A year ago last week Harvard began its greatest transition year in history from a peacetime University, rich in liberal tradition, to a wartime training center, turning out skilled men quickly and efficiently.

The first contingent of the "wartorn" Class of '46 entered on a scene almost of peace. A few men drafted, the Navy Supply groups across the river, the small Electonics School, an increased interest in Navy and Mil Sci, no isolationists, and a co-ed full term summer school were the only alterations in the Harvard Scene. A week later 750 men entered the Naval. Training School, becoming the biggest service school at the College.

Girls and Marchers

As the Navy marched beneath the ivy walls of the old Yard, and girls sat on the steps of Widener, the students, all living in the Houses, took life gently through the summer. Only two courses, long weekends, and feminine companions in lab and lecture lightened the burden nicely.

Then there were the town-gown riots with Cambridge's vociferous councilman, Mickey Sullivan, violently protecting the rights of the poor boys from the town, and the Yard Cops protecting the poor College boys. Meanwhile sex was everywhere, with many a cool summer-school hand smoothing the fevered brow of the returning student warrior.

All Sorts of Things

Before summer school ended, the Freshmen got a lot of dull dinners and one merry dance where the lads cashed in on Widener steps romance. A new school was also added when 150 chaplains took up residence on Divinity Avenue.

But as it must to all men, autumn came to Harvard's student body. Almost 700 hundred more Freshmen arrived after the week's vacation was over, swelling '46 ranks to the unprecedented, all-time, magnificent total of almost 1400, with more of them coming in January.

The old students started to register in the morning and the football season opened in the afternoon, with Dick Harlow's team doing well against the North Carolina Aviation Cadets. Injured captain Don Forte sat on the sidelines while the team took a 14-0 defeat.

Football continued with a loss to Penn, 19-7, in which a freshman, for the first time in 35 years eligible for varsity football did admirably. It was end Wally Flynn, Harvard's top punter, in the tradition of Loren MacKinney. Harvard went all out for its game with Army, adding a spectacular military parade including all service units at the University.

Amid the drudgery and Freshman jitters at November hours came the great moment of the season as Comeford-to-Lyle did the trick for Harvard in the closing seconds of the Princeton tussle as the 19-14 win subdued a favored Tiger eleven.

Yale Heartbreaker

The football year went on as a win over Brown showed fine playing by tail-back Don Richards and wing back and captain-to-be Cleo O'Donnell. But Yale was a heartbreaker. In a week-end almost like that of previous years, the Harvard men invaded the bowl to receive a stunning 7-3 loss at the hands of favored but outplayed bulldog.

Meanwhile all Harvard had been stirring with rumors of the ERC, controlling fate of countless students, and the Navy's V-1, V-5, and V-7 programs. After weeks of waiting, with a set of Class elections and the announcement of the first midwinter commencement in between, the news came, a CRIMSON extra delivered the news to the shocked students, with the date of February 1 set for ERC induction.

Special Hours Painful