Donald B. Prell (July 7, 1924 – July 28, 2020) was an American

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

veteran,

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

ist and

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

who created ''

Datamation ''Datamation'' is a computer magazine that was published in print form in the United States between 1957 and 1998,

'', the first magazine devoted solely to the computer hardware and software industry.

Early life

Prell was born in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from

Los Angeles High School Los Angeles High School is the oldest Public education#United States, public high school in the Southern California, Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are ...

in the summer of 1942. In his freshman year at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, he enlisted in the US Army. In 1944, aged 19, he graduated from

Officer Candidate School An officer candidate school (OCS) is a military school which trains civilians and Enlisted rank, enlisted personnel in order for them to gain a Commission (document), commission as Commissioned officer, officers in the armed forces of a country. ...

Ft. Benning Fort Benning is a United States Army post near Columbus, Georgia, adjacent to the Alabama–Georgia border. Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees and civilian employee ...

, Georgia, and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry. Serving in the

European Theater of Operations The European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) was a Theater of Operations responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the European theatre of World War II, from 1942 to 1945. It commanded Army Ground For ...

in command of the second platoon of the Anti-Tank Company, 422nd Regiment, 106th Division, during the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...

, December 16–19, 1944, he was wounded and captured. Captured at the same time as Prell was

Richard Bordeaux Parker Richard Bordeaux Parker (July 3, 1923 – January 7, 2011) was an American diplomat, who was as a Foreign Service Officer, and an expert on the Middle East. Parker served as Ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon and Morocco. He was the brother of U.S. ...

, who commanded the first platoon of the Anti-Tank Company. On March 27, 1945, he was briefly freed by

Task Force Baum Task Force Baum, also known as the Hammelberg raid was a secret and controversial World War II task force set up by U.S. Army General George S. Patton and commanded by Capt. Abraham Baum in late March 1945. Baum was given the task of penetrating ...

, a clandestine U.S. Army mission to liberate

Oflag XIII-B Oflag XIII-B was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers ('' Offizierslager''), originally in the Langwasser district of Nuremberg. In 1943 it was moved to a site south of the town of Hammelburg in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, ...

authorized by General

George S. Patton, Jr. George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a General (United States), general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, Mediterranean Theater ...

The raid was a fiasco, with many POW casualties, including Patton's son-in-law, Lt. Colonel John K. Waters, who was seriously wounded. (Patton reported the raid as the only mistake he made during World War II and General

Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

reprimanded him for it.) Prell's freedom lasted only a few days as he was recaptured after attempting to locate friendly forces. A month later, he escaped from a POW camp south of

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, and found his way to freedom. Donald Prell 1946

After the war, he resumed undergraduate studies at UCLA and graduated in 1948. While at UCLA, he was an active member of the

American Veterans Committee Launched in April 2013, the American Veterans Committee (AVC) is a non-profit veterans organization that promotes networking opportunities for US veterans globally. The organization was launched to make it easier for US veterans to connect with v ...

, which was committed to integrating the U.S. military. Prell was involved with successfully ending racial discrimination of patrons at Oakley's Barbershop in Westwood. Prell was a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology with

Hans Eysenck Hans Jürgen Eysenck (; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist who spent his professional career in Great Britain. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, although he worked on other ...

's Program Research Team at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

from 1948-1951. It was here that he learned to use

Hollerith Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in ...

punched card tabulation machines, the forerunner of today's digital computers.

Professional career

Whilst studying for his graduate degree at the University of London (1948–1950) he was employed as a Psychologist at the

West Park Hospital West Park Hospital is a modern NHS adult psychiatric hospital in Darlington, County Durham, England. It is managed by the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. History The hospital was procured under a Private Finance Initiative ...

, Epsom, Surrey. During the 1950s, Prell worked with

Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...

futurist

Herman Kahn Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was a founder of the Hudson Institute and one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theori ...

, who later founded the

Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporat ...

in New York. In this period he was associated with many of the early designers of high-speed computer input-output devices, analog to digital converters, and digital display plotters, including working with

Bernard Benson Bernard S. Benson (28 January 1922 – 15 May 1996) was a British inventor and author. Biography Benson was a fighter pilot during World War II, and later worked on the design of early British missiles. He emigrated to the United States whe ...

of the Benson-Lehner Corporation. In 1957, working with Thomson Publications, he created ''

Datamation ''Datamation'' is a computer magazine that was published in print form in the United States between 1957 and 1998,

'', the first magazine dedicated solely to the emerging computer-data-processing industry. In 1961, he was president, and the major shareholder, of Electro-Radiation, Inc, a Santa Monica, California firm specializing in molecular electronics and electroluminescence. Later, he founded and served as President of two venture capital firms: in 1967, Union Ventures (a subsidiary of the Union Bank N.A.) and, in 1980, Imperial Ventures (a subsidiary of Imperial Bank of California). During his association with Union Bank, whose CEO at the time was the banking innovator, Harry Volk, Prell was responsible for producing the bank's first and only 30-year Strategic Plan.

Involvement with UCLA

In the 1980s, Prell founded, and was the first chairman of, the

UCLA College of Letters and Science The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Dean's Council. Prell also served as a longtime member of the Chancellor's Associates during the tenure of Chancellor

Charles E. Young Charles Edward Young (born December 30, 1931), nicknamed Chuck Young, is an American retired university administrator and professor. A native of California, Young led the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for 29 years as chancellor an ...

, along with such friends and colleagues as

Rafer Johnson Rafer Lewis Johnson (August 18, 1934 – December 2, 2020) was an American decathlete and film actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold in the 1955 Pan American Games. ...

