Less than ten years ago, the University faced the same problems of war mobilization it has today. However, after Pearl Harbor the United States was in all all-out war, and changes came more rapidly than they have this year.

Today seven months after the outbreak of the Korean War, the University is nowhere near a wartime footing. But in January 1942, within a month of Pearl Harbor, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences had voted a three-term year for the College and G.S.A.S. The Navy took over the Yard dorms in July of 1942, and by July '43, undergraduates lived only in Dunster, Adams, and Lowell Houses.

Service Schools

At that time the ratio of servicemen--mostly naval--to students was about five to one; this figure remained approximately constant throughout the war. The Navy conducted a communications and an indoctrination school, the Army a quartermaster and field artillery ROTC as well as a chaplain's school, and the Air Force a statisticians school here during the war. These were gradually established from June, 1941 through the summer of '43.

As for the student body, Pearl Harbor shook them out of their complacency. From the outbreak of the European War in September of 1939 down through December, 1941, the majority of students were more interested in Yale weekends than in the Battle of Britain. Pressure groups were working for both for and against intervention, but to relatively little avail.

Before Selective Service appeared in October of 1940, the College had heard President Conant and Archibald MacLeish, then Librarian of Congress, tell the students to continue with their studies and prepare for the future by doing their best now.

President Conant did say late in 1940 that it is the duty of the United States to save democracy. He urged that this country be "fully armed ... and prepared to fight if necessary."

The fall of 1940 also saw a student resign under pressure from the Verein Trumwechter because of his outspoken support of the Third Reich. Three College students and an Economics A instructor who had been an American citizen for only three weeks were inducted in the first draft call under Selective Service.

Rally Picketed

Five teachers including William Y. Elliott, professor of Government addressed a pro-interventionist rally in Emerson Hall while 400 members of the Committee for Militant Peace picketed the meeting. Only a contingent of Yard Police prevented a serious incident.

In February of 1941, President Conant went to Washington to support the pending Lend Lease bill before a Senate committee. He favored any and all measures necessary to defeat the Axis powers, saying that "there can be no peace" with the powers of totalitarianism as strong and power-hungry as they are. Before the bill was passed, 68 faculty members sent a resolution to Congress denouncing the measure as a needless curtailing of popular government. Kirtley F. Mather, professor of Geology, and Frederick Merk, professor of History, were among the signers.

The spring term saw a gradual increase in student interest in the world situation. students burned Hitler in effigy on the Anderson Bridge. In a more serious vein, the Student Council repeatedly urged that senior draftees be awarded early degrees, which the Faculty approved for honor students that May.

Reversing the situation of the previous fall, 600 anti-interventionists held a peace rally at the College. The late F. O. Matthiessen, then associate professor of History and Literature, told the rally that war was not inevitable if the people did not demand it, which they "obviously" don't.

Conant Urges Intervention

President Conant told the nation in a cost-to-coast radio broadcast on May 4 that "strategy ... honor, and self-interest" demand that the United States enter the war as an active belligerent at once.