The U.S. Navy was on the brink.
Following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. found themselves pitted against a Japanese force intent on controlling the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese envisioned knocking the U.S. out entirely at the Battle of Midway, and it was up the Navy’s wave of dive bombers to stop them in June of 1942.
Among those bombers was one of Franklin’s native sons: Norman Vandivier.
After successfully bombing the Japanese, Vandivier’s plane ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean, killing him. For his bravery and service, Vandivier was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the country’s second-highest military decoration.
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More than 75 years after his death, Franklin College will take the opportunity to honor him as one of the school’s most decorated alumnus. Thanks to the research done by a pair of history students, as well as the initial push by a Franklin College alumni, the school will dedicate a bench in Vandivier’s name on Tuesday.
Being able to bring such a dynamic and important figure in U.S. history into the light has been incredibly rewarding.
"My interest in World War II made me do it even more. My grandfather fought in the war, and I felt like this guy needed to be recognized for all of his accolades," said Noah Dahlquist, a senior at Franklin College and one of the students who researched him. "He was just a really well-respected individual, who touched a lot of people in this community in his short life."
Vandivier was Franklin through and through. Though he was born in Mississippi, he and his family moved to Franklin when he was a child. He attended Franklin High School before enrolling in Franklin College.
While on campus, he was active in a little bit of everything. He played football and baseball, held class offices, was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and was an excellent student. After graduating in 1938, he went to work for the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
But Vandivier had only been at his job for a few months before he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Over nearly two years, he trained to be a dive bomber, and was assigned to a bombing squadron on the USS Enterprise. Once war was declared on Japan, he took part in the Battle of the Marshall Islands in early 1942, and provided air support for the Doolittle Raiders as they bombed Japan in April 1942.
During the Battle of Midway on June 4, Vandivier and his squadron attacked the Japanese flagship carrier, Akagi. They successfully completed their mission, even as Vandivier’s plane was dangerously low on fuel. He was returning from the run and radioed that he was out of fuel. His plane crashed into the ocean, killing both he and his gunner.
Vandivier was awarded the Navy Cross, and in 1943, the Navy commissioned a destroyer named after him, the USS Vandivier. The ship would serve as a radar picket ship for the Atlantic Fleet in the 1950s.
But on Franklin College’s campus, nothing identified the sacrifice that he had made. That irked Lou Osterman.
A 1958 graduate of the school, Osterman had been a social studies teacher in Greenwood. He had come across Vandivier’s name in a history journal. The more he researched and learned about the man, the more he felt compelled to see him memorialized somewhere on campus.
All of the school’s athletic stars are recognized; someone of Vandivier’s status and service to his country deserved to be as well, Osterman told school officials.
He contacted Tom Armor, senior director of development and planned giving at Franklin College. He shared the information that he had found on Vandivier, and pushed for some recognition.
Armor agreed, and he took the assignment to Meredith Clark-Wiltz, a professor of history at the college. Clark-Wiltz and others in the history department emphasized research and independent study projects with students. They have partnered in the past with the Johnson County Museum of History, the Indiana Historical Society and the college’s own archives to put together beneficial work.
"We really try to embed public-facing, community projects done by students, so that our students’ work doesn’t just land on my desk, but they actually have something tangible that helps the college, helps the community," she said.
Clark-Wiltz had two students she thought would be ideal for the project. Noah Dahlquist, a senior history major, had done work previously on the college’s Roger D. Branigin archives. He has been accepted into the public history program at IUPUI. Kaylee Seabolt is a sophomore, but she also had experience with history projects, doing first-person interpretation and looking at history a different way.
Though the two didn’t know each other well, Clark-Wiltz thought their skills complimented each other for this project, she said.
"It’s really fun to be in an institution where we have this kind of support for undergraduate research," she said. "It’s nice being able to feel good asking students to do this kind of heavy lifting work."
For the students, the opportunity piqued their intellectual curiosity.
"As a sophomore, I didn’t expect something this amazing to be offered to me," Seabolt said. "Being someone who has been a part of the history field her entire life, it was something that stood out as someone who would like to work in a museum in the future. Getting this kind of experience was massively beneficial."
The research project took Dahlquist and Seabolt from the Hamilton Library on campus, where they found newspaper clippings on Vandivier and yearbooks, to the Johnson County Museum of History. They gathered public records, such as updates that had been published weekly in the Franklin Evening Star during his service.
The treasure trove of information came from the Indiana Historical Society, where the students were able to read letters from Vandivier and his family. They could hold his dog tags, his pilots’ wings, as well as the Navy Cross and Purple Heart that Vandivier was awarded for his bravery.
"You always hear stories about heroes like this. To actually hold papers he wrote on, and see his emotions that he was going through, it was very moving to feel the history and see the history," Seabolt said.
With their research done, now it’s time for Seabolt and Dahlquist to present what they’ve found to the community.
The bench and plaque honoring Vandivier will be installed at Grizzly Park, on a special concrete pad recognizing the military.
"It’s a perfect place. There is a concrete ellipse where there’s an American flag, and inside that pad are insets of the branches of the military," Armor said. "It’s better than any other place we can do it."
During a special meeting of the Rotary Club on Tuesday, Dahlquist and Seabolt will give a presentation on their research. An honor guard will give a 21-gun salute and play "Taps." The hope is to have the bench on site that day as well, Armor said.
To help facilitate further research in the future, they provided a link in Franklin College’s collection connecting to the file held by the Indiana Historical Society, so people would know where to look for Vandivier’s letters and other items.
Dahlquist and Seabolt may also be visiting other organizations to give their presentation.
"This is why I’ve always wanted to work in history. (Vandivier) is not around anymore, but these things are as close as we can get to him. This project allowed me to do this more. It was a great experience," Dahlquist said.
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Norman F. Vandivier
Born: March 10, 2016 in Edwards, Mississippi
Home: Franklin
Education: Graduated from Franklin High School, and from Franklin College in 1938
Military service: U.S. Navy, part of Bombing Squadron 6 on the USS Enterprise
Honor: On June 4, 1942, Norman Francis Vandivier died in a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean. He had just taken part in the Battle of Midway and attacked the Japanese carrier Akagi. His plane ran out of fuel on the return trip.
For his action, Vandivier was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. In 1943, a destroyer was named after him.
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