, Larry Irell and

J.D. Morgan J. D. Morgan (March 3, 1919 – December 16, 1980) was an American tennis player, coach and athletic director. He was associated with athletics at UCLA for more than 40 years. He played four years of varsity tennis at UCLA from 1938-1941 and se ...

. He was a trustee of the UCLA Foundation and was also a president of the Order of the Blue Shield, an alumni group dedicated to furthering the interest and welfare of UCLA. The

annually awards three scholarships on the basis of academic merit to UCLA undergraduate students in the name of Donald Prell and his wife, Bette Prell. Prell received the UCLA University Service Award in 1977.

Other interests

Over the course of his career Prell pursued long-standing interests in both

Edward John Trelawny Edward John Trelawny (13 November 179213 August 1881) was a British biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family ...

, a novelist and friend of

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...

and

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

, and

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occu ...

, Prime Minister of France in the 1930s and again during the Vichy era. Both interests arose while living in England in the late 1940s: he discovered Trelawny's relationship to the romantic poets on a holiday to

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, and he befriended

René de Chambrun René Aldebert Pineton de Chambrun (23 August 1906 – 19 May 2002) was a French-American aristocrat, lawyer, businessman and author. He practised law at the Court of Appeals of Paris and the New York State Bar Association. He was the author of s ...

, Laval's son-in-law, in London. In the course of Prell's research, he authored four journal articles and six books and developed extensive collections of material by and about Trelawny and Laval. These research materials have been donated to two Southern California libraries: * Th
Edward John Trelawny Collection
including one of the original notebooks of

Edward Ellerker Williams Edward Ellerker Williams (22 April 1793 – 8 July 1822) was a retired army officer who became a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley in the final months of his life and died with him. Early life Edward Williams was born in India, the son of an East ...

, an associate of Shelley, is in the Special Collections o
The Claremont Colleges Library

Claremont Colleges The Claremont Colleges (known colloquially as the 7Cs) are a consortium of seven private institutions of higher education located in Claremont, California, United States. They comprise five undergraduate colleges (the 5Cs)—Pomona College, Scr ...

, Claremont, California. * The Pierre Laval Collection resides in Special Collections of the UCR Libraries,

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

, Riverside, California.

Personal life

In 1960, Prell married Elizabeth (Bette) Howe, a British novelist and magazine editor. They had two children:

Owen Prell Owen may refer to: Origin: The name Owen is of Irish and Welsh origin. Its meanings range from noble, youthful, and well-born. Gender: Owen is historically the masculine form of the name. Popular feminine variations include Eowyn and Owena. ...

and Erin Semper (née Prell). He and his wife lived in Palm Springs, California from 1996. Prell appeared in a 2010 documentary about the life of

Nico Minardos Nico Minardos (February 15, 1930, Pangrati, Athens – August 27, 2011, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California) was a Greek-American actor. He died in 2011 in Woodland Hills, California at age 81, from natural causes. Work in Hollywood His fir ...

, a Greek-American actor, titled ''

Finding Nico Find, FIND or Finding may refer to: Computing * find (Unix), a command on UNIX platforms * find (Windows), a command on DOS/Windows platforms Books * ''The Find'' (2010), by Kathy Page * ''The Find'' (2014), by William Hope Hodgson Film and t ...

'', which was produced and directed by Owen Prell. Donald Prell had been a longtime friend of Minardos from their bachelor days in Los Angeles in the 1950s and he and his wife, Bette, had named Minardos as a godfather to their children.

Death

Donald Prell died on July 28, 2020, at the age of 96, and was interred at the

Los Angeles National Cemetery The Los Angeles National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery in the Sawtelle unincorporated community of the West Los Angeles neighborhood in Los Angeles County, California. Geography The entrance to the cemetery is located at 950 Sou ...

with full military honors.

Legacy

Prell was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Army's Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame in 2021 for "valorous combat leadership and lifelong service to the nation." In December 2022, the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles disclosed that the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

medal was authorized for Prell in 2019 for his service to the French Republic during

but the award was delayed due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Prell died before the award's presentation could be conducted at an in-person ceremony.

Publications

*''The Inheritance of Neuroticism: An Experimental Study'', Hans. J. Eysenck and Donald B. Prell, The Journal of Mental Health, Volume XCVII, July, 1951, pp. 441–465 *''Economic study of the Seychelles Islands'', D. B. Prell. 1965, *''The Sinking of the Don Juan Revisited'', Donald B. Prell, Keats-Shelley Journal, Volume LVI, 2007, pp. 136–154 *''Discovering

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

's Boat (the Bolivar)'', Donald Prell, The Byron Journal, Volume 35, No.1, 2007, pp. 53–59 *''The Untold Story of the Survival of the Penn Central Company'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 2003
Open Library
*''Trelawny, Fact or Fiction'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 2008, *''Sailing With Byron from Genoa to Cephalonia'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 2009
Open Library
*''Lord Byron --- Coincidence or Destiny'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 2009
Open Library
*''Biography of Captain Daniel Roberts'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 2010
Open Library
*''Karl Nolde, An Artist's Life'', Donald B. Prell, Strand Publishing, 201
Open Library

Military medals and decorations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prell, Donald 1924 births 2020 deaths Alumni of the University of London United States Army personnel of World War II American futurologists American venture capitalists Businesspeople from Los Angeles Futurologists Military personnel from California United States Army officers University of California, Los Angeles alumni World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Writers from Los Angeles