A fond hello to my class of 1943 family. I will be taking former class secretary John Jenkins’ role in Class Notes. John announced in the March/April issue that he was retiring due to “late middle age,” and said he hoped a volunteer or widow would take his place.

It pained me to see no ’43 column in the past three issues. I believed and hoped a classmate closer to Hanover would rise to the occasion. When that didn’t happen, I dropped a note to John, who said, “Fine, George. You can take my place.”

So, here I am, 3,000-plus miles away in Walnut Creek, California. I live in Rossmoor, a gated retirement community of 10,000. I will try my best and recently received the College’s list of contact information for surviving classmates and widows.

The class of ’43 75th reunion was September 28-30, though I was unable to attend. I flew back to Hanover and really enjoyed three previous reunions (55th, 60th, and 70th). Sadly, I missed our 65th because I had an aortic valve replacement surgery two weeks before the get-together.

It was more than 79 years ago that the class of 1943 matriculated on the Big Green campus—and 651 bright-eyed frosh joined together for meals in Freshman Commons. It was September 1939, and Nazi Germany had invaded Poland on September 1. We were known as the first war-time class.

I am writing this column on August 15, a date my class will never forget: V-J Day! I was on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. I was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and served as a Japanese language expert.

More about that later.

—George Shimizu, 2642 Saklan Indian Drive, Apt. 2, Walnut Creek, CA 94595