Yalies of a different era: the class of '45W

COURTESY CLASS OF 1945 The Yale class of 1945 lived in an environment of both military preparedness and widespread patriotism.

"We knew the enemy, we knew where he was, and we wanted to fight," Stanley E. Flink, BR '45W, said, recalling the atmosphere on campus following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

As college students solemnly walk to class via sidewalks drizzled with the wax of vigil candles in the week following the worst-ever terrorist attacks on the U.S. Flink remembers his Yale—of nearly half a century ago.

Perhaps like the students of today, the 1940s community was forced to make a choice of involvement. As the rest of America mobilized for an increasingly global war, Yale students contracted the war fever sweeping the nation.

Rallying his men to protect their country, President Charles Seymour made a decision that would drastically change life at Yale College. Implementing an accelerated program designed to graduate student-soldiers in 31 months, Seymour devised the class of 1945W—the "W" stood for "War."

COURTESY CLASS OF 1945 Stanley Flink, BR '45W, poses with President Richard Levin, GRD '74, and Levin's wife, Jane, at a Yale reunion.

"We were all in high school, ready to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but our parents thought we should get an education first," Bill Holliday, SY '45W, said. "We all knew we'd be going off to war, though."

More than half a century later, at colleges across the country, posters quoting Gandhi and peacenik John Lennon are juxtaposed with propaganda-like bills advocating strong, swift military action. Yale is no exception. Most students are torn between peace and a war that seems almost certainly imminent.

But while restraint and understanding seem to have dominated campus sentiment following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a significantly different spirit of ultra-patriotism pervaded Yale during World War II. Despite discouragement from the Administration, some of the students from the war era opted to enlist almost immediately.

By the winter of 1943, Yale resembled a military encampment: students no longer enjoyed spacious accommodations and plush surroundings. Instead, double-decker bunks, austere furnishings, and uniformed students filled the residential colleges, law school, and graduate school, all of which housed the newly bred soldier-students.

"The crowded rooms made you realize there was a war going on," Holliday said. "And we hated the enemy's guts. It was basically the only news going around campus."

"We were all very young people with no idea of what war was really like. We had no fear. We felt we were indomitable, filled with optimism and determination," Holliday added.

Around campus, the trappings of war were ubiquitous. Window blackouts at night were routine, and men like Holliday were required to stand watch for enemy aircraft on the tops of buildings. A submarine sunk a freighter off the New Haven coast. Ammunition manufactured nearby was transported by train to New Jersey before it left to fill the magazines of European allies.

Holliday and Flink both recall their training. "We were wearing button-down shirts and ties punching 75 mm shells into Howitzer guns that would never be used," Flink said. "All the same, we were being trained well."

As Yale continued its task of educating students as much as possible during the war, the government started to draft reserve corps enlistees in late 1943. A constant stream of patriotic tunes under the tutelage of the famous bandleader Glenn Miller assaunted students' ears and added to the military fervor of the time. "Martial music began to filter through our consciousness almost at once," Flink remembered.

But in 2001, the mood on campus and around the country is decidedly different. As our military prepares to fight a "nameless, faceless" enemy, polls show that Americans remain hesitant of future action. "Now we have a mysterious group of fanatics that are willing to die for their cause," Flink said. "We didn't have that; we knew who we were going after," Flink explained, referring to the Axis powers.

Additionally, Flink believes that some of the differences in opinion between his generation and current Yale students may stem from differences in the student population's composition.

"When I was at Yale, it was basically white and affluent with few minorities," he said. "Most of the students came from prep schools. The difference is between today's diversity and a select group of privileged young men going to war. We are part of a global community, not a continental one any longer. We realize that we are global citizens rather than American citizens. In 1942, we were American citizens."

Holliday worries that the importance of men who died in war is waning in America. "I remember stopping to salute at the gate between Woolsey and Freshman Commons in tribute to those that were memorialized on the walls there," he said. "Today, you can't even read the Biblical inscription on the ground."

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