Yale Military History & Traditions tour

Location: Hewitt Quadrangle. 

Across Yale’s campus, the University honors the men and women who have served and died in armed conflicts throughout American history. From the World War I cenotaph and the Ledyard Flagstaff outside, to the Memorial Hall and the names engraved within, the area around Woolsey Hall commemorates those who served in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Philippine-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. These memorials, along with the robust Navy and Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps programs that returned to Yale’s campus in 2012, serve as reminders of the sacrifice and patriotism shown by generations of Yale students. 

Centrally located in Hewitt Quadrangle, near the heavily trafficked entrance to Commons, is the Yale Alumni War Memorial, constructed by the alumni of Yale in 1926-27. This cenotaph memorializes the sacrifices of Yalies during WWI. 

In March of 1917, the First Yale Unit was called to arms when the Aerial Coast Patrol Number I departed for active duty in Palm Beach, Florida. Apart from this unit, most students returned to Yale after spring vacation that year; however, almost the entire student body was enrolled in informal artillery training. As war waged on, the University administration encouraged students to stay enrolled at Yale, but students quickly began to leave to join the service. The mass exodus of students was so sudden that the University could only estimate how many students departed to serve. Eventually, the Yale Daily News would suspend publication because its entire editing staff had enlisted. By the fall of 1917, so many Yalies had enlisted that only one varsity letterman was still on campus. 

The cenotaph honors those who gave their lives in the First World War, and is surrounded with carvings symbolizing liberty, including eagles, ornamental garlands, tanks, and guns. Behind the cenotaph on Commons are inscribed the names of WWI battles at Cambrai, Argonne, Somme, Chateau-Thierry, Ypres, St. Mihiel, and Marne. 

By the end of the Great War, almost 9,500 Yalies had served in the Armed Forces, and almost 400 more had served in the Red Cross, YMCA, or other service organizations. In total, 233 Yalies gave their lives in WWI. 

Location: 168 Grove Street. This space honors students, alumni, and faculty who have died in American wars. It began as Yale Civil War Memorial, designed by alumni and dedicated in 1915. The design of the memorial is noteworthy for listing, without distinction, the names of both those who served in the Union Army in defense of the United States and those who served in the Confederate Army. Over the years, the names of those died in other wars have been added. At the entrance to the Schwarzman Center from Hewitt Quadrangle is a plaque dedicated to casualties of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The Hall’s rotunda contains the names of Yale students and alumni who gave their lives in World Wars I and II. The Class of 1945W saw their college years interrupted by service, and the “W” in their class year stands for “war.” Members of the class of 1945W can be seen listed to the right of the entryway to Commons dining hall. Down the ramp at the entrance to the rotunda are the names of Yale students and alumni who died in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, on the left and right, respectively.

The engravings in Memorial Hall inspired Maya Lin ‘81, ‘86 MArch when, as an undergraduate, she designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Lin’s iconic design incorporates name engravings in the style of Memorial Hall. Reflecting on her work and influences, Lin wrote, “throughout my freshman and sophomore years, the stonecutters were carving in by hand the names of those killed in the Vietnam War, and I think it left a lasting impression on me…the sense of the power of a name.” 

Dedicated in 1915, the Civil War Memorial connects Woolsey Hall and Commons with the rotunda of Memorial Hall. Planning for the memorial began in earnest in 1909 with a committee of alumni, co-chaired by a former Union army officer and a former Confederate army officer. The design of the memorial, the display of names, and even the name given to the conflict were matters of intense discussion and sometimes disagreement. Ultimately, heavily influenced by Lost Cause ideology, the committee chose to create a memorial that emphasized reconciliation between North and South. The names of Union and Confederate dead are flanked by the four allegorical marble sculptures, “Peace, Devotion, Memory and Courage.” Two figures on the north wall represent Peace and Devotion; the two figures on the south wall represent Memory and Courage.

Location: 250 Temple Street.

The New Haven Green has acted as a center for cultural and civic life since the town’s founding in 1638. New Haven was designed as a grid, creating the “Nine Square Plan” with the Green at the center. 

In the eighteenth century, the Green served as the parade grounds for the New Haven militia. Members of the militia included Nathan Hale (B.A. 1773), who later became famous for his role as a spy in the Revolution. When the news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord reached New Haven, a town meeting on the Green democratically chose to remain politically neutral. However, with the assistance of 60 of his 75 militiamen, Benedict Arnold demanded the keys to the powder house, the municipal store of gunpowder, and with his men and the town’s gunpowder rushed to Massachusetts. 

