Thomas J. Carens '44 remembers the exact moment on the afternoon of December 7, 1941.

"I can remember sitting in my room at Adams House," Carens says. "We were listening to the radio and heard it announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed."

Many members of the Harvard and Radcliffe classes of 1944, like Carens, still recall exactly where they were when they found out.

"I was in Boylston Library studying for an exam," Paul F. Butler '44-'46 says. "Everyone was shocked and that following Monday those of us who were excused because they knew none of us had studied for them."

Pearl Harbor marked a dramatic shift in the middle of the undergraduate careers of the class of 1944. From a liberal arts college, Harvard became a war factory, with classes,professors and students all geared toward theconflict in Europe.

Following the announcement of the Pearl Harborattack, Harvard President James B. Conant '13convened a mass meeting in Sanders TheatreDecember 8 to discuss Harvard's role in theinevitable conflict: "No one of you will beunconscious of the fact that he may soon be calledupon to serve," he said.

E. Thayer Drake '44 was at the meeting.Conant's words marked the abrupt change in theHarvard atmosphere, he says.

"Some people began leaving for warimmediately," he says.

Opinion Was Mixed

Before Pearl Harbor, opinion about the war onthe Harvard campus was mixed, with studentsfeeling strongly on both sides of the issue.

Harvard College, according to a year book poll,was evenly split at the beginning of the war: 36percent non-interventionist, 36 percentinterventionist, 11 percent pacifist and 17percent undecided.

During Commencement exercises in June 1941, anumber of seniors picketed against the pro-warstance of Conant and the University.

Barbara B. Kerner '44 says she remembers"people would miss classes and hold peace strikesat Memorial Hall" before Peal Harbor.

But in the fall of 1941, The Crimson and theStudent Union--the Undergraduate Council of itsday--both reversed isolationist stances andpublished strongly-written statements againstHitler and Nazi Germany.

After December 7, opinions firmed behind thewar effort, Peter Eustis '44-'43 says.

"Before Pearl Harbor people tried to beisolationist in their views," Eustis says, "butonce Americans had been attacked and killed therewas a strong surge of nationalism."