Perhaps the most profound effect the war had on the officers' lives was to disrupt the ordinary progression of a college career.

Because they had to spend time in active duty, service officers were away from Harvard for fairly long periods of time, during which they could get College credit. They were never together at Harvard, and nobody kept the same roommates from year to year.

"I had six roommates in 19 months because of the all the drafting business," says Frost.

At the same time, the V-12 and NROTC were considered good deals for service officers while they were at Harvard.

The officers had their tuition paid by the government and were given $75 a month in spending money while they were at school.

And, since they entered the armed forces toward the end of the war, their active service did not always bring them into the thick of the fighting.

"I'm embarrassed to talk about my Navy career, I had such a good time," Sidney F. Greeley '47 says.

The Homefront

By the summer term of 1944, the civilian population of Harvard had dropped to low levels not seen since right after the Civil War. The numbers went still lower as the term progressed.

But for those civilians remaining behind, life was changed in big and small ways.

Anne Ginsburgh Wolfe '47 recalls the "brownouts" during her first two years at Radcliffe, in which city lights would be dimmed or turned off to aviod attacks by submarines or warships.

And sit-down food service was replaced by cafeteria-style dining.

"The prominence of the war was certainly all around us," says Pat Crockett Olmsted '47. "To get to class, you had to wade your way through drilling soldiers."

Many Radcliffe students were crowded out by the military when the Women's Auxiliary Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) set up headquarters in Briggs Hall.

Harvard also was unable to provide more residential housing, and in 1944 Dunster closed, leaving only Lowell and Adams.

"The choice of housing was very limited," says Monroe S. Singer '47, one of a number of students who was ineligible to be drafted and thus stayed at Harvard continuously until 1947.