During the Civil War, the Green became a training and marching center. When WWI started, the Green was frequently used as a location for campaigns and rallies related to the war. In one instance, in October of 1918, John Phillip Sousa’s famous Navy Band came to New Haven. During WWII, when Glenn Miller was stationed in New Haven, his band performed concerts on the Green. 

The New Haven Green’s rich military history is honored by a flagpole, situated in the center of the Green. Erected in 1928 by the city of New Haven, the flagpole’s base features a bas-relief of military figures and is surrounded by a fountain, which was added in 2003. The flagpole honors New Haven residents who lost their lives in WWI. 

Location: 400 College Street.

Battell Chapel was constructed from 1874-1876. An apse was added in 1947 and dedicated to the undergraduate deacons who died in WWII. It is the largest on-campus house of worship, and now hosts the annual Air Force and Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Commissioning Ceremony. 

The first four-year commissioning ceremony after the return of ROTC to campus was held on May 23, 2016, hosted by then-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter ’76. Secretary Carter double-majored in physics and medieval history at Yale, then went on to serve with the Department of Defense for over three decades, including positions dealing with acquisitions, nuclear policy, and weapons development. During his time as Secretary of Defense, he was instrumental in opening more military opportunities for females and transgender service members. 

Location: 20 York Street.

In 1826, the General Hospital Society of Connecticut was chartered as the first hospital in Connecticut, and the fourth private nonprofit hospital in the nation. The onset of the Civil War allowed the directors of the hospital to lease the building to the U.S. government for $1,000 a year for its use as a military hospital. During 1865, over 25,000 soldiers were cared for in the hospital, which was then known as the Knight U.S. Army General Hospital, after Jonathan Knight, founding professor at the Medical Institution of Yale and a surgeon in Connecticut. 

Knight U.S. Army General Hospital was incredibly successful, and was directed by the military to increase its capacity, and tents were erected on the hospital grounds to accommodate more than 1,500 beds. Extra space in the hospital was not only used for injuries but to quarantine patients, as infectious diseases like typhoid, malaria, and dysentery spread quickly through the close quarters shared by soldiers. Medical practices in general were still quite rudimentary, and limbs frequently had to be amputated to stop the spread of infection. Yale New Haven Hospital, as it later became known, was on alert as a designated military hospital in every subsequent war. 

Yale’s medical community also mobilized during WWI, deploying as Yale Mobile Hospital Unit No. 39 to France in August 1917. A team of 40 doctors and nurses, led by Dr. Joseph Marshall Flint, Professor of Surgery, moved to the American Front in 1918, and operated on 170 soldiers per day. This expeditionary unit so close to the front lines was the first of its kind and became the model for future U.S. Army medical care. 

During WWI, Annie Goodrich was appointed by the United States Army Surgeon General to be the “Chief Inspecting Nurse of Army Hospitals at Home and Abroad.” She identified deficiencies in the preparation of Army nurses, which led to the establishment of the Army School of Nursing in 1918. Her service as the Army Nursing School Dean was recognized with the Distinguished Service Medal. She went on to found the Yale School of Nursing in 1923, where she served as its first Dean and Yale’s first female Dean. 

Location: 200 Grove Street.

The Grove Street Cemetery has been dubbed a “City of the Dead,” with named avenues and streets inside. The cemetery was established in 1797 to solve crowding issues in burial sites on the New Haven Green. It is a National Historic Landmark, and the first chartered burial ground in the U.S., as well as the first cemetery to be arranged in family lots. 

It is the final resting place of fourteen former Yale presidents, New Haven and Connecticut politicians, and Eli Whitney. Other significant figures buried there include patriot Roger Sherman, a former mayor of New Haven, and the only person to sign all four of the following historic documents: the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Noah Webster (B.A. 1778), American lexicographer, is also buried in the cemetery. Notable Yale figures including Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Ezra Stiles, Henry Farnam, and Timothy Dwight IV are also buried there. 

The Veterans Memorial at the Grove Street Cemetery can be found to the right of the main entrance at the intersection of Grove Street and High Street. 

Location: American Paintings and Sculpture Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street.

