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

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

veteran,

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

ist and

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

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 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, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, 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. H ...

, Ft. Benning, 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 (warfare), theater of Operations responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the European theatre of World War II, from 1942 to 1945. It command ...

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 or Unternehmen Die Wacht am Rhein, Wacht am Rhein, was the last major German Offensive (military), offensive Military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western ...

, December 16–19, 1944, he was wounded and captured. Captured at the same time as Prell was Richard Bordeaux Parker, who commanded the first platoon of the Anti-Tank Company. Donald Prell 1946

On March 27, 1945, he was briefly freed by Task Force Baum, a clandestine U.S. Army mission to liberate Oflag XIII-B authorized by General George S. Patton, then commanding the Third Army. 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 D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

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 (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

, and found his way to freedom. 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, 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. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality psychology, personality, although he worked on other issues in psychology. At t ...

's Program Research Team at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

from 1948-1951. It was here that he learned to use Hollerith 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, Epsom, Surrey. During the 1950s, Prell worked with

Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

futurist

Herman Kahn Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence ...

, who later founded the

Hudson Institute Hudson Institute is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation. Kahn ...

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 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 UCLA College of Letters and Science (or simply UCLA College) is the arts and sciences college of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It encompasses the Life and Physical Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences, Honors Program and ...

Dean's Council. Prell also served as a longtime member of the Chancellor's Associates during the tenure of Chancellor Charles E. Young, along with such friends and colleagues as

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

and J.D. Morgan. 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, a novelist and friend of

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered 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 durin ...

and

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

, and

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. He served as Prime Minister of France three times: 1931–1932 and 1935–1936 during the Third Republic (France), Third Republic, and 1942–1944 during Vich ...

, 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 (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, and he befriended René de Chambrun, 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, 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 university, private institutions of higher education located in Claremont, California, United States. They comprise five undergraduate colleges (the 5Cs)� ...

, 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

, Riverside, California.

Personal life

In 1960, Prell married Elizabeth (Bette) Howe, a British novelist and magazine editor. They had two children. He and his wife lived in Palm Springs, California from 1996. Prell appeared in a 2010 documentary about the life of Nico Minardos, a Greek-American actor, titled ''Finding Nico''. Prell had been a longtime friend of Minardos.

Death

Donald Prell died on July 28, 2020, at the age of 96, and was interred at the Los Angeles National Cemetery 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 ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

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 the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. 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) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

'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 United States Army Infantry Branch personnel Military personnel from Los Angeles United States Army officers University of California, Los Angeles alumni World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Writers from Los Angeles