College History

The Heritage of Carthage

V is for Victory: Carthage College and World War II

By Tom Noer, Valor Distinguished Professor of the Humanities
July 1994

The recent celebrations and memorials commemorating the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy dramatized to many Americans the continued emotional impact of World War II. Those who lived through the period 1941-1945 were reminded again of the sacrifice and courage of those who fought to liberate Europe and Asia from the tyranny of Germany and Japan. To those too young to remember the war, the scenes in France served as a visual history lesson on "the good war," when the enemy was clear, the nation united, and the objectives certain.

In World War II the United States fought a two-front war, in both Europe and Asia. In another sense, the war itself had two fronts: To those in the armed forces, the conflict was on the battlefield, but to the rest of Americans, the war was at home. Those not in the military fought a battle of war bonds, scrap iron and rubber collection, first aid classes, black­outs, air raid drills, ration coupons and shortages. World War II was a civilian conflict as well as one of armies, and those who did not serve in the military also displayed courage and sacrifice in their efforts to "support our boys" and gain victory.

Like all of the nation, Carthage College was changed dramatically by the war. Not only did hundreds of Carthage students, faculty and alumni serve in the armed forces, but the campus itself was totally altered by the global conflict. This chapter in the Heritage of Carthage focuses on the impact of World War II on the college.

A "Safehaven" — Carthage 1941-1943

When students arrived at Carthage in the fall of 1941, the war in Europe had raged for more than two years. Hitler's armies had conquered nearly all of Europe and much of the Soviet Union and North Africa. Great Britain had been driven from the continent and faced near constant German bombing. Japan had occupied most of China and was preparing to move into South­east Asia. Although technically still neutral, the United States had begun to send supplies to Britain and Russia, started rearmament and, in September 1940, adopted the first peacetime draft in the nation's history.

Despite the clear movement of America toward participation in the war, Carthage in 1941 seemed far removed from the conflict. The College reflected the strong isolationist sentiment in the rural midwest that saw the war as none of America's business and opposed any direct U.S. involvement. A poll in the spring of 1941 found over 80 percent of Carthage students opposed military aid to Great Britain, and the College newspaper argued "we should stay out of European squabbles." The administration urged male students to stay in school rather than join the armed forces or accept new, high-paying jobs in the flourishing defense plants. Students and administration were most con­cerned that labor and material shortages would delay the completion of the new library scheduled to open in the spring of 1942.

Despite the hope of most at the school that the United States would stay out of the conflict, Carthage could not escape the impact of American mobilization. Dozens of male students had left school in the summer of 1941 to enlist before being drafted. They were joined by two faculty members, Robert E. Warren from physics and Dr. James Poultney of the Classics Department. Summer school enrollment tripled in 1941 as men tried to finish their education before receiving a letter from the Selective Service. The College even shortened the spring semester in 1941 by two weeks to permit an expanded summer session.

The full impact of the draft hit home to many students at the first football practice in 1941, when coach Hub Wagner found that five returning starters had been drafted and four others had not come back to school after being classified 1-A in late summer. Wagner announced he may not be able to field a team, but eventually persuaded 17 men to suit-up.

Most Carthage students, faculty and administration were enjoying the regular Sunday afternoon chicken dinner on Dec. 7, 1941, when word of the Japanese attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor flashed over the radio. Despite the strong opposition to American involvement, the College quickly united behind the war. President Rudolph Schulz issued a unity proclamation that pledged Carthage would "do its part" to win the victory. The College began special physical fitness programs for male students to prepare them for service and offered free first aid courses to local residents. History professor Carl Spielman was named Chairman of the Defense Council to coordinate information on the programs offered by the various branches of the service and to counsel students on enlistment procedures. Carthage also joined the College Enlisted Reserve Corps in the spring of 1942, designed to permit students to complete their education before entering the service. Many students mistakenly assumed the program would allow those enrolled to finish their entire college education before joining the war.

Despite this flourish of activity, there still was a hope that Carthage would be spared the full impact of the war. An editorial in the student newspaper, The Wooden Indian, naively concluded that with Britain "pushing the Germans around in North Africa" and the Japanese "relegated to sea warfare," it probably would not be necessary for Carthage men to actually see combat. A poll of students asking what Carthage should do to help the war found over 60 percent agreed that "Carthage should be a haven from the war and do nothing."