Sometimes called “The Painter of the Revolution” because of his historical paintings of the Revolutionary War, John Trumbull’s four most notable works hang in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. John Trumbull was the son of Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784  and the namesake of Trumbull College. John Trumbull served in the Revolutionary War, and after retiring from service, entered the field of art. 

Trumbull’s work in the Capitol Rotunda includes his painting “Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,”  which is also used on the two-dollar bill. He also painted a smaller version, which is housed at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Smaller versions of the three other Capitol Rotunda paintings also are housed in the Yale University Art Gallery. They are “The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, October 16 1777”; “The Surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, October 19, 1781”; and “The Resignation of General Washington December 23, 1783.”

“The Surrender of General Cornwallis” depicts the surrender of the British army at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the last major campaign of the Revolutionary War. While General Charles Cornwallis was in charge of the British army that surrendered, General Charles O’Hara offered the surrender. Those depicted include General Benjamin Lincoln, an American officer who is mounted on a white horse, as well as French officers underneath the white banner of the royal Bourbon family. Other American officers depicted in the painting include General George Washington, mounted on a brown horse to the left of the Stars and Stripes, and Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, John Trumbull’s brother and secretary to Washington. 

The paintings came into the university’s collection in 1832, as a gift from Trumbull. When Trumbull died in 1843, his dying wish was to be buried with his wife and his artwork. The Trumbulls were originally interred beneath the Yale University Art Gallery, a building whose original form he designed. Their remains were carefully removed and re-interred during the last renovation of the Art Gallery. 

Location: American Paintings and Sculpture Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street.

Charles Willson Peale was an American artist, most famous for painting figures of the American Revolution, with the most recognizable of those portraits “Washington at Princeton,” which depicts General George Washington in the aftermath of the Battle of Princeton. Fought near Princeton, New Jersey, on January 3, 1777, the Battle of Princeton was a victory for the Continental Army, and a strategic victory for the Revolutionary War, as it encouraged more recruits to join.

The painting displayed at the Yale University Art Gallery is one of many copies, all of which show Washington leaning on the cannon, with a horse and soldier in the background. In most other versions of the painting, Washington wears a blue sash across his torso. The Yale version of the painting is notable for only containing the shadow of the blue sash, which was later painted out by Peale. Prior to 1780, a blue sash or ribbon indicated the position of Commander in Chief. However, in 1780, Washington changed the military dress code, eliminating the blue sash and replacing it with three silver stars on the epaulets. When the dress code change occurred, Peale painted out Washington’s sash to keep up with the change. 

The rhetoric of freedom and liberty during the Revolution raised difficult questions about slavery for American colonists—and it created openings for enslaved people to seize their freedom. Trumbull’s “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17, 1775,” depicts, in the lower-right corner, Lieutenant Thomas Grosvenor (1744-1825), a 1765 graduate of Yale College, and Asaba, his enslaved Black servant. Like many other Black men during the Revolutionary period, Asaba may have gained his freedom through military service; by 1790, he was a free man living in Grosvenor’s household, along with his still-enslaved son, James Peter, freed on his 25th birthday. Thousands of Black Patriots eventually fought in the Continental Army. Many more enslaved people fled to the British side, often fighting in the Loyalist forces, in exchange for their liberty.

Location: Old Campus (College Street), outside of Connecticut Hall.

Often referred to as America’s first spy, Nathan Hale (B.A. 1773) is honored in Bela Lyon Pratt’s 1913 bronze sculpture. Hale was one of a small number of volunteers who helped George Washington gather intelligence during the Revolutionary War. He gathered intelligence for just a few weeks before he was caught and hanged by the British, bringing the Bible and his Yale diploma with him. 

Hale’s famous last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” are engraved around the base of Pratt’s depiction. Although most commonly associated with Hale, the words are actually a quote from Joseph Addison’s 1712 play “Cato, a Tragedy,” which was a favorite of Hale and his Yale peers. The line has been modified and incorporated into one of Yale’s unofficial mottos: “For God, for country, and for Yale.” Although Hale was an unsuccessful spy, his story has been transformed to represent sacrifice for his country.

Along with Hale, Yale and New Haven had many other connections to the Revolution. In 1775, students formed a student military company and, with the help of two soldiers, began training on campus. Shortly thereafter, British troops arrived in New Haven. Captain Benedict Arnold, still a Patriot leader at that point, marched his company to the Beers’ Tavern, across the street from what is now Old Campus, and seized ammunition before departing for Boston. When news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord reached New Haven, many students left for Boston to fight alongside the Patriot troops. 

