Tribute for Queens College War Dead

Queens College is calling on the community to help identify 59 Queens College students who died in WWII. Class of '43 graduate Arnold Franco, now age 83, has funded a new WWII Veterans Memorial Plaza honoring these 59 heroes, with a donation of $100,000.
Franco will join other dignitaries when the new memorial is dedicated on November 10 in a ceremony which will also be attended by the French consul and Queens College graduate and award-winning poet Samuel Menashe, a Battle of the Bulge survivor. 
&#8220We want to reach out to the relatives of these deceased veterans, as well as our graduates from the classes of 1941-45, and their loved ones, to invite them to join us at this historic event,” a spokesperson for the college said. The college is especially hoping that younger relatives of the fallen will participate in the ceremony.
Queens College was founded in 1937, and the first class graduated the same year that America entered the war. &#8220Here you have this brand new college whose first five classes are sacrificed to the war,” Franco said.
Nine hundred and forty-two students out of a class of 1,600 enlisted or were called to duty. This figure represents 60 percent of the student body. &#8220Many of these students were killed or wounded; the toll was enormous,” Franco said. 
Franco, who served with the 3rd Radio Mobile Squadron, an elite group of code breakers, was honored in 2005 by the French government with its highest award, the Legion of Honor.
Ongoing research to identify these 59 students has been conducted by current Queens College students and involved researching old college newspapers and yearbooks, community newspapers, and National Personnel Records Center documents.