Class of 1937

Milton Baron Asbell was born on August 23, 1913 in Camden, New Jersey and attended his local city schools, graduating from Camden High School in 1931. He enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1933 in the class of 1937. After a freshman year in which he attained the highest grade in English, Algebra, Plane Geometry, and German, "Mickey" Asbell transferred to the University of Maryland Dental School and graduated with the D.D.S. in 1938.

John Hart was born in Syracuse, New York, on October 20, 1916. He entered Dickinson in 1934, but did not complete his degree. He was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

He enlisted in the peacetime Naval Reserve in early 1941 and trained as an aviator in Jacksonville, Florida, earning his wings and an ensign's commission in April 1942. He flew anti-submarine PBYs in the Caribbean and the South Atlantic before being assigned to North Africa in November 1942.

In April 1943, he suffered severe injuries when his aircraft crashed and burned in Morocco. He then embarked on a thirteen month battle for life at hospitals in Boston and St. Albans, New York. On May 6, 1944 he was able to walk out of his ward and report for duty at the Naval Air Station in New York. He was then assigned to Pearl Harbor. However, on May 19, 1945, Lieutenant Jack Hart lost his life in the crash of an aircraft on a routine flight from Oahu.

A native of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area, David Hepford graduated from Lower Paxton High School and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1937 in the fall of 1933. He participated in a variety of activities ranging from golf to singing third tenor in the Glee Club.

He edited the Dickinsonian in his senior year, served as president of the Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Newspaper Association, and represented the United States in the League of Youth Conference held at Geneva in Switzerland in the summer of 1937. During that travel he interviewed various public figures, including Benito Mussolini in Rome. In all, he became one of the most outstanding journalists in Dickinson's extra-curricular history.

Hepford enlisted in the army at the outbreak of war and was stationed for two years as a sergeant in Harrisburg at the Selective Service Headquarters. During this time he was active in civic matters and was vice president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was killed in an automobile accident on April 11, 1943, crossing the street in front of his home.

Charles Casper Nickel was born in Loysville, Pennsylvania in 1916 and was a graduate of Duncannon High School. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1933 but left after one year of study in the scientific course. During his time at the College he was a member of Theta Chi fraternity. Eventually, he attended journalism school and became an editor and publisher in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

He joined the army soon after Pearl Harbor and served two years before being commissioned at Fort Eustis, Virginia. He was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery in the Pacific theater. On December 8, 1944, during a Japanese attack on the Buri Airfield on Leyte Island, he was mortally wounded and died the next day. He was buried in Dulag Cemetery on Leyte, Republic of the Philippines.

John Och was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in November 1914. He graduated from Harrisburg Catholic and entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle with the class of 1937. He pursued a scientific degree, competed on the track team, and was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity. Following his studies at Dickinson, in 1939 he earned a master's degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and took work as a pharmaceutical salesman for a firm in York, Pennsylvania.

Och entered the navy in 1942 and was commissioned in October. Beginning in January 1943, he served seventeen months of sea duty before returning home to be married in June 1944. On October 1944, Och was serving on a heavy cruiser in enemy waters when he was washed overboard during a storm and lost.

Jurgen Von Oertzen was a German student who attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1933-1934 and earned a bachelor's degree with the class of 1934 on June 11, 1934. From Mecklenburg in northern Germany, he was a student at the University of Rostock and was participating in the Institute of International Education's exchange program. The following year, William Woodward, class of 1934, brother of Paul Woodward, class of 1937, studied physics and chemistry at the university in Munich. Known as "Ekky," von Oertzen concentrated his studies in history and economics with the goal of entering the German civil service. He also participated in the varsity soccer team.

When the call for the fifteenth reunion of his class went out in 1949, relatives sent information that on August 21, 1941, Jurgen von Oertzen had been killed in action serving in the German Army during the battle for the Latvian capital of Riga. Latvia had been independent until 1940 when it came under Soviet domination; the German attack was part of the general advance in Hitler's invasion of Russia.

He had married his wife Elizabeth before the war broke out and she and their son and daughter survived the war and lived in western Germany. Unlike other Dickinsonian casualties of the Second World War, von Oertzen does not appear on the plaque in Memorial Hall.

William Reckeweg was born in Audubon, New Jersey in September 1916. He attended high school there, graduating in 1933; he then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1937. While at Dickinson he was an active student: a football, soccer, and baseball player, and a member of the Glee Club and Sigma Chi fraternity.

After graduation, Reckeweg became employed as an insurance agent. However, by February 1941, he had enlisted in the United States Army and had been sent to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania for training. He completed officer candidate school at Fort Benning, Georgia in August 1942; by August 1943, he was a captain. He applied for active duty and became the commander of Company C, 357th Infantry, 90th Division, just prior to the D-Day landings. He was wounded in early July in Normandy and spent six weeks in a hospital in England. William Reckeweg was killed in action on February 1, 1945, in northern Luxembourg, when shell fragments struck his company command post as his unit was digging in on newly-won high ground.

Paul Woodward was born in London on August 2, 1915, where his father, Franklin Woodward, class of 1901, was the European patent attorney for an American company. A fourth generation Dickinsonian, Paul attended high school on Long Island and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1932. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1936, played soccer for three years, ran track, and worked on the Dickinsonian. He also served as chapter president of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi.

Woodward was a civilian worker with the Standard Oil Company in the Philippine Islands at the outbreak of war. With the Japanese invasion at a critical point, he volunteered to drive a truck-load of fuel to besieged Bataan, and was captured when Corregidor fell. Considered a prisoner of war, he was imprisoned in the Philippines until October 1, 1944, when he was to be taken by ship to Hong Kong. The overcrowded ship was too much for the already weakened Woodward and he died a few days into the voyage. He was buried at sea.