A vague memory was triggered as I read the article about a World War II soldier's experiences at William and Mary during the war ["Soldiering for Freedom," Winter 2005/2006 William and Mary Alumni Magazine]. His description of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) that he participated in from 1943-44 sounded very similar to my father's Army experience. I remembered hearing that after enlisting in 1943 my father had been sent to college for about a year before being assigned to a regular Army unit and then spending 15 months overseas in Europe.
Although he passed away many years ago, I have his military records. In his old Army discharge papers, I discovered that he was assigned to the ASTP at Los Angeles City College for eight months to study basic engineering. Reading Mr. Obermayer's article helped me understand this unusual assignment, gave me a new appreciation of my father's wartime experiences and gave me a new research project! Thank you.
MAUREEN McCORMACK '70
Austin, Texas
I am writing in reference to the recent article by Herman Obermayer, "Soldiering for Freedom," published in the Winter 2005/2006 issue of the William and Mary Alumni Magazine. On page 62, there is a reference implying that he was billeted in Room 201 in Tyler Hall while he was attending the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943. ... I was in the 1945 class and attended William and Mary from 1941 until I left in April 1943 for the Army. During my stay, I believe I lived in Room 201, but I am not sure just which one it was. ...
[In 1943], I left [the College] for basic training and afterwards was sent to the University of Detroit to attend the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) there. Detroit was a great place for us because we were the only large unit of servicemen stationed in the city during wartime and we were treated famously.
When the ASTP was disbanded, our group was sent to Louisiana the join the 8th Armored Division. Mr. Obermayer might be interested in a book recently written by one of the ASTP men in my battalion about the ASTP men in the infantry -- When Your Number's Up by Raymond Ross, a Ph.D. who has written eight college textbooks on speech and communications.
I have developed a Web site for the 8th Armored Division at www.8th-armored.org. A review of the book is there.
OKEY E. TAYLOR '45
Dublin, Ohio
I read with great interest the excerpt from Herman Obermayer's book Soldiering for Freedom describing his experiences in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at William and Mary during World War II [Winter 2005/2006 William and Mary Alumni Magazine]. The ASTP is not the only instance that our alma mater answered our nation's call by providing resources to support the war effort. The patriotic efforts of William and Mary during the second World War extended to helping provide the means for our troops to worship the Creator who "endowed" them "with certain unalienable rights" for which they were fighting.
James Blair Hall hosted the Naval Chaplain's Training School from March 1943 until November 1945. The school was a six- to eight-week indoctrination course for ordained clergymen (all of them males in 1943) of all faiths in the ways of the U.S. Navy. Following completion, the chaplains were deployed either to boot camps, to combat or to other naval installations. To this day, a plaque hangs in the Blair Hall foyer; one that then-U.S. Naval Secretary James Forrestal donated to William and Mary as a thank you for the College's efforts.
One of the graduates of the Naval Chaplain's Training School was my grandfather, the Rev. Frederick Leypoldt. The pastor of a Dutch Reformed congregation in Philadelphia during his civilian life, my grandfather was a month shy of 50 years of age in May 1943. He served on his local draft board and although World War II was as just a war as has ever been fought, the concept of sending young boys out on to the battlefield greatly troubled him. He enlisted in the Navy that month, and was soon en route to Williamsburg.
A photo of his class of 62 chaplains, lined five rows deep, on the Sunken Garden, near the side entrance of Phi Beta Kappa Hall (now Ewell Hall), stands proudly in my home. The one regret that I do have in life is that I never met my grandfather, whose first name I carry as a middle name. Pop-Pop passed away 28 months before I was born ... and 20 years before I too went to the College of William and Mary to get an education. My subsequent experiences associated with William and Mary are a source of great pride, meaning and personal satisfaction. William and Mary also provides one of the few tangible common bonds that I have with my grandfather. Thanks for an article that caused a deeper appreciation of that connection.
