Still, most students were eager to join the wareffort, he says.
"People were eating carrots to improve theireyesight to get into the air force," Bullardrecalls. "Generally, everyone had a positivefeeling about what they were doing."
Hayes says even a simple walk around campuscould remind a student that the war was going on.
The government enforced a blackout at night toprotect the coast from air attack, she recalls,and the walk home from the library at night waspitch black.
"We had to feel our way along a brick walk pathin order to get back to our dorms," Hayes says."It was scary and it took a lot of time."
Faculty in the War
Students were not the only ones in Cambridge tobe affected by the war effort. Conant noted in his1943-44 report that "some faculties have beenheavily denuded" by the war, with professorsleaving for Washington or overseas.
By the fall of 1943, according to one historyof Harvard, the Physics department had just eightprofessors, down from the 44 lecturers andinstructors it boasted before the war.
The gaps were filled with European refugees,retired professors, humanities teachers given aquick cram refresher and even "threeundergraduates and a woman," according to anAlumni Bulletin of the time.
The exodus of teachers added to the academicchaos of the period. "My senior thesis advisor whowas an expert in near eastern studies was draftedinto the military," Hayes says. "Consequently Iwas left without a thesis advisor and I could notdo my senior thesis."
Perhaps the most prominent Harvard figure inthe war was Conant himself.
An outspoken advocate of American interventionbefore Pearl Harbor, Conant was instrumental inthe development of the atomic bomb.
He accumulated 250,000 miles on trains betweenCambridge and Washington, where he was chair ofthe National Defense Research Committee,overseeing development of such key technologies asradar and chemical warfare.
The Harvard president left little doubt wherehe believed the University's priorities during thewar period should lie.
"Defense work is war work and takes precedenceover every other consideration," he told studentsafter Pearl Harbor. "For the immediate present,the task before us is to carry on as usual."