Campus life was disrupted when, in July of 1779, twenty British square-rigged ships and many smaller vessels approached New Haven from Long Island Sound. President Ezra Stiles hid the college archives and students were immediately dismissed. New Haven was pillaged, the wharf was burned, and the fort was wrecked. After this invasion, support for the Revolution became almost universal at Yale. 

Location: Sterling Memorial Library, 120 High Street.

David Bushnell (B.A. 1775) was an American inventor and patriot who designed and built the first submarine to be used in battle. He entered Yale College in 1771 and experimented with techniques to make gunpowder explode underwater, eventually proving that it could explode while submerged. Bushnell’s last year at Yale was cut short when news of the battles at Lexington and Concord caused the college to close early. Bushnell returned to his hometown of Saybrook, CT. There he continued to work, expanding on his Yale experiments to create a submarine that could deliver his underwater explosives.

Collaborating with New Haven inventor Isaac Doolittle, Bushnell built Turtle, a submersible to transport mechanically triggered time bombs — also an invention of Bushnell’s — to the hulls of British ships. While Turtle’s attacks on British ships never succeeded, Bushnell’s legacy and acclaim as an inventor lived on. After the war, he was presented a medal and the U.S. Navy named two submarine tenders after him, in 1915 and 1942. 

The David Bushnell Papers at Yale consist of miscellaneous papers by and about the inventor. Two items in the collection are in his writing: a letter from 1787 claiming land due to his service in the American Revolution, and a description of a model for a sailing torpedo, thought to be from 1824, close to his death. Other items included in the Bushnell Papers include papers on his inventions and an account of Bushnell’s submarine. 

Location: Old Campus, between High Street and College Street.

Theodore Dwight Woolsey (B.A. 1820) was the tenth president of Yale University, serving from 1846-1871, before, during and after the Civil War. Of the more than 4,000 living alumni in 1865, approximately 22% served in the war, either fighting for the Union or the Confederacy. 

At that time, Yale was overwhelmingly northern, pro-Lincoln, and pro-Union. During the war, three of Woolsey’s own daughters served as nurses for the Union Army, and he was unabashedly anti-slavery. His nephew Theodore Winthrop (B.A. 1848) was the first Union soldier to die in battle in the Civil War. However, although many southern students left on their own accord during the war, Woolsey was the only president of a northern university not to force Southern students home during the war. 

The Woolsey statue on Old Campus is known for its protruding golden foot, which students rub for good luck. 

Location: Hewitt Quadrangle.

Across Yale’s campus, the University honors the men and women who have served and died in armed conflicts throughout American history. From the World War I cenotaph and the Ledyard Flagstaff outside, to the Memorial Hall and the names engraved within, the area around Woolsey Hall commemorates those who served in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Philippine-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. 

The Ledyard Flagstaff, erected in 1908, graces the Hewitt Quadrangle and honors Augustus Canfield Ledyard (B.A. 1898), who was killed in action during the often-overlooked Philippine-American War, which lasted from 1899-1902. The Philippine struggle for independence ended in 1946, when the U.S. ceded sovereignty. 

Graduates who lost their lives in the conflict, including Ledyard, are also memorialized on the walls of Memorial Hall, under the title of the Philippine Insurrection. The Ledyard Flagstaff was dedicated to First Lieutenant Ledyard by his classmates. 

Location: 81 Central Street. 

Yale football games against the service schools — including the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy — are a tradition almost as old as the Yale Bowl itself. 

Between 1921 and 1935, Yale played Army annually at the Bowl. Beginning in 1936, the military challenger was alternated with Navy. The largest crowd to attend a Yale game at the Bowl was 80,000, for a game against Army on Nov. 3, 1923. In a historic win in September 2014, during Yale Bowl’s 100th anniversary, Yale beat West Point in overtime (49-43). 

Location: 73 Sachem Street.

Yale’s ice rink, the David S. Ingalls Rink, is named for David S. Ingalls Sr. (B.A. 1920) and David S. Ingalls Jr. (B.A. 1956), both former Yale hockey captains and U.S. Navy veterans. 

