LPD Press & Rio Grande Books

1938

German troops occupy the Sudentenland; Austria is annexed to Germany
Daniel B. Jett appointed Dean of the School of Engineering
Invading Japanese army battles Chiang Kai-shek’s forces on the Chinese mainland

1939

September 3: Britain and France declare war on Germany
State College Golden Jubilee Celebration
Dean Jett becomes director of new CAA pilot training program at NMCA & MA
Clayton-Knight Committee formed to recruit American pilots for RAF and RCAF

1940

Germany invades Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands
Churchill becomes Prime Minister; Battle of Britain and the Blitz
National Defense Trade School program begins at NMCA & MA
U.S. military conscription bill passes
State College students vote to retain Swastika as yearbook name
400th Anniversary of the Coronado Entrada
Nineteen year-old violinist, Isaac Stern, performs on campus
Japanese occupy French Indochina, set up a puppet regime in China and continue to battle insurgent Chinese Communist army

1941

January: British and Australian forces take Tobruk in North Africa
February 6: Sir Thomas Greenwood from the University of London lectures on world problems and conflicts
August: Siege of Leningrad begins
September: President of the College, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh M. Milton recalled to active service in the U.S. Army; several Aggie ROTC graduates deployed to Fort McKinley near Manila as Scouts in General MacArthur’s Philippine Army; Civil Defense Training program for women initiated
September 16: 200th Coast Artillery arrives at Fort Stotsenberg, Pampanga, Philippines
December 7: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai, and Midway
December 8: U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan
December 11: Germany declares war on the United States; Japan invades Burma
December 23: Pilot Henry G. Gilbert ’39 shot down over Burma and becomes first Aggie casualty of war; General MacArthur begins withdrawal from Manila to Bataan Peninsula

1942

January: First American forces arrive in Great Britain; internment of Japanese-Americans begins in United States; Captain John R. McCorkle dies in defense of Bataan; Sgt. Thomas Marion Palmer and Lt. John J. Valkenaar taken prisoner; Lt. Walter Gaby in Darwin, Australia; sieges of Singapore and Manila begin
February: Bombing of Darwin, Australia; General MacArthur ordered to leave the Philippines
April 9: U.S. forces on Bataan surrender unconditionally to Japanese; 54 Aggies captured in Philippines; most survive Bataan Death March; the first campus literary magazine, Rio Grande Writer, published; American B-25 raids against Tokyo
May 6: General Wainwright surrenders all U.S. forces in Philippines and Japanese occupy Corregidor; U.S. wins Battle of the Coral Sea off New Guinea; several Aggie deaths in Camp O’Donnell and Camp Cabanatuan near Manila; 150 ex-Aggie ROTC members receive commissions
June-July: Battle of Midway a decisive win for U.S.; Japanese invade Aleutian Islands; mass deportations to German concentration camps begin; first gassing of Jews at Auschwitz; General Eisenhower arrives in London; Germans advance against Stalingrad on Eastern Front; 300 NMCA &MA students in uniform; 100 degrees granted; 75 Naval trainees arrive on campus
August: First American air attacks in Europe; Guadalcanal air field in the Solomon Islands retaken by U.S. but Battle of Savo Island a costly setback; Battle of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea waged throughout fall and winter
September: 600 students register for classes; Marie Jett appointed editor of Round-Up; Wilma Helen Strickland ’39 first woman to join the WAAC; Cpl. Godofredo Armijo ’42 lands on Guadalcanal; British launch offensive in Burma
November: U.S. invasion of North Africa
December: Professor Enrico Fermi sets us an atomic reactor in Chicago; British and Americans agree to build the Ledo Road to replace the Burma Road now in Japanese hands

