FrankWallis, Pete Blodgett, El Warner, Win Prescott, Nate Bugbee, Lane Goss, Jake Permey,Jim Wirm, Herb Talbot, Line Davis, JoeLeavitt, Larry Leavitt, Bob Rhoades, GeorgeNewman, Don Hunt, Whitey, Eddie Edwards,Ralph Thompson, Lou Kimball, Ken Nugent,Les King, Eddie Griffin, Eddie Pease, and the writer.
February visitor to the Hanover Inn was Dr. Mac Shepard.
Changes of address and business include: Robert C. Hardy, 37 Wall St., N.Y.C. 5, President-American Steel and Pump Corp., Charles F. Moore Jr., Earl Newsom & Cos., 597 Madison Ave., N.Y.C. 18, Frank B. Wallis, 21 Estabrook Rd., Phillip's Beach, Swampscott, Mass., Major Robert C. Sweetser, 101 B Tudor St., Pineville, La., Francis E. Tissot, Service Review, Inc., 75 Maiden Lane, N.Y.C. 7. 3620 169 th St., Flushing, L. 1., N. Y., Insurance Investigations.
Coop Rhodes, living at 58 Elm St., HudsonFalls, N. Y. and with the U. S. Atomic EnergyCommission in Schenectady, writes as follows:"A few days ago X received the enclosed letterfrom Ralph Shineman, who gives an accountof his experiences with the Army of Occupation in Austria. He wrote to me because, apparently, I am the last member of the Class of1925 with whom he has had correspondence.For a couple of years I was one of Whitey's legmen in the Alumni Fund Campaigns, andRalph was one of my Constituents. I have applied a red pencil to parts of Ralph's letter tocall attention to that part which he considersappropriate for quoting in class notes or newsletter."
"I was commissioned in April 1942 and after three years of duty in the Rail Division of the Office of Transportation, U.S. Army, at Washington, the top echelon of the Military Railway Service throughout the world, I was sent overseas to be chief of what was to become later on the Transport Division of the U.S. Element, Allied Commission for Austria. I arrived in Austria via the Brenner Pass in May 1945 and reached Vienna in August via Innsbruck, Salzburg and Linz. Since then my headquarters has been Wien. Altogether it has been a fascinating experience and more things have happened to me than happen to most people during their lifetimes. First in point of interest was the restoration of civil transportation in Austria. When I arrived here a few days after the end of hostilities, everything was at an absolute standstill. The severe air raids during the closing days of the war had turned every big railroad terminal into an indescribable shambles; so badly smashed that it seemed impossible to put it back together again. Not a train was running; there was no highway traffic, of course, outside of military traffic; bridges were destroyed by the hundreds; and on the Danube we had some 900 ships, bottled up between Mauthausen and Passau, about three fourths of them afloat, the rest on the bottom. But as time passed order was brought out of chaos and a year later things were plenty much back to normal From that point on there has been steady progress until now for all practical purposes the restoration of physical plant and services is comlete The post-war transport problems are far from being solved but what has to be done from now on must come through Marshall Plan aid. Then there was this little matter of the dealings with the Russians which I don't think I shall forget for a long time. My contacts with them were frequent and always friendly. The unfortunate thing was the disappearance of the cordial friendliness which obtained during the first year or so we were together in quadripartite work. Mow things have deteriorated to such an extent that the meetings of the Allied Commission at various levels are only sounding boards for the propaganda of both sides. From the occupation standpoint, I think that here in Austria it is much overdone. As long as we do not have enough troops in Austria to hold back the Russians in case of trouble there is not much point of maintaining anything more than a token occupation. As long as American troops are in the U.S Zone of Germany, just over the Inn Salzach rivers from Austria, our occupational forces might just as effectively consist of large bands in Vienna, linz and Salzburg and let it go at that. All of the occupational forces here, including the Americans who are in some respects the worst offenders of the lot, exert a great amount of economic pressure on the Austrians. We have long since worn out our welcome and it is really time that we begin to pull in our horns a bit. At high levels we have made some magnificent gestures toward this little country but the occupational army can never make up its mind whether Austria is liberated or conquered. Most of the time it concludes that it is conquered and acts accordingly. As an American I am not particularly proud of the way we treat the Austrians. The high spots of my stay over here have been two excursions behind the Iron Curtain; one to Istanbul, Turkey to which I traveled through Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and European Turkey by various means in October, 1947, and last August when I spent four very hot weeks in Belgrade, Yugoslavia as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the International Danube Conference. As you know from the newspapers, the score was 69 to 0 in favor of the opponents, Vishinsky, Anna Pauker and Company. Our side could not even make a point. I expect to get back to the U.S. in February for relief from active duty after which the only item on the agenda is a three months' vacation. With best regards and all good wishes, I am, Sincerely, R. E.Shineman, Lt. Colonel, TC, Chief, Transport Division, U.S. Allied Commission for Austria."
We were glad to hear recently from HerbTalbot, who is on the medical staff of Cushing V. A. Hospital in Framingham, Mass. He writes:
"It was grand to see so many of the gang together at the Boston dinner, after having been away from New England for some time. The following should suffice to bring your biographical records up to date: "When I got out of the army at the end of 1945, after some 50 months in a soldier suit, most of it in ETO, I decided to cast my lot with the V.A. They needed a urologist at McGuire Hospital in Richmond, so I went down there for some two and a half years. Last August I came up here to Cushing as Chief of the Paraplegia Service, and am continuing my urology as well. "Regarding the domestic situation, my wife still talks of her four consecutive carnivals. She is 21 years older than when we were married, but otherwise not much different. Our boy, Geoff, is a junior in high school and hopes to be Dartmouth '54. We live in Natick. "By one of those coincidences, Rad Tanzer had been here visiting with me the morning your letter came. He is, as you know, doing excellent work in plastic surgery and is our consultant in that field.
Secretary, Kenneth B. Hill & Cos., Rm. 1007 80 Federal St., Boston 10, Mass.
Treasurer, 49 Federal St., Rm. 1062 Boston 10, Mass.
Class Agent, 1721 Broadway Ave., Highland Park, 111.