David S. Ingalls Sr. began his studies in 1916 as a medical student, though he later graduated with a degree in English. At Yale, he joined the First Yale Unit, formed by undergraduates (including a number of wealthy young men, earning the group the nickname “The Millionaires’ Unit” from the press) with the goal of learning to fly airplanes and develop America’s military aviation. The First Yale Unit became the founding Naval Air Reserve squadron, and 13 days before the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, all 29 Yalies of the First Yale Unit volunteered for service. They were the first to fly for the U.S. in the Great War. 

After joining the U.S. Navy, Ingalls became the only flying ace — an aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft — of WWI and the first ace in U.S. Navy history. With six credited victories, he was awarded both American and British Distinguished Service medals. His time in the Navy continued after the war ended, and in 1929 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy in charge of aviation by President Herbert Hoover. Ingalls was an advocate for the fully deployable Carrier Task Force and served with the U.S. Navy throughout World War II. He retired from the Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral. 

Location: 74 High Street.

The construction site of Memorial Quadrangle was dedicated in October 1917, six months after the United States entered WWI and while many faculty members and almost all students were enrolled in military service. The Quadrangle pays homage to American history, American military history, and Yale’s history. 

Samuel Yellin, a master craftsman famous for designing works made from a single piece of iron instead of multiple pieces welded together, created the Memorial Quadrangle Gate. (Yale’s campus has ten gates in all designed by Yellin.) Forged in Yellin’s shop in Philadelphia, the Memorial Quadrangle Gate on High Street includes decorative ironwork images of shields, helmets, soldiers, weapons, and the crests of the five branches of the armed services. 

Location: 70 Central Avenue.

Built in 1916 to support Yale Artillery Battalion (the pre-cursor to Yale’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) unit), the Armory and Riding Stable housed a drill hall, gun sheds, shooting range, harness room, blacksmith shop, and stables for as many as 120 horses. It was the first university-affiliated Armory in the U.S. 

According to the “Artillery and Naval Training at Yale” publication of 1919, every “member of the R.O.T.C. must know how to take care of a horse, to ride, and to drive the battery mounted, for in the field artillery the motor has not as yet displaced the wheel, swing, and lead pairs.”

After the war, it remained a military officer training camp, with Yale becoming the only civilian university to offer artillery training. It was also used for calvary practice. The armory and stables were demolished by the University in 2019 for safety concerns. 

Location: 120 High Street.

Even before the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, Yale had established a military training program for its students. The University was represented at summer military training camps in 1913 and 1914, and many Yalies prepared to fight. By 1915, a group of alumni called for the University to be more active in preparing to enter the war, and in the same year, the University called for the formation of a field artillery unit as part of the Connecticut National Guard. More than 1,000 Yalies, both students and alumni, volunteered. 

Artillery Hall became the headquarters of ROTC and contained the Commandant’s room, a room for instructing staff, and a large lecture hall. The central section of the building was an open room used to study American, French, and British guns. Two months after the establishment of the Yale ROTC, the U.S. entered the war. Artillery Hall was on the site that is now Sterling Memorial Library, which was constructed in 1931.

Yale President Arthur Twining Hadley (B.A. 1876) established an artillery battalion on campus and raised money from alumni to construct a military training facility, Artillery Hall. Around the same time as the hall’s construction, the National Defense Act was passed, which called for enlarging the army and developing Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at universities. The Yale ROTC program officially began in February 1917, when Yale faculty members voted 38-0 to award academic credit for ROTC training. 

Location: 168 Grove Street.

Iconic jazz bandleader Glenn Miller was stationed in New Haven during WWII to produce national radio broadcasts for the U.S. Army Air Corps. I Sustain the Wings, Miller’s show, made its first national broadcast on September 18, 1943. Every Saturday morning during Capt. Miller’s duty in Connecticut, he and his band would perform for the troops at Woolsey Hall. The program included music, radio skits, and war propaganda intended to boost the morale of the American people and members of the military. 

Miller’s concerts were attended by civilian Yale students and New Haven residents. They would stand on the sidewalks around Woolsey Hall, listening to the band’s rehearsal, hoping to get a glimpse of the band’s march to the New Haven Green or Miller’s commute to the Taft Hotel on College Street, where he stayed. During his duty in New Haven, Miller and his band also toured Connecticut, playing in Hartford, Middletown, New London, and Stamford. 