In spite of the specter of the draft, college life continued on its normal course in the spring and fall of 1942. Although enrollment dropped from 316 in 1941 to 276 in 1942 as male students joined the service, campus activities seemed largely unaffected. The football team, back up to more than 30 players, defeated Elmhurst with the help of a 97-yard interception return by end Art Keller, and the fall campus carnival elected sophomore Alden Clausen as king. Within a few months, however, both Keller and Clausen were in the service, and the war began to dominate the campus.

A College at War: 1943-1945

Christmas vacation was extended two days in 1942 because of the problems gas rationing posed for student travel. Buses and trains were reserved for the military, and civilians already faced severe fuel shortages. When students returned in January 1943, they found the war to be inescapable The student newspaper blasted students for "shirking their duty toward their country, their school and themselves" by ignoring the war, and soon the campus was alive with wartime projects. Women students volunteered to help roll 109,000 bandages for the Hancock County Red Cross. Coeds also organized scrap iron collection projects and student first aid classes. The Wooden Indian began to run a "V for Victory" logo over the editorial page and vowed to keep it until the war ended.

To male students, the draft was now ever-present. Many left school to join specialized training programs. The College began a seaplane instruction program using a plane at Nauvoo, Ill., on the Mississippi River. The library reported that the most popular books were "Navy Wings," "Dive Bomber," and military histories of World War I.

The impact of the war jolted the college in March 1943, when 18 students were ordered to report for immediate duty and 12 more to be ready in May. With the College already short of men, the drafting of 30 more severely depleted the male population. The faculty voted to give half credit to men who could not complete the semester, and the College quickly organized a Victory Dance as a farewell to those called. The dance was a melancholy event as each draftee rose and stood at attention as his name was read to the crowd. Admission was $1 in war stamps, and girls were told not to wear flowers, but to display "war stamp corsages" to show their patriotism. Two Carthage men graduated on Sunday, May 23, were married on Monday, and reported for active duty on Tuesday.

With the departure of most men in 1943, Carthage became nearly an all-female college for the next two years. World War 11 thrust American women into many new roles such as construction worker, budget manager, and family disciplinarian. Cartoon character "Rosie the Riveter" symbolized the new American woman of World War II, and at Carthage women also assumed new responsibilities.

Outnumbering men on campus by over 10-1, coeds assumed positions of leadership that had been largely male. Student government was virtually all female by late 1943, and the student newspaper in 1944 had a staff of 23 women and one man. Women organized endless bond drives and created a "War Bond Hall of Fame" to honor individuals and groups who had donated to the financing of the war. They also collected a two-cent cigarette "tax" on each pack sold at the College coffee shop to be sent to men in the service. Women students "adopted" Carthage men in the war and sent them letters, cookies, candy and woolen socks. When labor shortages threatened to delay college maintenance, female students donned work boots, jeans and gloves and spent two days repairing campus buildings.

The shortage of men also led to major social problems. The student newspaper ran an editorial entitled "No Rationing of Dates" that bemoaned the lack of men for dances and dates. Claiming that "60 percent of the girls on campus are dateless," the piece denounced the few remaining men on campus as "hermits." The article further reminded men that "Carthage girls are not gold-diggers" and would be willing to "go dutch" if the men could not afford a date. The editors even appealed to the men's patriotism by reminding them that other men were "giving their lives" to preserve American democracy and part of America was "the friendly mixing of young men and women." Later, women asked the administration to invite soldiers from nearby Camp Ellis to campus for dances "to keep up morale on the home front."

Aside from men, other valued items were scarce by late 1943. Gas, meat, butter, sugar and other products were in increasingly short supply. Ration coupons were treasured and hoarded for special occasions. In 1943 the College instituted a 30 percent cut in butter, a 50 percent drop in sugar, and a limit of 2 pounds of meat per person per week. Dry toast became the standard breakfast as there was no butter and no jam or jelly because of the sugar restrictions. Canned goods were cut by 50 percent to save the metal for the military. When it rained for two weeks in 1944, one student claimed that "even the sunshine is rationed!"

