Several Hampton Academy and High School, and Winnacunnet High SChool Alumni -- a word that can be defined to include those who attended a school but did not graduate -- have died Hampton in the Wars. in overseas wars. This section of the Alumni Association's 65th Anniversary Booklet is meant to recognize their supreme sacrifice.

On the facade of the Lane Memorial Library is a metal table which commemorates those Hamptonites who served in early wars of Colonial times and afterward. At the base of the tablet is the epitaph: "When duty calls Hampton is never found wanting." This could also be the motto for those Alumni who, for war after war, served. And it includes Alumni from all area towns.

Alumni Association records are, at best, incomplete -- especially in regard to those who served in the uniformed services and attended the Academy before 1885 when it became a diploma-granting high school. But records are also incomplete for those who attended the Academy after 1885 but did not graduate. Should any name be wrongfully omitted, profound apologies go to all concerned.

Ashton Carley Lindsey attended Hampton Academy and High School for two years, 1909-10 and 1910-11. Joining the Navy, he was involved in the landing of Marines at Veracruz in the expedition against Mexico, April 1914. In 1916, as a Chief Boatswain's Mate with the armed cruiser USS Memphis, he (and others) perished off Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) when a tidal wave swept a small tender on August 29.

Many Alumni served in World War I both before and after U.S. entry in "the war to end all wars." Their names are listed on tablets located at the public libraries in Hampton and North Hampton, or on honor rolls. None died, according to Alumni Association records.

During World War II, however, 10 Alumni did not return alive. Three graduates were lost from the Class of 1943. Robert Gordon Lord from Hampton Falls, Robert Knowlton White from Hampton and Richard Warren Blake of Hampton. Robert White was killed in a train accident in southern Europe on July 1, 1945, He was travelling from a furlough to Riviera back to Paris. Pfc. Blake was KIA with the Army Ski Troops in northern Italy on February 20, 1945.

Maj. John William French Hobbs, U.S.A., of North Hampton also died in uniform during the War. He was graduated in 1904 and had served eight years as an Academy Trustee.

Others from Hampton were: 1st Lt. Harry Alfred Parr, Jr. '34'; Norman Milton Dearborn '35 (Army Air Forces; lost at sea); Edward William Tobey X'38 (President of his Class); 2nd Lt. Neil Ruthervin Underwood '38 (attended Academy in 1934-35 as a Freshman; Army Air Forces; lost in the Mediterranean near Corsica); Pfc. Roland Mitchell Gray '41 (transferred from Maine for his Senior year at H.A. & H.S.; KIA with Army Ski Troops during Battle of the Bulge in Belgium on Christmas Eve 1944); 2nd Steward Richard Thornton Raymond X'32 (left Academy toward end of Sophomore year in April 1930; lost when U.S.S. Dorchester was torpedoed off Greenland on February 3, 1943; about 600 perished including the "Four Chaplains" in the sinking of the troop transport).

Many Alumni are numbered among the 303 surviving men and women veterans of WWII who were residents of Hampton when they entered the Service. Eight of Hampton's 10 WWII dead attended the Academy.

Although a great number of alumni served in the Korean War, none were lost. In the spring of 1959, Hampton's memorial to those who had served during the Korean War (June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953) was emplaced on the Academy grounds at the corner of Academy Avenue and High Street. Dedicated on the following Veteran's Day (November 11), it lists 99 names. Perhaps a majority of those honored attended the Academy. On January 6, 1955, a year and a half after the Armistice, Joseph Chester Cutts '52, a Navy enlisted man from North Hampton, was killed in an auto accident.

During the present conflict [Vietnam] in Southeast Asia, Air Force Major Murray Lawrence Smith '51, originally from North Hampton, died (on December 21, 1967) as the result of burns suffered with the crash of his aircraft.

Three Winnacunnet High School graduates have also died in the Vietnam War. Army 1st Lt. Bruce Wadleigh Brown '63 of Hampton suffered severe burns when recoilless-rifle rounds hit his tank near Binh Yen. He died at an Army hospital in Texas two weeks later on September 12, 1968. Marine Pfc. Robert Ernest Shaw '66 of North Hampton was also a victim of the War in Vietnam, succumbing in March 1969 from wounds suffered in Battle. In 1969, a page of the W.H.S. yearbook, "Sachem," was dedicated to his and Bruce Brown's memory. Marine Pvt. Stephen Jay Philbrick '68 died on June 6, 1969 (the 25th Anniversary of WWII's D-Day), as the result of grenade wounds received south of the DMZ-Quang Tri Province area in the A Shau Valley of northern South Vietnam.

Many forms of remembrance exist for these war fatalities and veterans. In all the towns of the Seacoast Area, permanent Honor Rolls or monuments are displayed in public places. Alumni lost in the wars have been remembered in the yearbooks of both W.H.S. and H.A. & H.S. Also, under a policy adopted at the 1951 Town Meeting, street, parks and bridges in Hampton could be dedicated or rededicated in the names of those who were war fatalities during WWII. During the next several years most of Hampton's war dead were memorialized via bronze street markers. The bridge over Hampton River was dedicated to the memory of Neil Underwood. In North Hampton, the four overpasses above Rte. I-95 bear the names of the four men from that community who were lost in the Second World War -- including John W. F. Hobbs '04.

There are a number of memorials in the State dedicated to those who did and did not return from the wars. The Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge has national monuments for all American war dead (Altar of the Nation) and for all women who died in war (Memorial Bell Tower). The Blue Star Memorial Highway (Rte. I-95) was recently dedicated as "A tribute to the Armed Forces that have defended the United States of America."

New Hampshire's unique Marine Memorial at Hampton Beach commemorates the State's war dead lost at sea. The shrine centers on a 12-foot-high, 24-ton granite statue of a bereaved woman holding a wreath and looking out to sea. The Memorial was designed by Mrs. Alice E. Cosgrove, a Concord artist employed in a State department, who passed away on Pearl Harbor Day 1971 at age 62. Dedicated on Memorial Day 1957, the inscription at the base of the statue, "BREATHE SOFT, YE WINDS -- YE WAVES IN SILENCE REST," is from "Epistle to a Lady" (first published in 1714) by English poet-dramatist John Gay (1685-1732). The names of over 200 from all branches of the military services are etched into the walls of nearby granite slabs.

The State has also provided a Memorial Room in the Memorial Union Building on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire. This chapel-like room, dedicated with the new building (made possible through student, alumni and public subscription) on October 12, 1957, contains a wall-size plaque with the names of over 2,300 men and women of N.H. who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces during both World Wars and the Korean Conflict. A temporary plaque has been installed by the U.N.H. Alumni Association in memory of the school's graduates (currently about 35) who, as Servicemen, have perished during the Vietnam War.

On November 10, 1970, the student body of W.H.S. named the school's relatively new athletic fields "Winnacunnet High School Memorial Field" in tribute to Alumni killed in Vietnam.