Despite his relatively short time as a resident (Miller died in service in 1944), Miller’s legacy in New Haven has persisted. In 1993, local resident and Glenn Miller fan Peter Cofrancesco purchased a plot and a granite memorial stone in the New Haven Grove Street Cemetery and held a memorial service on behalf of Miller, honoring the artist and his influential time in New Haven during the war. 

Location: 252 Derby Ave, West Haven.

Formerly Yale Field, this simple baseball field was upgraded in 1927 and in 2020. In April 2021, Yale Athletics announced that the historic Yale Field would be named George H. W. Bush ’48 Field in honor of former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, who captained the Yale baseball team during his senior season.

George Bush enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday and began preflight training. After completing the 10-month course, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 9, 1943. He completed multiple tours in the South Pacific including assignment to Torpedo Squadron (VT-51) onboard USS San Jacinto, operating in Philippines, Marianas, and Wake Islands. Throughout the war, he flew 58 combat missions, and barely escaped capture after being shot down in enemy water. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

After Japan’s surrender in 1945, Bush received an honorable discharge from the Navy and enrolled at Yale after his father and multiple other family members. His son, President George W. Bush ’68, also served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. 

Location: Old Campus.

Faculty members at Yale began preparing for war before the U.S. entered WWII. In 1940, before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Yale faculty members helped women and children from Oxford University find homes in America, away from the war that was already raging in Europe. At the same time, the Yale School of Medicine affiliated itself with the Army’s 39th General Hospital in preparation for the war. 

By 1943, undergraduate courses offered to Army officers included engineering, medicine, intelligence, language, and civil affairs. The Army Air Forces established an aviation school at Yale, and the Army Air Forces Technical Training School was established on campus. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard programs included medicine and dentistry, as well as deck officer, engineering, and naval aviation training. The Schools of Medicine and Nursing and the Divinity School gave instruction to medical and chaplain corps candidates and to women enrolled in the Cadet Nurse Corps.

Student life on campus changed radically once the U.S. entered the war and Yale rented 7 of 10 residential colleges to the Army and Navy for housing. Over 3,000 military personnel occupied Old Campus, with only Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, and Trumbull colleges continuing to house civilian students. By 1944, there were only 565 undergraduates at Yale College. The Law School dropped from 400 students to only 70. 

The class known as 1945W only received six months of a typical Yale experience. The “W” in their class title stands for “war,” as they enrolled in the summer of 1942 on an accelerated wartime schedule, graduating in June 1945. The “W” differentiates them from those enrolled as the class of 1945 in the fall of 1941, before the U.S. entered the war. 

After the war, there was a huge influx of veterans enrolling in college, including over 8,000 at Yale, many of whom had families. Via the GI Bill, Yale admitted students from more diverse backgrounds. Temporary barracks were erected, cots set up in Payne Whitney Gym, and fraternity houses were commandeered to house the incoming students. Lectures were taught for up to 700 students at once. In 1949, 3 of 5 Yalies were veterans and the “Yale Studies for Returning Men” program allowed students to graduate in 6-7 terms. 

In total, over 20,000 servicemembers were trained at Yale during WWII. Over 18,000 alumni served, and 514 Yale men lost their lives in WWII. 

Location: 215 Park Street.

Yale’s Institute of Far Eastern Languages (IFEL) had its origins in the Chinese Language School that started on campus during WWII. Its goal was to teach Mandarin Chinese to U.S. Army officers. By 1947, the Chinese Language School evolved into the Institute of Far Eastern Languages, where faculty developed new approaches to learning language. Dubbed “the Yale Method,” techniques included intensive interaction between students and teachers. 

When the Korean War broke out in the 1950s, the institute’s mission turned to training U.S. Air Force personnel in Chinese and Korean. Classes were taught at 215 Park Street, a building purchased by Yale in the 1940s. IFEL existed separately from other graduate school language programs and offered an intensive eight-month course. At any given time, 100 airmen were taught by 30 professors. 

At commencement in June of 1962, when President John F. Kennedy came to Yale to receive an honorary degree, his Air Force honor guard consisted of volunteers from that year’s class of IFEL students. A picture of them saluting him was printed in newspapers across the country the next day. The IFEL program ended in 1965, when its courses were incorporated into the rest of Yale’s language programs and the University’s East Asian Studies program was expanded. 

Location: Morse College, 304 York Street.

