Memorial Day Weekend: God, Country, Notre Dame Lou Somogyi • BlueAndGold.com Former Notre Dame president Rev. William Corby's statue of granting absolution in the Battle of Gettysburg is a fixture on the Notre Dame campus. Notre Dame Archives Engraved deep into the stone on the side door of the Basilica of Sacred Heart Church at Notre Dame are not merely words but a way of life: “God, Country, Notre Dame.” It weaves together the school’s spiritual and patriotic elements while enjoining its loyal sons and daughters who are, as the Victory March states, “strong of heart and true to Her name.” The relationship between the military and Notre Dame goes far beyond football rivalries with Army, Navy and Air Force “Ever since 1858 when the student-organized Continental Cadets began marching across campus in their blue and buff American Revolutionary-style uniforms, Notre Dame has Memorial Day Weekend: God, Country, Notre Dame Lou Somogyi • BlueAndGold.com been teaching students how to be good soldiers,” wrote John Monczunski in the Spring 2001 Notre Dame Magazine. ‘Fair Catch’ Corby While most Notre Dame enthusiasts are aware of the “Touchdown Jesus” mural on the Hesburgh Memorial Library, plus the mammoth “We’re No. 1 Moses” statue on the west side of the library, the history behind the “Fair Catch Corby” statue is not as well known. Father William Corby was a 30-year-old priest who served as the chaplain of the famous Irish brigade that fought Civil War (1861-65) battles from the First Bull Run to Appomattox. It was during the bloody July 1-3, 1863 battle in Gettysburg, Pa., where more than 46,000 troops from the Union and Confederacy were killed, wounded, captured or ended up missing, that Corby led his men in prayer and pronounced general absolution. A picture of the dramatic event, with the battle raging in the background, was taken with Corby delivering the absolution with his right hand raised — similar to a fair catch in football. In 1910, 47 years later, sculptor Samuel Murray shaped a bronze statue of Corby that was placed at the spot in Gettysburg where Corby delivered the absolution. A duplicate stands outside Corby Hall, next to Sacred Heart Church, on the Notre Dame campus. After the war, Corby served as Notre Dame’s president from 1866-72 and 1877-1881, prior to his 1897 death. Seven other Notre Dame priests joined Corby as chaplains in the War Between the States, and 89 Holy Cross sisters left Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College to serve as nurses during the Civil War. Two generals for the Northern Army came from Notre Dame — Williams F. Lynch and Robert W. Healy. Healy would work with General William T. Sherman, whose march through Georgia rivaled Gettysburg as the most devastating campaign of the war. What is not as well known is that while Sherman was marching through the South, his wife and children were living at Notre Dame. Two of his boys were also enrolled at the minim department of the University. A third son, a baby, died during the course of the war and was buried in Notre Dame’s community cemetery, according to Don Heltzel in the Feb. 28, 1941 Notre Dame Scholastic. The Legend Of ‘Shilly’ As president of Notre Dame, Corby instituted military training at the school in 1880, and two years later the program offered academic credit. Memorial Day Weekend: God, Country, Notre Dame Lou Somogyi • BlueAndGold.com The Spanish-American War in 1898 also had a Notre Dame tie. In 1897, Notre Dame student John Shillington participated in a baseball game for his school in his hometown of Chicago, and he remained there while the team returned home. This led to his expulsion, and in his sorrow, he joined the Navy. He was assigned to the Battleship Maine. There, according to Rev. Arthur J. Hope C.S.C., author of “Notre Dame — One Hundred Years, ” the popular former student wrote to a Notre Dame friend: “I often think of Notre Dame, I can picture her daily, and in my reminisces of her, a tear is often brushed away. I suppose ‘Shilly’ is forgotten by people at the old college, and I don't blame them. Though forgotten, I shall always hold Notre Dame near and dear to me.” Not long thereafter, Feb. 15, 1898, the Maine, sent to Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. interests in a Cuban revolt against Spain, exploded. It killed Shillington and precipitated the Spanish- American War. Notre Dame took a personal stake in the tragedy, and a campus monument is dedicated in his memory. By the onset of World War (1914-18), Corby’s military training implementation had become a requirement for most Notre Dame students, and in 1917 its application for the government’s