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3/9/2004
The events of December 7, 1941, changed lives everywhere. When Japanese forces swept down upon Pearl Harbor, all remnants of the nation's isolation ended. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was soon speaking before Congress of "a day that will live in infamy," and the United States was suddenly and irrevocably at war. Just what being at war would mean to Americans, however, would take time to become apparent; and immediately after the declaration of war, there were more questions than answers about what should be done and how lives were about to be changed by war. Like many other organizations, the University of Minnesota's General Alumni Association (GAA) was casting about for an appropriate role. Less than two months after Pearl Harbor, Ben Palmer ('11, '13), the president of the alumni association, began to define what purpose the GAA would serve in the coming conflict. "What is our war job?" he asked rhetorically of alumni in an editorial in The Minnesota Alumni Weekly (January 24, 1942). "In this war, as never before, universities are recognized as mighty arsenals of ideas, trained personnel and research laboratories staffed by specialists in all fields." The U of M would be a national leader in this role, and as such, Palmer wrote, "The University is now laboring under a dual responsibility. While making available its trained personnel and its facilities to the program of national war effort it must also maintain, as completely as possible, its normal educational function and its special services to the state." Under the circumstances, the alumni association needed to continue doing the things it did well, said Palmer. It needed "to mobilize alumni and alumni opinion for effective action in the best interests of the University." Further, it should "make a contribution to the total war effort through a greater alertness to the problems and needs of the institution and assure the administration of our unified interest and support." In the next few editions of the Weekly,
As things turned out, however, the alumni association would play a critical role in one particular area, where a pressing need soon emerged. "I am writing to inquire if the alumni office is taking any systematic steps to gather the names of former students and graduates who may have died in service," wrote Malcolm Willey, dean of the University, to E.B. Pierce, executive secretary of the GAA, on August 31, 1942. Edmund Williamson, dean of students, was in the process of creating a record file of enrolled students who were casualties of the war, Willey informed Pierce. Similarly, "President Coffey would like to know the names of former students and alumni who have died in order that he may write their families." It was a sensitive but crucial matter. Every day, more University students, faculty, and alumni were enlisting in the armed services. By the end of the 1942 school year, the University estimated that 620 students had left campus to join the Army and Navy and untold numbers of alumni had also joined the armed services. They were traveling to camps and bases all over the world. More ominously, by the time of the May 23 cap and gown convocation, 15 former students of the University had already been killed during the war, including two victims at
As it turned out, the alumni office was already on top of things. In fact, it had gone beyond simply compiling a list of the casualties of war and had begun a card file with approximately 2,000 entries, detailing the service record of all the U alumni it could locate. "Our sources of information are many and varied," Pierce wrote to Willey. "Deans' offices, newspapers, alumni themselves, and a special service set up by the American Alumni Council which gives us the camp location of Minnesota men at the time of entering service, but does not follow them through their changes." Notice of casualties were printed in the Weekly, as was an ever-expanding section on "Minnesotans in the Armed Forces." This was only the start of a long labor. For the next three and a half years, the alumni office and the Alumni Weekly (which would soon become a monthly, published under the name the Minnesota Alumnus) were dedicated to the task of collecting and disseminating an ever-increasing mountain of information from and for its alumni members. From every corner of the globe came word of the men and women of the University of Minnesota who were serving the nation. And this information—sometimes sensitive; sometimes joyful; too-often heartbreaking—was dutifully recorded by a newly created branch of the Alumni Records Office at the GAA, the Alumni War Records Office, and then published in the Alumnus to be sent out to grateful readers of the magazine. The logistics of collecting stories of the whereabouts and well-being of thousands of Minnesotans in a world war were time-consuming and fraught with difficulties. Copies of each issue of the magazine were sent to the libraries and reading rooms of service camps and stations across the United States. Subscribers had their copies of the magazine delivered through armed services mail to wherever they were
