Class of 1946

George Cottrell was born in Wilmington, Delaware in August, 1923 but grew up at the home of his grandmother in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Here he graduated from high school in 1942. He entered Dickinson on the accelerated degree plan with the class of 1946 but withdrew after the fall and winter sessions to enlist with the United States Marine Corps.

Cottrell trained in basic infantry and at radio school in San Diego. He departed for the Pacific in April, 1944 and on July 21 was in the communications detail in the first wave of the Marine assault on the island of Guam. After working for hours under fire to establish and maintain radio communications on the beachhead, Cottrell was struck and killed by mortar fire, one month shy of his twenty-first birthday. He was buried on the island the following day.

Born July 6, 1925, Frank Evans was from Brooklyn, New York, where he was an outstanding student at P.S. 93 Boys High School, and the Adelphi Academy. In September 1942 when he had just turned seventeen, Evans enrolled at Dickinson with the class of 1946. He was pursuing a chemistry major when he enlisted in the army in August 1943.

Evans trained at Fort Benning, Georgia and left for Europe to join Company E., 405th Infantry, as its youngest member in August 1944. A devout member of the Episcopal Church, he wrote to his mother in November that "So far I have felt little fear up here. God is closer to the front lines than any place else." Five days later, Frank Evans was killed in action in Germany on November 22, 1944, aged nineteen years and four months.

Robert Fleck was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in August 1924, but lived locally in Carlisle, where his father was an insurance agent. He graduated from Carlisle High School in June 1942 and entered Dickinson. He spent only one year at the College before he was drafted into the army in March 1943. He was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Fleck trained in Texas and Louisiana before being assigned to the 84th Infantry Division in the European Theater. While advancing with his unit into Germany, PFC Fleck was killed in action on November 29, 1944. He is buried in an American Military Cemetery in Holland. He was twenty years old.

Samuel Harvey was born in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1923 and grew up in Red Bank, New Jersey, graduating from high school there with honors. He entered Dickinson with the class of 1946 and became a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Harvey enlisted in the army after the fall and winter terms of his freshman year and trained in Texas and Mississippi. He was assigned to the 301st Infantry Regiment of the 94th Division, Third Army while fighting in Europe, serving as runner and French interpreter. On February 20, 1945, PFC Samuel Harvey was killed in action in Germany. He is buried in the American Cemetery in Luxembourg.

Donald Liggitt was from York, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from William Penn High School. He entered the College in 1941 but enlisted in the Army Air Corps in the autumn of 1942.

He attended officer candidate school in Florida and after service in North Carolina, he served in Europe during the march on Berlin. He returned to the United States in October 1945 and was stationed at Randolph Field in Texas as an assistant judge advocate.

On May 7, 1946, Captain Liggitt was among five men killed in the crash of a bomber in Louisiana.

Born on March 24, 1924, Allan Rogers was from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania and was a graduate of Abington High School. He transferred to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1942 from Duke University but was called to active duty after only the fall and winter sessions at the College. He had been a pledge of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Rogers was trained in Alabama and Arkansas as a pilot and was commissioned in January 1944. In June 1944 he joined the Eighth Air Force in England, flying co-pilot in B-17 bombers.

On July 29, 1944, on his fourteenth mission, his B-17 was one of a group sent to bomb a synthetic oil plant in Germany. En route to target over Holland, the plane was struck by anti-aircraft fire, which caused it to explode. Rogers was initially declared as missing in action but subsequent information gained toward the end of the war stated that the badly injured young lieutenant had been taken to a German military hospital in Holland and did not survive the day. He was twenty years old.