The 1940s present the largest gap in our knowledge of AIC.. The only extant Islanders are 1940 and an undated issue which has been hand-labelled 1942-44. The loss of information on this period is keenly felt, particularly as it derprives us of knowledge of such epochal events as the retirement of the sloop Volunteer and the acquisition of Alamar (in 1948).

The 1942-43 issue makes only two references to the world war: a report of "The Victory Activities Board," and a fine block print by Charles Sheridan titled "The Spirit of War."

Happily, camper Tony Sifton has shared some memories of this era:

Charles_Sifton@nyed.uscourts.gov
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 10:37:01 -0400

It was 1942 in the middle of the war. I was 7 --  one year less than the age limit. I  was let in because my older brother, Paul, was going on the recommendation of Leslie Frost, one of the poet's daughters, whose daughters were going. We all traveled up from Washington by train. My bother was type cast as Pooh Bah in the summer's production of the Mikado. Jon Lindbergh was a tent mate. There were security problems associated with the kidnapping of his sibling. I remember Jack French, my hero among all the Frenchs, waking us before reveille one morning to show us a bald eagle roosting in one of the trees next to the tent three dock (where we washed our blue jeans once a summer in blithe ignorance of the environmental movement.)

You make me feel ancient, but actually Lew Bigelow was my contemporary.  I started earlier. He stayed around longer. Please give my regards to Sophie French and ask her if she remembers the summer on the Volunteer ( a Friendship sloop which was the predecessor of  the Alamar) when Jon got his hands on a red jellyfish and mushed it all over his face before anyone could stop him.

From: Charles_Sifton@nyed.uscourts.gov
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:55:35 -0400

. . .please convey my best to Ding Hall and Dosie Dawson whose names stir pleasant memories from a long time ago. Some of them, at least,  (I agree with Ding) are surely worth preserving, if only to provide a basis for asking questions, such as, what were we doing in the midst of WWII,  harboring (as you remind me)  the blameless son of an America Firster while performing Gilbert and Sullivan's Victorian vision of Japan?  What were we doing playing the largest war game that anyone of us children (some of whom, at least, had fathers in the war) had ever played in our lives and called, "Blitzkrieg," in which "commandos" were given special powers to  wade from the Island to Breezy Point? Did we really at the same time call the field at Soper's a Victory Garden? And how many the same summers learned from Town Meetings as much as I did, (most of what I know) about  Robert's Rules of Order a! nd the fundamentals of the democratic process, ? I suspect that those educational wizards, the Frenchs, who had us all in thrall, were, among other things,  innoculating us against stereotypical thinking -- a lesson which, as they say, bears repeating often. But who's to judge without the recollections?

Thw 1942-44 Islander includes a address list, which can be found by clicking the fourth thumbnail, below.