1943

January 14-24: Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Casablanca; first American bombing raid on Germany
February: Kathleen Kelly ’41 joins WASPS
February 9: Japanese resistance ends on Guadalcanal
February 14-25: 1st Armored Division engages German Panzer unit at Battle of Kasserine Pass in North Africa
March 16-20: German U-Boats target U.S. Merchant fleet in Battle of the Atlantic
April: 42 degrees conferred at Spring Commencement; 1400 ex-Aggies in uniform; Admiral Yamamoto shot down; Japanese announce plans to execute all captured American pilots
April 4: Sgt. Charles Provine ’43 taken prisoner in France and interned in Stalag Luft III
May: 500 ASTP students arrive on campus
May 10-31: Japanese invade Attu Island in the Aleutians but evacuate under cover of fog in face of U.S. resistance
May 13: Axis powers surrender in North Africa
June 12: Naval Trainees graduate
July: Allies begin advance on New Georgia and New Guinea; Lt. J.J. Norris, Sgt. H.D. Smith, Pfc. Earl Robertson, Lt. Walter Gaby, Capt. Morris Wood in New Guinea
July 9-10: Allies land in Sicily; Mussolini arrested shortly after
August: Italian prisoners of war arrive in Mesilla Valley to serve as farm laborers; ASTP football team created
September: lower enrollment of girls attributed to large military presence on campus; Ens. Hiram Farnsworth at Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands
September 8: Italian Fascist government surrenders
September 9: Allied landings in Salerno and Taranto
October 20: Sgt. Alexander Chavez ’40 KIA over North Africa
November: British launch heavy bombardment of Berlin; Allied invasion of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands; Battle of Empress Augusta Bay; U.S. invasion of Makin and Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands; Cpl. Godofredo Armijo at Bougainville
December 4: Lt. Joseph Bloch (husband of Jeanne Bloch) KIA in South Pacific
December 26: First Division Marines invade Cape Gloucester, New Britain
December 31: Round-Up reports on NMCA & MA experiments with cacti to ease shortage of natural fibers

1944

January: Capt. Robert McCauley, Capt. Lee Silbo, Sgt. Abad Martinez, Lt. Jack Maveety in Sicily; Maj. William C. Wells at Cassino
January 17: Allies attack Cassino, Italy
January 22: Allies land at Anzio beachhead
January 31: U.S. troops invade Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands
February 16: Germans counterattack at Anzio
February 21: U.S. planes destroy Japanese base at Rabaul
February 24: U.S. Merrill’s Marauders begin ground campaign in Burma
March 4: First major Allied daylight bombing of Berlin
March 24: Last contingent of ASTP soldiers leaves campus
April 17: Japanese attack U.S. airbases in eastern China
June 5: Allies enter Rome; B-29 “Superfortress” put into service in bombing raids over Thailand
June 6: Allied landings on Normany beaches; Capt. Daniel H. Howell in D-Day landing
June 15: Allies invade Saipan in the Mariannas; B-29s based in India fly over the “Hump” to make first bombing raids on Japan since April 1942
June 19: “Marianas Turkey Shoot” in which over 200 Japanese planes are shot down with minimal allied losses
June 27: U.S. troops liberate French port of Cherbourg
July 3: Battle of the Hedgerows in Normandy
July 18: U.S. troops reach strategic French town of St. Lô
July 20: Hitler assassination plot fails
July 24-27: Allied invasion of Tinian and liberation of Guam
August: 236 ASTRP (air force volunteers) arrive on campus; 500 students register including first contingent of G.I. Bill veterans
August 8: Allied capture of Mariannas completed
August 15: Allied invasion of Southern France begins (Operation Dragoon)
August 25: Liberation of Paris
September: Lt. Leo Smith flying India-based bombers to Japan; Lt. George Fiske lands on Angaur in Palau group; Lt. William Cassell lands on Guam
September 7: Lt. Albert Chase killed aboard hellship, Shinyo Maru, sunk while transporting Allied prisoners of war to Japanese mainland
September 14: Northern France, Antwerp, and Brussels liberated by Allies
September 17: Unsuccessful Allied airborne assault on Holland begins (Operation Market Garden)
October 1: Bernard Drowne, ASTP, wounded in France
October 21: Germans surrender at Aachen
October 23-26: Decisive Allied victory at Battle of Leyte Gulf although Japanese launch first kamikaze attacks against U.S. Naval fleet
November: Bombardment of Japanese mainland targets begins
November 22-23: Lt. Hayden Wiley earns Bronze Star for heroism against Germans
November 26: Lt. Cal Sylvester severely wounded in Hürtgen Forest
December: ASTP soldiers Russo, Knowles, Zulin, Frohman, Granger participate in Battle of the Bulge and Bastogne
December 5: ASTP soldiers Forbes and McGill at Colmar Pocket
December 15: Allied invasion of Mindoro in the Philippines
December 16-27: Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes Forest, where surrounded U.S. troops resist German Panzer Units
December 18: Sgt. Robert W. Davis, ASTP, taken prisoner in Ardennes Forest
December 20: Pvt. James Wattam taken prisoner near Schonberg, Germany; ASTP soldiers Knowles and Forbes in battle at Herlisheim; Alan Mancill, ASTP, killed and Robert Mancill captured; Michael Deffley, ASTP, wounded at Hürtgen Forest; Sgt. Ralph Montoya meets Irving Berlin in Netherlands, East Indies
December 26: General Patton’s army relieves encircled U.S. troops at Bastogne
December 28: Pfc. Joseph Frohman, ASTP, severely wounded at Bastogne

