Those against the war were a tiny minority,Drake says.

"Three people that I know of in our class wereconscientious objectors to the war," Drake says."It took a lot of guts at the time to be able toadmit that you did not support the war."

The College Transformed

After 1941, Harvard's administration quicklytransformed the College itself to fit into thecountry's war effort.

A. C. Hanford, then dean of the College, wrotein his annual report for 1943-44 that "HarvardCollege has become in large part a military andnaval training school."

The College added new classes, includingcamouflage, navigation and extra physics and math,to prepare students for war. According to theyearbook, an athletic program--"an absurdpotpourri of push-ups and flank movements"--wasrequired for students in the expectation that mostwould soon be in military service.

"I took cartography because I thought it wouldhelp me when I had to go to war," says J. RobertMoskin '44-'45.

The College also went on a trimester plan whichallowed most students to graduate in three yearsand take classes during the summer.

"All our courses were compressed," Butler says."We were doing everything at a much faster pacethan normal."

By 1944, civilian students were living inAdams, Dunster and Lowell Houses, with Navy-boundstudents in Eliot and Kirkland and the ArmySpecialized Training program in Leverett andWinthrop, according to Hanford's report.

Such details as an air-raid siren on the top ofWidener Library showed the College's all-outeffort at war mobilization.

"When we first came to Harvard we had dininghalls with waitresses to serve us and maids tomake our beds," Drake says. "That all changed whenwe went into war. The shift was placed on how toprepare the best soldiers."

Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of thewar at Harvard was a huge drop in enrollment. InJanuary 1944, according to Conant's annual report,the College had 850 students, down from a normalpre-war level of 3,527. The University had just1,826 students instead of its normal 8,078.

"People were leaving for war every month." HughM. Hyde '44-'46 says. "It was hard to keep trackof who was here and who had left."

According to the 1943-44 yearbook poll, 44percent of the men in those classes were enteringthe army, 19 percent going into the navy and fivepercent to the air corps.