"Never before have so many Minnesota alumni moved so far, so fast and so often," reported the Alumnus in September 1943. "And never before have they written so many letters to the editor. This has helped us to keep track of their whereabouts and their activities but we need also the assistance of relatives and friends in completing our service records of alumni in uniform. The number of alumni in the armed forces or in related war work must now be near the 10,000 mark . . . we are anxious to have news of assignments, training, promotions, awards and other information in these permanent University records." Note the increase of 8,000 service men and women in one year's time. That number would continue to climb as the war progressed. Coverage of the doings of these U of M grads began to dominate the pages of the magazine. "Minnesotans in Uniform" featured notices of recent enlistments, stationings, and transfers. A column called "Letters from Here and There" contained missives from all over the world. "Received the June Minnesota Alumnus here yesterday (August 5, 1943) which I always read with interest," wrote Colonel Abner Zehm (M.D. '28) from Sicily, where he was serving as a surgeon with an armored division. "After a brief Mediterranean cruise, I landed in the Gela section of Sicily on July 10, the day of our invasion of the island. I can assure you the cruise was not exactly a pleasure trip. . . ." Lieutenant Ralph Britigan wrote from New Guinea in that same issue of the magazine: "I have enjoyed very much the issues of the Alumni Weekly and now the Minnesota Alumnus that I have received to date. . . . I enjoy the different
There was chatty news in the February 1944 edition of the magazine about a joint gathering of U of M and Notre Dame alumni in London: "So pleasant was the occasion that it was suggested that the Minnesota and Notre Dame alumni get together again and there was a feeling that an ideal place for the next meeting would be Berlin." There were important clarifications made in the magazine as well. Florence Sacks, the wife of Lieutenant Marvin D. Sacks ('45), wrote in December 1944: "I noticed in your October issue of the Minnesota Alumnus a picture of my husband, and also the item saying he was missing in the European area. I thought perhaps you might like to know that he has been reported a prisoner of war of Germany as of August 17, 1944. . . ." The most heart-rending news came in a monthly column called "Minnesota's Roll of Honor." Here were published the names of the war dead, as they arrived at the Alumni War Records Office. Each listing would typically give the name, class, rank, and branch of service of the victim; describe the action in which he was killed; and list a home address and the names of parents in Minnesota. Occasionally, the magazine would offer more details. "With one brother killed in service and another a prisoner of war in Japan, Sgt. Robert H. Brain [class of '42], is being returned to the United States for permanent duty. . . . Sgt. Brain has been overseas 32 months and his latest assignment has been an air service unit in Rome. Lt. Stanley Brain [class of '40], Liberator bomber was killed January 16 [1945] at Harlingen, Texas. Cpl. Philip S. Brain (B.A. '39), was taken prisoner at the fall of Bataan. For a time he was interned at Luzon, but since has been transferred to Tokyo." These were the sons of Philip Brain Sr., the University tennis coach
The magazine used more photographs in its war issues than it ever had before. There were many service portraits: handsome men and women, smiling beneath their military caps; some caught forever young on the pages of the "Roll of Honor." There were 15 war dead listed at the alumni office in May 1942. By June 1944, that number had jumped to 193. In the last year of the war, the numbers rose dramatically. In December, the total was listed as 315. It was 520 in June 1945; 568 in December 1945; and, finally, 619 listed in the February 1946 edition of the Alumnus. In all, the Alumni War Records Office kept more than 12,000 individual records of Minnesotans serving in the armed forces during World War II. The magazine was sent all over the world, keeping homesick and weary U of M military personnel apprised of each other and the doings on campus. For all its good work reporting the war as it was experienced by the University of Minnesota and its graduates, the Minnesota Alumnus won a national "award of excellence" from the American Alumni Council in 1944. "On behalf of my husband, Capt. Tobe S. Eberley (M.D. '42), who is in England with the Army air forces," wrote Marjorie Eberley to the magazine in June 1944, "I should like to tell you how much we appreciate reading the Minnesota Alumnus. I send each copy to him and he, together with several other Minnesotans, reads it from cover to cover. I'm sure the memories of happy days at Minnesota are greatly stimulated by your fine magazine." As it turned out, the greatest service performed by the alumni association during the war was just letting University graduates know that the home fires were still burning. Tim Brady is a St. Paul freelance writer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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