Northern California

"DARTMOUTH VICTORY" SAVED

Thanks to the efforts o£ Ed Drechsel '36 and Jim Adams '43 the Dartmouth Victory will be gone but not forgotten for posterity. Learning that the merchant ship christened with this name during World War II had been purchased by the American President Lines and that the name was to be changed, they got busy.

They contacted the company and it was arranged that a representative of A.P.L. would appear at our regular Wednesday luncheon, May 2, to make a presentation to the College through our Association. Captain T. C. Conwell was the representative and no Dartmouth man could have done a better job.

He was introduced by the Association V.P., Larry Eager '23, and after a most interesting review of how names were selected for the thousands of ships built during the war Captain Conwell gave us the facts on the Dartmouth Victory (one of the same class of ships as the Wellesley Victory and the SmithVictory). Her keel for the 10,000 tons to come was laid on January 1, 1945. in Portland, Oregon, in the yards of the Oregon Shipbuilding Corp. She received the champagne treatment (what's the matter with rum) only 46 days later and was completed with her 8500 H.P. engines and in service on March 16, still 1945. The trans-Pacific service was her first duty and she stuck to it for a number of years even after the war was over, making a total of 23 round trips. There is probably little in the way of cargo her hulls and decks have not seen, everything from army tanks to squid. Eventually the gun turrets were removed and the gun crew quarters altered into accommodations for three passengers of the hardy type (attention chubbers) who like riding over a prop and battling the foam and flotsam during stormy weather to get meals at the crew's mess amidships. Don Albertsen 36, of Albertsen Cruise Tours, said he would be glad to book the space for any alumnus interested in taking the next trip around the world on the President Arthur, the ship's new name. Presently she is in the Bay of Bengal.

At the end of his remarks Captain Conwell made the presentation of the builder's plate from the Dartmouth Victory, which had been shined up and neatly mounted on a sturdy oak frame. The Association is sending it on to the College where we hope it will be displayed for future generations in some appropriate place and not, as the Captain suggested, purloined by some enterprising undergrad and sold for brass scrap to raise funds for a "peerade" to a sister ship college.

Dartmouth men attending the presentation were: Bill Abbott '27, Don Albertsen '37, Bob Allen '33, Gus Ayers '06, John Baer '17, Dave Bender '31, Bill Brown '19, Vance Campbell '12, Mort Crowell '29, George Currier 17, "Gob" Des Marais '26, Larry Eager '23, Chuck Faye '30, Bob Fisher '32, Roily Howes 27, Deane Howland '34, Jim Lull '31, Tom Macy '38, Brant McCullough '31, Paul McKown 23, David Smith '35, Ritchie Smith '26, Ray- Taylor '11, Don Tenny '40, Line Wilson '13, Abe Winslow '20, and Bob White '41.

DAVID P. SMITH '35

Secretary, Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. 140 New Montgomery St. San Francisco 5, Calif.