Class of 1943

Walter Marshall was born in Philadelphia in 1921 and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1939 after his graduation from Collingswood High School in Collingswood, New Jersey. As a member of the class of 1943, "Red" was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, participated in the International Club, and worked on the Microcosm. He also took advantage of the College's accelerated wartime program, graduating with his bachelor of arts degree on January 24, 1943. He then joined sixteen other Dickinson men in the first group to leave in a body for the armed services, assigned to Camp Lee, Virginia.

Marshall trained at Miami Beach, Florida and then was selected for technical school in photography at Lowry Field, near Denver, Colorado. He studied photo topography at Colorado Springs and finished first in his class. He was offered an assignment as an instructor but rejected this in favor of an overseas assignment with the Intelligence Corps and was sent to the Mediterranean theater in April.

Jack Martin was born in Philadelphia in 1920 and grew up in nearby Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Camp Hill High School in 1938 after three years of varsity football and editing the first yearbook in the high school's history. He entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle and continued his football career as a half-back. He also followed his father, John E. Martin, class of 1917 and a veteran of the First World War, in joining Beta Theta Pi.

He finished the requirements for the degree in 1943 and was already a United States Marine when diplomas were awarded. The Dickinson Alumnus of September 1945 stated that Martin may have been the first graduate never to see his diploma since he was not able to obtain a home leave before shipping to the Pacific.

Martin joined Company H, 3rd Battalion, 29th Regiment, 6th Marine Division in the invasion of Okinawa. On May 15, 1944, during the bloody battle for the island's main town of Naha at a place called Sugar Loaf Hill, Corporal John Martin was killed in action. He was buried on Okinawa in the Marine cemetery, becoming one of more than 12,500 Americans (including three Dickinsonians) lost in securing what was intended to be the main staging area for the final invasion of the Japanese home islands.

Donald Parker was born in New Haven, Connecticut on June 27, 1920. He graduated from Lyman Hall High School in Wallingford in the spring of 1938. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1943 on September 21, 1939 but transferred to Wesleyan University where he graduated in 1942.

He worked a short time as an accountant until he was inducted into the U.S. Army in November, 1942. He trained at Fort Riley, Kansas and Camp Polk in Louisiana before shipping to Europe as a tank commander in August, 1944.

He joined the 19th Battalion of the Ninth Armored Division and was killed in action in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge on December 29, 1944.

Val Sheafer was born March 4, 1922 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and entered the local Dickinson College with the class of 1943 in September 1939. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi and a senior mathematics major when he left Dickinson in April 1943 to enlist in the Army Air Corps. With credit assigned from his Army training, he was qualified to graduate at Dickinson's commencement in late May 1943, and his father received his diploma on his behalf.

Sheafer trained at Montgomery, Alabama and at gunnery school in Florida before completing bombardier school in Texas. He received his commission and his wings in April 1944. He was assigned to England on February 11, 1945 as the bombardier on a B-24 Liberator. Sheafer was killed five weeks later when his aircraft crashed during a training flight. He had just reached his twenty-third birthday.

James Yeingst was born in Mount Holly, Pennsylvania, and was a graduate of Carlisle High School. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1943. Excelling in science, he nevertheless left the College while still a sophomore to enlist in U.S. Army Signal Corps in October, 1941. As a student he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Yeingst served the first thirteen months of the Second World War in the south Pacific, rising swiftly to the rank of Master Sergeant. He was selected for training as an Army Air Force flight crew cadet and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in April 1944. Trained as a navigator and as an expert in radar technology, he was sent to England to fly with the 8th Air Force, completing a total of sixty-five missions. Thirty-five of these he flew with the Royal Air Force, most likely as a radar expert on night missions.

Following the war, he contemplated a return to Dickinson but ultimately remained with the Air Force. Yeingst was serving as a radar officer with the rank of captain when he lost his life in the crash of an operational B-36 bomber on November 22, 1950, near Cleburne, Texas.