Despite the shortages and lack of social life, students endured with good humor. English professor Juanita Jones wrote a parody of John Milton's sonnet on his blindness called "Lines on Food Rationing" that argued the absence of meat, butter and sugar would help coeds keep their trim figures. A student poem "Lament of a Coed" summarized the food situation:

Delicious roast beef boat tastes like flour. Coffee from breakfast (boiled only an hour!) Lettuce, whose edges wilt and droop. Crackers and pretzels, for one bowl of soup!

Food and labor shortages also led to the closing of many of the local student hangouts. The Dugout and the Carthage Cafe closed in 1943 and Vince's was open only weekdays until 8 p.m. Social life also was restricted as football was canceled in 1943 and 1944, and the basketball team played only local industrial teams such as the Shaffer Pens, as gas rationing limited travel. Neither visiting lectures nor choir tours nor other off-campus trips enlivened campus life. Dances were eliminated because of the lack of men and the feeling that it was unpatriotic to celebrate during wartime.

By the fall of 1943, only 131 students were left on campus. Many classes had to be canceled, and tuition income had dropped to less than half of the pre-war figure. Faculty salaries, low since the depression, dropped even further, and a number of faculty contracts were not renewed. In August 1943 President Schulz abruptly resigned to accept a parish in Knoxville, Tenn. The Board of Trustees took less than two weeks to appoint Dr, Erland Nelson, professor of education and psychology at Newberry College in South Carolina, as the new President.

Nelson was the first layman to hold the presidency of the College (in early 1943 the Board had changed the Constitutional requirement that the President be an ordained Lutheran minister). Nelson was an effective fundraiser and managed to keep the College operating despite the bleak financial situation resulting from the shortage of students and funds. He instituted the practice of renting textbooks to save students money and, in 1944, established two new departments: art and business.

In the midst of the usual classes, exams and term papers, throughout 1943 and 1944, war news dominated the campus. Maps of Europe and Asia were posted to help students keep track of the Allied offensives. Posters also listed Carthage students wounded, killed and missing in action. Women students sent photos of Evergreen Walk to Carthage students and alumni in the service as a reminder that the College was behind them. The newspaper staff mailed copies of The Wooden Indian to all students in the armed forces and began a "Carthage Canteen" column with addresses and letters from Carthage men and women in the service. The letters show the loneliness, patriotism and humor of those from Carthage active in the war. Many expressed their thanks to "the girls" who ran the newspaper and their pleasure at hearing news of Carthage, even if the copies were often 4-5 months late Most promised to be at Homecoming at whatever year they could. The letters often contained accounts of meetings with other Carthage students and alumni. Nearly all asked students to write to them.

Waldo "Beefy" Berger, '47, in a note from Guam, asked: "Please keep me posted on the football team. That is one of the main reasons I want to come back. It sure will be good to don my old jersey with the '36' on it again." Others expressed loneliness and gratitude for news of Carthage: "If you know how much I have thought of Carthage — and the friends there — well I'm telling you. Kind of makes you feel sad. Gee, it's a funny feeling that creeps over you when you're a long way away and you can visualize friends sitting around and talking. I hope all the boys and girls make it back for Homecoming after the war. Got to sign-off now. Hi to all. I'm just trying to say — Thanks for keeping Carthage and the American Way for us while we're away." — Livie (Leslie Livingston, '44).

Many servicemen were unable to give details of their assignments due to wartime censorship Kenneth Hamm, '47, later a longtime chemistry professor at Carthage, wrote from France in November 1944: "Yes, we took the boat ride. About all the censor will let me say about that, is that I was on a troopship in a convoy." The late Tom Wood, '45, in a letter from "somewhere in the Pacific," reported "Due to censorship regulations, I can't tell you where I am or anything of that sort, but I can say that these beautiful South Pacific Islands are a far cry from being beautiful. Give me old C. C. Campus any day and save the traveling for someone else!"

A letter from soon to be coaching legend Arthur Keller, '44, in December 1943 spoke eloquently of the hopes and ideals of those who left Carthage for the war: "To all the fellows of Carthage College, whomever and wherever they may be, I wish them the best of luck. May this mess be over soon and all come back to Carthage for one more big Homecoming after this war. Good luck and fight hard. It's for good things like Carthage College's way of life, for which we are fighting."

The Post-War Transition: G.I.'s Everywhere!

