A Look Back at World War II

Soldiers in a pre-meteorology class at Pomona in 1943

Soldiers in a pre-meteorology class at Pomona in 1943

In honor of Veterans Day, we decided to shine a light on how World War II touched students at Pomona College, from those who went to war to those who stayed on the home front.

The following timeline of events was pulled from our Pomona College Timeline, a record of the history of Pomona College.

1942

Pomona and the Japanese American Internment

In April 1942, just days before all Japanese Americans in the Claremont area were due to be interned, President E. Wilson Lyon arranged with President Ernest Wilkins of Oberlin College in Ohio for Pomona junior Itsue “Sue” Hisanaga ’43 to transfer there. The next day, President Lyon, Dean of Men William Nicholl and a crowd of Pomona students accompanied her and her brother, Kazuo “Casey” Hisanaga ’42—who would be allowed to graduate in May despite his April departure—to the train station, where the College band played for them. After completing her work at Oberlin, Sue was awarded her degree from Pomona in absentia during Oberlin’s commencement. The siblings’ elder brother Kazuma “Benny” Hisanaga ’41 had finished his degree before the war, but entered as a sergeant after completing ROTC training at Pomona. He was a member of the 100th Infantry Battalion, a segregated army unit made up of Japanese-American troops, and earned several major awards, including the Bronze Star Medal, a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Silver Star.

Another Pomona student, Kobe Shoji ’47, elected to go into internment with his family, returning in 1946 to complete his degree.

Accelerated Program

With the outbreak of World War II, the College adopted an accelerated program and remained in session year-round in order to make it possible for male students to complete their college courses before being called for military service.

1943

Military Programs

In February, a detachment of 225 enlisted men came to the College as part of a pre-meteorological program sponsored by the Air Force. In June, 325 men came to campus for the Army Specialized Training Program in basic engineering, European languages and Asian languages. By the autumn of 1943, almost half of the students on campus were in the two military programs, and the number of civilian male students was down to about 60.

Athletics and Men’s Organizations Discontinued

With the lowering of the draft age to 18 in 1942, the number of incoming male students dwindled and so, in 1943, intercollegiate athletics and most men’s organizations at the College were discontinued, including Men’s Glee Club, the Associated Men Students and several fraternities.

Women Take Charge

The great reduction in the male ranks of students gave women an opportunity to take on more leadership positions on campus, editing The Student Life and the Metate, and maintaining traditions and activities. Margaret Boothby ’45 became the first woman to be elected president of the Associated Students.

1944

War Work

Each student had to give two to four hours a week for “war work” or campus service. Pomona students helped with the war effort in a variety of ways, including buying war bonds and stamps, donating blood, rolling bandages and knitting squares to make afghan blankets for wounded soldiers.

Date Bureau

Women students at Pomona joined with Scripps students to establish a Date Bureau, designed to arrange blind dates between female students and men in the military programs.

TSL Changes

The demand for raw materials for the war effort meant that student publications like the Metate and The Student Life newspaper were limited by a paper shortage. As a result, The Student Life was cut down to two two-page issues per week. The paper gradually increased in size after the war and became a weekly in 1956.

Enrollment Hits Low

By the end of the spring term, enrollment had reached a low point of 449 civilian students, the vast majority being women. That term, only 36 male freshmen had enrolled.

Scholarships for Soldiers

A total of $10,000 was reserved from the Alumni Fund for the purpose of providing scholarships after the war to Pomona students whose education was interrupted for military service.

War Hero
As the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin recounts, James Howard ’37 received a Medal of Honor after scaring away German fighters with an interesting approach:

His greatest moment was Jan. 11, 1944, when he got separated from his group of fighter planes escorting 401st Bomb Group bombers over Germany. Enemy fighters showed up to attack the bombers, but the U.S. fighters were nowhere to be seen. Howard’s was the only U.S. plane available to protect the bombers, so he started firing. He downed two German planes and then, his guns mostly out of commission, buzzed in and around the Germans like an angry hornet. One German pilot even bailed out of his undamaged plane before Howard, lining up behind him, even got off a shot.

