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.

Frederick J. Karch

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Frederick J. Karch was the Training Officer of the 14th Marine Regiment of the Fourth Marine Division until the division was disbanded in November 1945. On his return to the states, he served for a year on the Marine Corps Board of Review, supervising discharges and dismissals. Promoted to brigadier general in 1964, he led the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade ashore at Da Nang, South Vietnam, on March 8, 1965, to initiate direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Like most Americans at the time, he vastly underestimated the Vietnamese. “I thought that once they ran up against our first team they wouldn’t stand and fight,” he wrote later, “but they did.” He admitted candidly that, “I made a miscalculation.” Karch returned to Quantico in December 1965, still bearing his signature mustache, to become the Director of the Command & Staff College, and he remained in that job until his retirement in 1967. He died at his home in Arlington, Virginia, on May 23, 2009, at the age of 91.

_{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.}