This statue by Swedish-American sculptor Claes Oldenburg ’50 was originally installed on campus on May 15, 1969. The 1970s were marked by war protests across the country, including at Yale, and Lipstick provided a speaker platform during anti-Vietnam War protests. Its original location in Beinecke Plaza was very deliberate, as it overlooked both the office of the President, located in Woodbridge Hall, and the prominent WWI memorial. 

The original iteration of the lipstick was soft and inflatable, and sat on wooden treads, and it quickly deteriorated. A group of art professors and historians, including the then-head of Morse College, organized to bring the structure back to campus. In 1974 it was redone in steel and fiberglass and, with the support of Morse students, their college courtyard was offered as a permanent home for Lipstick, where it continues to reside today. 

Location: 189 Elm Street. Grace Hopper College is one of the fourteen residential colleges at Yale College. Dedicated in 1933, it was originally named for John C. Calhoun (B.A. 1804, L.L.D. 1822), vice president, secretary of state, secretary of war, and a U.S. senator from South Carolina. An architect of the nullification doctrine, Calhoun was a leading defender of slavery as a “positive good” and an ardent proponent of white supremacy. After decades of student and community protests, in 2017 Yale renamed the residential college in honor of Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), alumna, innovator, and naval officer. 

Hopper is best known for her critical contributions to the field of computer science through the development of computer languages. After earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Vassar College in 1928, she continued her education at Yale, earning her master’s degree and Ph.D. in mathematics in 1934. 

When the U.S. entered WWII, Hopper joined the Naval Reserve, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade. With a background in mathematics, she was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. In Cambridge, Hopper joined a team working on the MARK I, the first electromechanical computer in the U.S. After the war, Hopper continued making contributions to the field of computer science, in particular through her leadership in developing the FLOW-MATIC and COBOL computer languages. She first retired from the Naval Reserve in 1966 but in 1967, at the age of 60, was recalled to active duty because of her computer skills. When she finally retired again in 1986, at age 79, she was a Rear Admiral and the oldest serving officer in the service. Admiral Grace Hopper is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. 

Location: ROTC Unit Offices, 55 Whitney Avenue.

In December 1915, Yale men volunteered as artillery soldiers in World War I. Because of their large size and success in training, the Yale Batteries, as they came to be known, became the 10th Field Artillery of the National Guard in Connecticut. After the end of WWI, the War Department devised plans to enact the National Defense Act, which established the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program for the Army. Yale’s ardent participation in the war and the success of the Yale Batteries in field artillery provided it the opportunity to have the first Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) formally established in the fall of 1917. The establishment of Naval ROTC followed in 1926. Yale would host one of the original six Naval ROTC units along with the University of Washington, Harvard, the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California – Berkeley, and Northwestern University. Yale’s ROTC programs would go on to contribute meaningfully for the next 55 years, including during World War II and the years following. 

After decades of success, the ROTC programs withdrew from Yale following failed negotiations to keep the programs on campus. The removal of ROTC at Yale in 1972 has frequently been attributed to student protests during the Vietnam War. 

However, the reasons for the ROTC’s departure also included Yale’s decision to no longer give academic credit for ROTC-mandated courses and declining enrollment in ROTC programs. The Army departed campus in 1970, and the final class of Naval ROTC midshipmen graduated in 1972. Despite ROTC leaving campus, Yale students continued to participate in off-campus ROTC and post-graduation officer commissioning programs hosted by surrounding colleges. In the decades following ROTC removal from campus, Yale alumni would go on to serve in conflicts such as the Gulf War and the Global War on Terror. 

Following advocacy from the Yale Veterans Association and the repeal of the Department of Defense’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which had forbidden gay, lesbian, and bisexual military members from serving openly, Air Force and Naval ROTC returned to Yale in 2012. Since ROTC’s return, the program and Yale’s ties to the military and veteran community have flourished on Yale’s campus. The first four-year full cohort of Cadets and Midshipmen in the re-established ROTC units were commissioned at Battell Chapel in 2016 by then-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter ’76. 

The Warrior Scholar Project founded in 2011 by Yale graduates, including a veteran, provides transitioning enlisted service members the academic preparation they need to succeed at top schools. The Yale Veterans Association’s persistent advocacy resulted in participation of all Yale schools in the Yellow Ribbon program, which helps cover the cost of tuition and fees for veterans. Since its inception, Yale’s Eli Whitney program for non-traditional undergraduate students adds several student veterans per year. Yale’s rich history of military service is once again an integral part of campus life.