Student Army Training Corps (SATC), the precursor to today’s Reserve Army Training Corps (ROTC), was accepted. The United States didn’t partake in World War I until 1917. Approximately 2,200 Notre Dame students entered the uniformed service, and 46 were killed in action. Their names are the ones memorialized at the “God, Country, Notre Dame” entrance. The Naval V-12 program at Notre Dame graduated more than 12,000 members from 1942-46. Notre Dame Archives Engraved deep into the stone on the side door of the Basilica of Sacred Heart Church at Notre Dame are not merely words but a way of life: “God, Country, Notre Dame.” Memorial Day Weekend: God, Country, Notre Dame Lou Somogyi • BlueAndGold.com It weaves together the school’s spiritual and patriotic elements while enjoining its loyal sons and daughters who are, as the Victory March states, “strong of heart and true to Her name.” The relationship between the military and Notre Dame goes far beyond football rivalries with Army, Navy and Air Force. “Ever since 1858 when the student-organized Continental Cadets began marching across campus in their blue and buff American Revolutionary-style uniforms, Notre Dame has been teaching students how to be good soldiers,” wrote John Monczunski in the Spring 2001 Notre Dame Magazine. Navy Saves Notre Dame From Sinking While World War II raged in Europe during the early 1940s, Notre Dame was in need of better cash flow as a private school. Thus, school president Rev. Hugh O’Donnell C.S.C. offered the school’s facilities to the armed forces as a training ground. The Army did not respond to O’Donnell’s invitation — but the Navy did. In September 1941, it established the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) where approximately 150 Notre Dame students per year enrolled. In early 1942, Notre Dame turned over four of its resident halls on the South Quad to the Navy for its V-7 program, which also was known as the Midshipmen’s School. During that transformation, the Navy constructed a drill hall and a headquarters/classroom building on the north side of the campus — where today’s Hesburgh Memorial Library is located. With the United States fully engaged in World War II by 1943, the Navy needed more men to serve and it again teamed with Notre Dame to form the V-12 program. An estimated 12,000 officers completed their training at Notre Dame between 1942 and 1946. “We were out of business during World War II,” noted 1952-87 Notre Dame president Rev. Theodore Hesburgh C.S.C., in a 1992 interview with the South Bend Tribune. “Navy came in and kept us afloat until the war was over.” Hesburgh, whose original aspiration was to be a chaplain for the Navy when he took his vows in 1943, promised that under his watch the football series between the two schools would be kept as long as Navy wanted it continued. The 1943 Irish national title football team included 14 Navy apprentice seamen, most notably sophomore quarterback John Lujack, who would win the 1947 Heisman Trophy, 12 transfers who were part of the Marine branch of the V-12, and 17 Marine privates — among them future College Football Hall of Fame inductees Ziggy Czarobski at right tackle, All-American right end John Yonakor, starting left guard Pat Filley and1943 Heisman Trophy winner Angelo Bertelli at quarterback. Memorial Day Weekend: God, Country, Notre Dame Lou Somogyi • BlueAndGold.com All Gave Some…Some Gave All Several members of the Irish 1940s dynasty won Purple Hearts: George Dickson (1949), who fought in Normandy on D-Day, Bob McBride (1941-42, 1946), a top assistant for head coach Frank Leahy after the war, Gus Cifelli(1946-49), and Luke Higgins (1942). Awarded the Bronze Star for his reconnaissance work while swimming through underwater mines in the Pacific Ocean was future College Football Hall of Fame inductee “Jungle Jim” Martin, who never lost a game while he starred at Notre Dame from 1946-49. Joining the military overseas in 1944-45 were head coach Leahy and top assistant Ed “Moose” Krause. It was Krause who recommended the move not just for service but credibility. The future 1949-81 Notre Dame athletics director noted to Leahy how once the war finished, the troops that returned to college on the GI bill would be hardened veterans of true war, not merely one on the gridiron. Respect for their coach(es) would be enhanced with the knowledge that they too were overseas. Tragically, former Irish players who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II included Jack Chevigny (1926-28), George Murphy (1940-42), Hercules Bereolos (1939-41), Harold Borer (1938), Frank Cusick (1942), Tom Creevy (1942) and Jack McGinnis (1942).