John Stearns

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John: “[On VJ Day] the Navy people took it upon themselves:  this is the occasion to beat the whey out of these little civilians who'd been jeering. It was quite violent…. We thought we were all going to be [drafted] … but in the meantime we leaned out of the window when they were in formation in the morning and said 'Hi Swabby!' and so forth. We built up a certain amount of ill will…. It all poured out on the campus [that day], fist fights all over the place. Nobody was seriously hurt.”

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