It’s been 75 years since nearly 200 Anaheim High students graduated on the same day that 16,000 U.S. Troops landed on the beaches of Nazi-occupied Normandy, France.
Unbeknownst to these students in the small town of Anaheim, while this massive land, sea and air battle that changed the course of WWII was being fought on June 6, 1944, they were collecting their diplomas on the stage of Pearson Park Amphitheater and preparing to say good bye to classmates who would soon leave to join the fighting.
Class of 1944 Colonists graduated on D Day, June 7, and left directly for boot camp in San Diego before heading to the Pacific Theater.
Class ’44 grads, in fact, had to say goodbye to 14 of their friends who left after graduating to Navy Boot Camp in San Diego. The ’44 classmates all joined the same company and ended up serving in the Pacific Theater. They included (pictured here): 1) Paul Harrison, 2) Jim Richard, 3) John Hein, 4) Ray Booth, 5) Wilbur McConnell, 6) Bob Waddell, 7) Lester Buck, 8) John Murdock, 9) Jack Arnett, 10) Claude Wilson, 11) Ude Bauer, 12) Jack Royer, 13) Gene Menges, and 14) Charles Fordyce. All returned, including Booth whose ship was sunk by a Japanese submarine. These 14 students, as well as others who served in WWII, will be remembered by their 1944 classmates when they celebrate their reunion on Friday, June 6.
It’s estimated that 1,000 students who attended Anaheim High during WWII fought in the European and Pacific theaters, or fulfilled other military assignments, according to research by the Anaheim High School Alumni Association.
Anaheim High’s Class of ’44 also lost their friends of Japanese ancestry who were victims of WWII when they and their families were sent to internment camps.
Ruth Ikeda in 1941 as a freshman
Ruth Ikeda Matsuda, the mother of Mike Matsuda, Superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District, would have graduated with Class of 1944, but was one of the students who had to leave school on Feb. 19, 1942, when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, later called American’s “worst wartime mistake.”
Matsuda’s aunts, Yoka (Class of 1940) and Kay (Class of 1941), also attended Anaheim. The AUHSD presented the displaced Japanese students with a diploma at the June 1997 Anaheim High graduation ceremony. Anaheim High’s Principal Dr. Paul Demaree was also honored for the actions he took during this time to protect his students of Japanese descent.
Demaree’s daughter, Gania Trotter, is one of the about 25 Class of 1944 graduates who will be attending the 70th reunion. Trotter, who attended Anaheim with three of her siblings, said she remembers when 50 students of Japanese descent were forced to relocate with their families to internment camps that her father called an assembly of the entire student body and said, “These American born Japanese students have more right to be in the United States than I, because they were born in California and I was born in Japan.”
Principal Demaree, whose parents were Methodist missionaries, lived in Japan until age 15 and spoke fluent Japanese. He was vocal in speaking out against the discrimination toward Japanese-Americans, a courageous position to take considering the war fervor at the time, recalled his daughter, who added that her father kept in touch with his Japanese-American and encouraged them to continue their studies.
Dr. Demaree later became superintendent of the AUHSD when it became the fastest growing school district in the nation. To honor her father, Trotter has established an endowed scholarship in his name, which is administered by the AHS Alumni Association.
The Hall of Fame inductees include: Dr. Frank Kellogg, a renowned Orange County pediatrician and community volunteer who retired last year at age 87; and Dr. Leslie Holve, a pediatrician who helped start the first “Comprehensive Cleft Palate Team” in the Southern California area at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, As medical director of the center, he developed the facility into a coast-to-coast resource for doctors and parents of cleft children and other children with craniofacial defects.
Throughout the years of holding reunions and serving as the Class of 1944’s president, Dr. Kellogg has made an annual pilgrimage to Pearson Park on D-Day to remember his classmates and those who served their country.
“Through all our high school years the war was waiting just over the horizon, but in school we carried on well,” reminisced Kellogg. “Our Japanese classmates disappeared. Some boys left early to join the Armed Forces. War Bond presentations were everywhere.
“When I go to the city park and sit on a bench close to where we graduated, I give thanks for that time. We were all together growing up, changing, moving toward becoming the person each of us eventually would be,” he said. “We may not have realized then that we were so important to each other – helping, criticizing, encouraging. But we were great friends and gave each other great memories and more love than many of us may have appreciated or recognized then. It was a great time of our lives.”
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- Cousins Dr. Leonard Torres ’44 and Jim Oregel ’72
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- Frank Kellogg, ’44 Student Body President, and AUHSD Superintendent Mike Matsuda
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- Dr. Frank Kellogg and Reggie (Reynolds) Massey ’44
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- Gania Demaree Trotter and AUHSD Superintendent Mike Matsuda
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- AUHSD Superintendent Mike Matsuda with Gania Demaree Trotter whose father was Superintendent and Principal Dr. Paul Demaree
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- Mike Matsuda accepts gift from Gania Trotter, a plate belong to her father former AUHSD Superintendent Dr. Paul Demaree who was born in Japan.
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- AUHS Class of ’43 & ’44 Reunion – June 6, 2014
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- Reunion Program
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- 70th $ 71st Reunion
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- Frank Kellogg, AHS Principal Dr. Anna Corral, and Gania Demaree Trotter. Gania and Franks’ fathers were both past principals of Anaheim High.