1945

January 1-17: Germans withdraw from Ardennes Forest; Sgt. Joe Pino fighting with Philippine partisans
January 9: U.S. 6th Army invades Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines
January 12: First supply convoy leaves Burma on the Ledo Road to Kunming, China
January 15: Lt. Vernon Hall KIA at Birlenbach
January 17: Earle Leaman, ASTP, captured at Haguenau
January 18: Lt. John L. Miller captured and imprisoned in Stalag IXB
January 26: Soviet Army liberates Auschwitz
January 27: Lt. J.D. Thorpe dies in Kyushu, Japan
February 4-11: Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt meet at Yalta; Alexander Kerensky, former post-czarist Prime Minister of Russia, lectures on campus
February 13: Sgt. T.M. Palmer dies shortly after liberation of Bilibid prison camp, Philippines
February 16: Allies recapture Bataan
February 19: U.S. Marines invade Iwo Jima
February 24: Capt. Warren M. Wright KIA on Iwo Jima
March: Capt. Clyde Cook, Lt. Hernan Cortez at Okinawa; S 1/c Jess Williams at Okinawa, Formosa, Leyte Gulf, Palau, Eniwetok; Lt. Frank D. Taylor awarded Bronze Star for heroism at Gambesheim, France
March 2-3: U.S. and Filipino troops recapture Manila and Corregidor
March 7: Allies establish bridge across the Rhine at Remagen
March 9-10: B-29 firebombing of Tokyo
March 17: Sgt. Francis W. Cade KIA in Germany
April 1: U.S. troops encircle Germans in the Ruhr; War Department authorizes construction of White Sands Proving Grounds; U.S. 10th Army makes amphibious landing on Okinawa
April 12: Allies liberate Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps; President Roosevelt dies and Harry S. Truman becomes President
April 16: Americans enter Nuremberg; Pvt. Earle Leaman, ASTP, liberated from Stalag IXB
April 24: Lt. Frank Taylor KIA at Gutzburg, Germany
April 25: William Kirkbride, ASTP, liberated from Stalag XIIID
April 29: U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau prison camp; Sgt. Robert Davis liberated from Stalag XIIIC; Cpl. Robert Knowles, ASTP, at liberation of Landberg Prison Camp; Pvt. Don Fardelman, ASTP, at liberation of Dachau
April 30: Hitler commits suicide in Berlin
May: Lt. Robert Carr on first land-based fighter mission over Tokyo
May 7: Unconditional surrender of Germany
May 8: Victory in Europe Day
May 11: College graduates nineteen students; 2000 ex-Aggies in uniform; 124 KIA; 32 former ASTP KIA; Brigadier General Milton receives Silver Star for gallantry in Philippines
May 20: Japanese begin withdrawal from Chinese mainland
June: Capt. Robert McCauley stationed on Ledo Road in Burma
June 5: Allies divide Germany and Berlin into sectors and establish military rule
June 16-20: Japanese resistance ends on Mindanao in the Philippines and on Okinawa
June 17: Capt. Lee Silbo lost over Atlantic
July 9: Lt. Robert Carr KIA over Japan
July 16: First test of U.S. atomic bomb
August: Lt. Lawrence Gardenhire on first troop ship to dock in Tokyo harbor
August 6: U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan
August 8: Soviets declare war on Japan and invade Manchuria
August 9: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki
August 14: Japanese surrender unconditionally; General MacArthur becomes head of occupation forces in Japan
September 2: Japanese sign surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay; Japanese in Philippines surrender to former prisoner, General Jonathan Wainwright; Victory over Japan Day declared
September 7: Lt. John Valkenaar liberated from Rokuroshi Camp, Japan
October 24: United Nations established
November 20: Nuremberg war crimes trials open
December 12: NMCA & MA confers honorary doctorate on Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright, hero of Corregidor

1946

January: Brigadier General Milton officially resumes presidency of NMCA & MA; veterans comprise one-half of student body; test firings of German rockets at White Sands Proving Ground; founding of Physical Science Laboratory
September: 1400 students (including 900 veterans) register for classes, causing campus housing crisis

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