14,

Your friends - Henry Shenk, Elmer Schaake, Reg Strait and Ray Kanehl -

all extend their best wishes and greetings of the Yuletide season.
Last Saturday morning, prior to the Kansas-Oklahoma game, Cpl. Harold

E. Van Slyck, USMCR, of Topeka, Kansas, walked into my office and told me the

story of how Lt. T. P. Hunter died on Guam, The Marines affectionately called

him "Teep", but he was always "T.P.” to everybody on Mt. Oread. Cpl. Van Slyck

stated that on July 21, the first day of the landing on Guan, they landed .around

10 ofelock in the morning. "It was a rough landing.’ It took most of the day to

secure our positions. Everything was quiet, and we had started.to dig in for

the night, Our company was not tied in with anyone, and we were right on the

coast, T. Pe's platoon went up around the hill to.protect company headquarters,

T. Pe put his men out, and had ealled the sergeants of his squads to come in

for the ‘scoop (instructions) « sist ote- anh

"Tt, Pp, was kneeling down in a shallow hole with one of his enlisted
men, waiting for the other men torcomerin. T. Pets platoon was on the slope of
the hill, and over on the other side was a cave partly concealed by bushes in
front of it. A Jap raised up out.of this cave and turned a machine gun on, T.P.
T, P. and the man with him were killed instantly. We carried them down. and
buried them that night beside the road, as we had to move on the next morning.
Later the bodies were moved and buried properly. » a ?

"The loss of T. Ps made the Marines fighting mad, They were out to
bag their quota of Japs. That night. when the Japs came out of the cave we were
waiting for them. They came out and started to walk past - so elose they could
have touched the muzzles of our guns, had they known, Our boys with, the. machine
guns waited until the Japs got right up close, then really mowed them down, We
killed 50 Japs without’ the loss of another single man in our outfit."

I am sure all of you will be interested in a letter I reecived from
Lt. James R. Surface, USMCR, now at Oceanside, California, a K.U. graduate in
142. He says, "I have-just returned from about 18 mos. in Hawaii, and I have
been. assigned to a school heré. Two of my instruetors were with T, P.. through-
out his career in tho Mf.C. = and left him just before. the. Guam campaign where

he was killed. «. . They told of T. P.'s popularity with his men and officers.
Of course, T. Ps didn't always do things in’ the prescribed military manner - but
he always got them done - and well. done. . They chuckled about the way T. P.
would mother and worry over the boys in his platoon - according to then, "Tepe
was like an old mother hen with a brood." ind naturally his boys loved him for
it. They told. of sevoral instances when.a man who was causing trouble in en-
other outfit would be transferred to T. P.'s, and T. Ps would make a good man
out of him. .- bt ey. +f Suv ee ey Shige f

"As you probably know, T. P, was recreation officer for his battalion,
and Fairfield told how on Guadaleanal, when everyone else was taking a siesta,
T.-P. would get his boys out for a fast game of basketball - and ploy himself,
too. You remember how religious he was - they told of one night in their hut
in N. Zealand - a gunner was saying some things about religion that T. P. didn't
like = he tolerated it just. so long --then calmly rose - socked the gunner right
on the jaw and broke it. in three places. This might sound a bit out of line,
but these two assured:-mc that the gunner really had it coming. . » » It is a
tragedy that T. P. Hunter won't come back, but it is up to the rest of us to
make ourselves deserve sacrifices such as his."