Notwithstanding the economic and social hardships of the war, Carthage continued its mission of education. In 1944 James Kinard, President of Newberry College, addressed a graduating class of 14 (11 women and 3 men) with 10 others listed as on active duty with the allied invasion of Europe in the summer of 1944, President Nelson began preparations for the return to peace. Even before the war ended, Nelson recognized the need for expansion and correctly predicted a surge of male students once the war was over. In 1944 he launched a $180,000 fundraising campaign to construct a new male residence hall (Memorial Dormitory) Pamphlets mailed to potential donors emphasized that Carthage would gladly accept war bonds as contributions allowing benefactors to support "both their country and Christian education." The Admissions Office rushed brochures to servicemen and women at home and overseas and to young people working in defense plants explaining the importance of a college education in the postwar world. Soldiers were urged to "reconvert their thinking from War to the new Peace by attending a college of culture, refinement, and spirituality" and defense workers were reminded that their jobs were "blind alleys" as soon as the war ended.

With the passage of the Serviceman's Readjustment Act (the "G. I. Bill of Rights") in 1944, veterans were offered free tuition, books, and a subsistence allowance to attend college. The result was a boom in enrollment at nearly all colleges once the war ended in August 1945 and troops began to be sent home that fall. In October 1945 Carthage held its first Homecoming football game since 1942. Eight Carthage men and three women wearing their wartime uniforms were honored at half-time to signify the formal end of the war.

In anticipation of the flood of veterans, Carthage moved to obtain wartime surplus housing and furnishings. In December 1945, President Harry Truman authorized the sale of army materials to colleges. Carthage received seven barracks buildings from Camp Ellis, about 45 miles from the College, to house 100 men and 20 "family units" for married veterans. Carthage also was permitted to purchase $4,000 worth of beds, desks, and lockers for $1,000. Later the school received 300 more beds, 500 mattresses, 200 desks, and 700 chairs at 5 percent of their "fair value."

The prefab houses and beds were needed in the fall of 1946 when nearly 650 students crowded the campus The 500 percent increase in enrollment from the 1944 level led to severe crowding. Men slept on cots in the fieldhouse until Memorial Dormitory was completed in November. Women lived three-to-a-room in Denhart until North Hall was converted to a coed dorm. Classes were jammed, often without enough chairs, and there was a major shortage of textbooks. The cafeteria could not get food out fast enough to feed the masses.

After stepping over former servicemen sprawled in the halls and lawn, one student recalled, "Suddenly there were G.I.s everywhere!" Numbers were only a part of the problem. The war veterans also were quite different from the typical pre-war Carthage student. Older, experienced, resentful of authority, they resisted many of the rules and regulations that seemed to remind them of the army. Twenty-three-year-old freshmen veterans of combat refused to follow the orders of eighteen-year-old sophomores, Those who had lived for years in army barracks often defied college rules against gambling, drinking, and swearing and also challenged the authority of administrators and professors.

Veterans complained about the food, about required chapel, about the crowded and drafty pre-fab barracks, about the shortage of books, about the faculty ("the officers") and President Nelson ("the general"). When Nelson tried to raise the price of food in the cafeteria from $8.50 to $9.50 a week, veterans led a protest to the Board that forced a repeal.

Despite the assertiveness of the veterans, they were grateful to have returned to America and to Carthage. The complaints were insignificant compared with their joy at being home again. Ironically, their outspokenness was one of the direct results of the victory in the war. The right to speak out, to complain, to protest, and to foster peaceful change were traits of American democracy preserved by the victory over totalitarianism. It was the bravery and dedication of the World War II generation, both those in combat and those who stayed at home, that guaranteed the freedoms that we now too often take for granted.

A total of 545 Carthage men and women served in World War II to protect those freedoms. Eighteen died in the conflict. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, we honor their sacrifice and their part in the Heritage of Carthage.

The Carthage Campus

I saw the Carthage Campus as I was passing by.
The pleasant Carthage Campus, beneath a peaceful sky.
My heart was with the Carthage men who went abroad to die,
The years go fast at Carthage, the busy years and gay,
But when the bugles sounded war, they put their games away,
They left the football field, the gym, the halls their feet had trod,
The shady lawns of Carthage, to seek a bloody sod.
They gave their merry youth away, for country and for God.
God rest you, happy gentlemen, who laid your good lives down,
Who took the uniforms and gun in place of cap and gown.
God send you to a fairer place than even Carthage town.

— Juanita Jones