The Naval Academy Class of 1940 [slideshow]

As shocking as the Pearl Harbor attack had been for the Naval Academy Class of 1940, the sudden arrival of peace was nearly as disorienting. Most of the Forties, as they were known, were still only 27 years old, and the great adventure of their lives was now behind them. The war had dominated virtually all of their adult lives, from Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 to Japan’s surrender in 1945. For nine years, they had been directed by circumstance, authority, and a shared feeling of responsibility. They had served in different theaters, in different jobs, on different ships—or planes, or battalions. Yet all of them had been forged, tempered, and tested. Every man in the class knew someone who had been killed in the war, and the sacrifice of their classmates was etched into their hearts.

They had learned to live in the moment; now they had to think of the future. For the next two decades and longer, they served in a wide variety of assignments throughout the world. For some of them, there was another war, in Korea. For a few, there was even a third war, in Vietnam. Throughout it all, they stayed in touch with one another, attended class reunions when they could, and caught the occasional Navy football game. Eventually, they retired. Some took up a new profession; several became teachers. But none of them ever forgot their trial by fire in the Second World War, nor did they forget one another. They were always Forties.

Raymond A. “Hundy” Hundevadt

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Raymond A. “Hundy” Hundevadt was nine years old when he was captivated by the vista of Navy battleships anchored in the Hudson River and decided then that he wanted to attend the Naval Academy. Fifteen years later, at age 24, he watched Jimmy Doolittle’s bombers take off from the Hornet to raid Tokyo, and only months after that, he was on the cruiser Vincennes when it was sunk during the Battle of Savo Island. After the war, he returned to Annapolis to attend the Navy’s Post Graduate School, followed by another year of post-graduate study at Cornell. He went on to assume command of what was then called the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs), now called Navy SEALs. In 1951, he assumed command of the USS Vogelgesang (DD-862) serving mostly in the Mediterranean, before several tours ashore at the Bureau of Ordnance and the National War College. In 1963, he took command of the USS Mulliphen, an attack cargo ship. After decades of service, he retired from the Navy in 1965 and moved with his family to California. There, he worked as a Project Engineer for Lockheed, developing systems for the retri of solid rocket boosters. He was a vocal “hawk” during the Vietnam War, writing letters to the local paper in support of a stronger defense. He died on April 17, 1992, a victim of lung cancer, at the age of 74.

_{Feature image credit: Graduation day at Annapolis, Class of 1940. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Harris & Ewing, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-12345]. Public domain.}