Junior Year, Mar-May 1943

Interrupted by W W II

My Junior year at PC was very short, as I remember. I had one quarter as a Junior at PC before I entered the U.S. Army, and while in the service I took courses taught by American college professors at two military schools which were credited to me when I returned to PC. Just after basic training at Camp Croft, SC, while attending Mississippi State College, at Starkville, MS, I took several courses in the ASTP : Mechanical drawing, English composition, chemistry. After VE Day I attended Shrivenham American University, Swindon, England, and took other courses: Advanced algebra, music appreciation, German. While there I played in the concert band directed by Thor Johnson from the University of Cincinnati. I don't remember which of these courses were creditable. At any rate, that Spring quarter was wild. The Seniors were being called to active duty as lieutenants at a rapid rate, so we underlings had to take their places in various college functions. For example, without any training or previous experience they promoted me to band director, sergeant major plus playing the clarinet.  I was embarrassed and felt that I had failed. My two room mates from Anderson were both drafted and ended up wounded at Anzio.
I think this was the quarter I took my hardest physics course, radio vacuum tube theory. For the final exam Dr. Whitelaw told us long in advance that the only question would be to reproduce from memory the wiring diagram of a superheterodyne radio as shown in the textbook. We worked on this on blackboards for days before the exam. I think I ended up with a "C".  An interesting course, taught by Professor Marshall Brown, was Europe since 1500.