ARMY SERVICE FORCES

OFFICE OF THE QUARTERMASTER GENERAL
WASHINGTON

 

 

 

 

IN REPLY REFER TO

20 June 1944

Dr. Forrest C, Allen,
University of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kan,

My dear Phog:

I've been intending to drop you a line ever since receiving
the nice letter from you around the first of the year. I don't have
a secretary to whom I can dictate private correspondence, although
there are three or four girls in ny orange? along with a number of
officers, who attend to official businéss. So, ‘itis. 1fftle hard
to write letters. I do want to telt- you whatia swell job I think
you are doing with your regular Jayhawker mimeographed newsletters
about all your youngsters who are scattered to the 16 winds and of
athletic doings on the Hill, Things of this sort serve to weld the
distant, generally homesick hearts of the boys to K.U. and add to
affectionate regard for you. I imagine you begin to get writer's
cramp from the tas of signing all those mailings, don't you? But
it's not mch trouble, after all, and a lot different from a printed
thing.

Many of the lads whose names appear in the letters are strange
to me, but it's interesting to read about them, - and of course, there
are ever so many whom I remember well, especially for the period when
I was fellow-sufferer and enjoyer with you on the Athletic Board.
Seemingly, there has been plenty of work to attend to there at the
University during the past couple of years, but I imagine that it is
different in many ways from the normal, It will be fine when old-
timers of whom you write can get back, only some of them-won't ever.

My work has kept me very busy but I don't think the lot of a
Washington warrior has much to recommend it, necessary tho it is, I
can't complain on the score of vagueness or uncertainty as to the
aim and effects of work assigned me, and most of it is interesting
enough, A large part of the materials and documents issued from our
branch of Fuels and Lubricants Division (which handles petroleum and
coal matters for the entire Army), and stuff coming to us from Command-
ing General, A.S.F., Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc., are "secret" or "top
sefret" and involve plans in all Theaters, There is call on technical
training and experience, - yes, geological, as well as general, — so
that I feel that I am fairly directly doing something. Nevertheless,
I'll be very glad when I can resume research and teaching work along
lines for which I'm most suited and give this full effort.

I send you heartiest personal regards and say again that I
think the work you are doing is not only a splendid contribution to
the morale of an extremely important and widely disseminated sea soning, .
the Jayhawks in Army and Navy - but it is carrying on for K.U, in ways
that no one can do so well as you,

Sincerely, cS Pig 7