JAYHAWK REBOUNDS

 

June, 1943

No. 2

To all of you Rebounding Jayhawkers I want to pass on the very proud
yet sad note from the family of Wayne Nees: “The family of Lt. Charles
Wayne Nees acknowledges with deep appreciation your kind expression of

sympathy."

On June 5th we received the depressing news of the passing of one of
our splendid athletes and immortal soldiers. His father wrote me as
follows:

"I am writing to tell you of a wire just received yesterday from the War
Department advising us that my son, Charles Wayne Nees, was killed in
action in the North American area on May 18th last.

"We have no further details, bur presum that his death occured in the
Attu drive in the Aleutians. He was graduated from the Infantry School
as a 2nd lieutenant in November 1942 and had been at Fort Ord, California,
until about the first of April.

"Since Wayne, or 'Gus' as he was known on your campus, held such dear
memories os his associations in basketball and track when he was at
Lawrence from 1955-'40, I would like for you to see that the University

is properly notified for their records. I am today writing his fraternity,
Sigma Phi Epsilon, and would appreciate your checking with them to be

sure that they get the letter, as I do not know whether they are still

in their chapter house, due to present day disruptions on college campuses.”

It is difficult, of course, for all of us to realize that Wayne is
gone. The Aleutian tudlnaids represent to us a spot that is difficuit to
visualize, even through we have read so much about the place. Wayne Nees
if the first of our Jayhawker Rebound boys who will not return. Like
Flankers Field, Attu now becomes a part of America's consecrated ground --
consecrated with the blood of one of our Jayhawk Rebounders. In future —
days it is thinkable that we will traverse Attu and other battle groumae
to pay homage to American boys who are not afraid to die.

Out of this war will come another great memorial enshrining the
names of these men and women who made the supreme sacrifice for their
country and the University. You will remember in the Memorial Union
Building there is a bronze plaque honoring the 129 men and women who
game their lives in the first World War. The Memorial Stadium and the
Memorial Union Building are edifices built as @ great war memorial for
World War One.

My yppermost desire is to endeavor to keep you informed of the
glorious achievements and whereabouts of you boys in the service, and I
will be here at this station awaiting anxiously for your return. Some of

you I know will not come back. It is this uncertainty of life that makes
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