By Wesley Harris
World War II inflicted a heavy toll on the Louisiana Tech family when it responded in force to the call of duty after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
Many Tech students learned of the deadly attack as they ate in the Toliver Dining Hall that Sunday. Virgil Orr, a student waiting on tables at the time and later Tech’s vice-president, emotionally shared that moment with me.
“Students laid down their utensils, got up quietly, and headed out,” Orr said, “and made arrangements to get home to their local recruiting stations and sign up to fight. There was fierce determination on their faces.”
It was “all hands on deck” as alumni and students joined up and the college pitched in to battle the assault on democracy. Tech gave up typewriters sorely needed by the military. Precious resources were conserved, even to the point of foregoing the printing of a yearbook. An officer training program for Naval and Marine officers took over much of the campus.
But the greatest sacrifice would be in the form of Bulldog lives lost in the South Pacific, in France, and in the skies over Germany.
Even before the war ended, the Tech Class of 1944 began raising funds for a memorial honoring former students killed in the conflict. Recognizing no small acknowledgement of the war’s impact on Tech would suffice—especially with the large group of students who did not return home—by 1946 the effort expanded. Supporters proposed some future building to be constructed on campus be designated as a memorial to these young Bulldogs who died defending America.
A planned new gymnasium was chosen to serve as the memorial. When Memorial Gymnasium was dedicated on January 14, 1953, a large bronze plaque bearing the names of the 122 former students killed in the war was unveiled.
Over the years, the plaque suffered from decades of grime and oxidation, leaving it so black it was nearly unreadable in its high position above the ticket booth in the gym lobby. After construction of the Thomas Assembly Center moved basketball out of the gym, rarely did anyone have a reason to see the lobby’s memorial plaque. In fact, most students who have used the facility over the past 65 years did so unaware of the plaque or why the building was called Memorial Gymnasium.
In 2013, the plaque was removed and restored as part of renovations to the basketball court to honor former Tech coach Scotty Robertson. The weight of the massive bronze panel delayed reinstallation to a place more suitable than the rarely used lobby. Additional support beams had to be added to a wall to permit remounting the plaque.
Now overlooking the basketball court where it will visible to most who use the building, the panel has returned as a memory of the sacrifice necessary at times to defend freedom.
Among the heroes it lists is Lieutenant Gerald McCallum, the first Louisiana Tech student to die in World War II. McCallum was a Marine pilot assigned to a squadron engaged in a desperate struggle to stop the Japanese onslaught advancing on Australia. During an aerial battle with the Japanese early in the war, McCallum led his vastly outnumbered fighter force into the face of the enemy. His bravery and leadership led to the posthumous award of the Distinguished Service Cross, a decoration for valor second only to the Medal of Honor.
The plaque includes the name of Navy Ensign Alva Nethken, the son of a Tech engineering professor. Alva joined his two brothers and a sister in the service but never came home. Killed when the U.S.S. Houston was attacked by the Japanese in the Java Sea, Alva remains with his ship in the deep waters off the coast of Indonesia.
A Bulldog sophomore when the war broke out, Crit Rogers joined up and completed flight training. Rogers had just landed on an aircraft carrier near Okinawa when another landing plane crashed into him. He died just three months before the end of the war at age 22.
Halfway around the world, Lieutenant James Breathwit fought in some of the most brutal ground battles of the European theater with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne. After surviving the Army’s first ever airborne military offensive by parachuting into Sicily and then fighting up the Italian boot to Naples, Breathwit was killed on December 14, 1943. He rests in peace in the military cemetery in Lazio, Italy.
These are just four of the 122 Louisiana Tech students who gave their lives for their country. They did not hesitate, most dropping out of school to join up to do what had to be done. May the plaque that bears their names always remind us of their sacrifice.
Saturday, December 7 is the 83rd anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and America’s entrance into World War II.
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