Finally, the Germans planes took off, confused by Howard’s crazy antics. He was awarded the Medal of Honor when the 401st pilots reported on his heroics.

1945

Troops departing from Pomona College in in 1945

Troops departing from Pomona College in in 1945

As the war wound down, Pomona adopted a new curriculum requiring expanded basic courses during the first two years and the selection of a field of concentration by the start of the junior year. Before this time, students declared a major only by invitation from a particular department’s faculty.

Sage Vets

Sage Vets invited all veterans enrolled at Pomona to attend its first meeting. Organized to promote a closer understanding between the veterans and the College, the group included one woman, World War II veteran Betty Hicks ’47, who also was the national women’s All-American Open golf champion.

War Work

The campus War Work Program offered a course in nurse’s aid for the first time. Other activities included knitting, smudging—but only if the situation was “desperate”—and weekly sales of War Bonds.

The Social Scene

From The Student Life: “A survey of the social scene at Pomona during these lean war months is not disheartening, but it is unusual at least to Pomona, famed for its atmosphere of country club ease in days past. A rather hectic note has been struck in the general run of activities, which is understandable enough. After all, it is disconcerting to arrange a formal with 400 women and 95 men despite the still active services of the vine-covered date bureau….The major source of social life for the entire fall semester was, of course, centered about the doings of our valiant football team. We wouldn’t go so far as to say it was just like the old days, but the sight and sound of the stands filled with screaming rooters, the blue and white rooter’s caps, the pompoms and a real live football team certainly did as much as anything to revive a somewhat lagging college morale.”

1946

The return of veterans to campus beginning in 1945 exacerbated an ongoing campus housing crisis. Between 1945–46 and 1947–48, enrollment increased from 659 to 1,110. Veterans accounted for 488 of these students, but the number of women students had also grown to the extent that they were being housed in one unit of Clark Hall and in the northern section of Smiley, formerly “a masculine citadel.” Paul Fussell, Pomona’s newest trustee and father of two Pomona sons who served in World War II, pressed for immediate action. In response, Lyon pushed the completion of Blaisdell Hall’s second residential unit to the forefront of his agenda. Trustee Seeley G. Mudd agreed that his family would pay for the building, which was designed by the same architects who designed Blaisdell Hall. Construction began in 1945, a year before the government restricted the use of building materials exclusively for housing; two-thirds of the rooms were ready by September 1946, the remainder by Thanksgiving. The parlors and a connecting corridor to Blaisdell Hall were completed in early 1947, and the building was dedicated in April, named for Della Mulock Mudd. Three members of the Mudd family had served the College as trustees: Mrs. Mudd’s husband Colonel Seeley W. Mudd (1914–26), and their two sons Harvey S. Mudd (1926–30) and Dr. Seeley G. Mudd (1930–52).

Faculty Needed

The increase in enrollment to 1,100 students prompted a nationwide search for additional faculty. Thirty-seven full-time faculty and 11 part-time appointees were added to the faculty from February 1946 to September 1947.

Returning Soldiers

The 1946 Metate was dedicated to “the men who brought diversity and experience to a waiting campus.” Many of the returning veterans joined a short-lived organization called the “Sage Vets,” in which they organized events and helped each other readjust to civilian life at a residential college.

Men’s Glee Club

The Men’s Glee Club, which had been reduced to a double quartet during the war, returned to full strength and made its first tour since 1941. And, for the first time, the men’s and women’s glee clubs gave a joint program.

Social Fraternities Revived

Although there was some hesitancy about reviving the six social fraternities suspended in 1943, the faculty voted to reactivate them, and the fraternity rooms, which had been used as classrooms by the military units, were redecorated and refurnished.

G.I. Bill Boosts Enrollment

Starting in 1946, enrollment at Pomona grew rapidly, augmented by the onslaught of veterans under the G.I. Bill of Rights. The increase in enrollment brought with it the need for more housing, which was answered by the Mudd family’s decision to finance the construction of Della Mulock Mudd Hall and the Veterans’ Units east of Clark Hall.

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