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FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1951
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE. KANSAS
Vet Retraces Wartime Path In Europe
A dream that many veterans had while overseas came true for Glenn Kappelman, who received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University in 1948.
He was able to visit the same places in Europe, minus the mortar shells, tanks and machine gun nests, where he had been in World War II.
Kappelman, who lives in Lawrence, returned to Europe to see the trenches and foxholes and to visit persons who had provided hiding places for him during the war.
"It it was really an experience, to see grass growing over trenches where I had spent days, with snow falling to make things uncomfortable." Kappelman commented.
Kappelman was able to satisfy a seven-year-old curiosity during his visit. On a trip from Switzerland to Paris he went into Alsace to visit some old war areas. He found some old trenches where the Germans had pinned them in for a week. They had set up gun positions in a woods and the Americans couldn't move in.
"We never did take that woods, and I'd always been curious to see what kind of defense they had set up," he said. He found the gun positions of the German troops which they had tried to destroy.
During the war and while he attended Dijon university in Dijon, France, as an occupation soldier, Kappelman made many friends. He corresponded with these friends after his discharge.
"These people helped me arrange for the whole trip," he said. "They even arranged for the purchase of a little Renault automobile." Kappelman traveled over 22,000 miles in this car while in Europe. *
In Alsace, he found the home of an old German couple, who had hidden him in their basement during the war. They supplied him with milk and eggs for four days, until he was able to get back to the U.S. lines.
No one was at home when he knocked on the door, but he noticed a couple working in the distant fields. As he walked down the road towards them, the old German recognized him and came running to greet him.
Morale Among Korean GI's Has Reached.A New High
On The Korean Front (U.P.)—Morale among G.I.'s in Korea has reached a new high. You can tell by the way they use their bayonets.
Morale is an elusive commodity. If morale is good, an army is a steamroller. If morale is poor, an army is no better than a jeep without a motor.
The G.L's have recently developed a liking for the bayonet. They have used it with success and now they spend their spare time honing razor edges on their blades.
Morale, which hit rock-bottom in the first week of January, has gone up in recent weeks until now it is at fever pitch. All along the front everyone will tell you—"these guys are hot to go, and there's going to be hell to pay behind the bamboo curtain."
"There's a lot different spirit along the front than we had a few months ago," Capt. John P. Hillean, of Tonawanda, N.Y., said. "The fellows don't take off for the rear at the first crack of a rifle. And they charge when they're ordered to do so. Just a little while ago a command to charge was a waste of gunmower."
Sgt. Alvin R. Adams, a Kentuckian, said a few weeks ago the average G.I. felt he was being tossed to the wolves.
"The letters from the states and
the newspapers made it look like the folks at home considered them poor suckers in an international game of politics." Adams said. "Why in hell should they risk their lives under such circumstances?"
Corp. Jerry Epley of Grand Rapids, Mich., said the old attitude has been replaced with one of confidence.
"If Korea did nothing else," he said, "it awakened us to the danger of Communism and made the average guy in the states realize the Reds intend to enslave America if they can."
M/Sgt. John Slater of Chicago said Korea was worth the sacrifices if the western world is sufficiently shocked into a realization that "more than good intentions are needed to stop the Communists."
But most of the G.L.'s in the fox-holes didn't think one way or the other about politics. They just went ahead sharpening their bayonets.
RFC 'Inefficiency' Cited By Hoover Commission
Washington (U.P.)—The taxpayer who is about to pick up new burdens which would sway the back of a mule would get no comfort from reading again some of the Hoover Commission reports.
Former President Herbert Hoover was chairman of a Republican-Democrat commission set up to take some of the waste out of government. Some of its recommendations have been adopted in whole or in part. Some of them have been ignored because President Truman or congress or both dragged their feet. This delay has cost taxpayers plenty.
For example, the Hoover commission put its finger on the R.F.C. two years ago. Among other things it recommended that the R.F.C. be abolished or reorganized. It said congress should review R.F.C. power to make direct loans, taking into account questions of "economy, efficiency and integrity."
Now comes a report of a senate subcommittee signed by a Republican and four Democrats which said: "The independence and integrity of the R.F.C. have become impaired in recent years."
Integrity can mean "unity" and it also can mean "honesty." If the report failed to charge dishonesty directly, it did at least complain of devious but forceful influences which had a lot to do with the
lefending or the taxpayers money.
These lending operations were not in pennies and dimes. The R.F.C. is a two-billion dollar business this year, and it will be at least a one-billion dollar business in fiscal 1952.
Impairment of the integrity of an outfit handling that kind of money is serious business, especially when the government is running short of funds and is about to tap the customers for a lot more.
"Both he and his wife felt happy and honored to have an American soldier return to see them. To them, America seems like the moon. They never go more than twenty miles from home. I took them for a ride in the car and gave them a few cigarettes. The old man kept telling his cow, 'Look, the American has returned to see us!' It was the same cow that kept us supplied six years ago,' Kappelman said. "The old cow was now pulling a wagon."
ending of the taxpayers' money.
And there are more than money costs. White House and congressional delay in reforming or retiring the R.F.C. has plunged the administration into fierce and bitter controversy. Mr. Truman has chosen to defend the R.F.C. Some Democratic senate investigators are out to embarrass him if they can by making him holier enough.
Kappelman traveled alone most of the time and had no set plans. However, he had several traveling companions who he picked up from time to time, including students from Washburn university in Topeka, a Catholic youth making a pilgrimage, a writer looking for color, and a Boy Scout executive who was out to see the world.
He knuckled under last week to the extent of sending congress a reorganization plan that would abolish the present five-man board and put the R.F.C. under a single administrator—just what some R.F.C. critics have been demanding. But the battle of the R.F.C. isn't over yet by a long shot.
Kappelman made Paris his headquarters and took five separate trips from there. He had to have three recapped on the car which he had purchased for $800. Before returning, he sold the car for $780.
On a trip to Spain he met another student who was traveling alone. Obeying an impulse, they decided to go to North Africa. So they put the car on a freighter and crossed the Mediterranean sea.
Kappelman entered Normandy six days after D-day in June of 1944. On his return visit he was surprised to find French mechanics working on American "ducks"
Show To Have Music, Skits
Entertainment to be used between skits at the Rock Chalk revue to be given Friday, March 9 and Saturday, March 10, have been announced by Bill Champion, producer of the revue.
The Fhi Gamma Delta jazz combo the Delta Delta Delta quartet and Dale Moore, soloist, were selected by the executive board of the revue. These three were chosen from six groups who tried out.
Members of the executive board who judged the entertainment were: Bill Champion, producer; Frank Norris, director; Joseph Wolfe, business manager and Al Thomas, master of ceremony.
"They were actually rebuilding them and running them up and down the beaches, six years after the invasion," he exclaimed.
which had been wrecked during the invasion.
Kappelman said he was particularly impressed with the town of Ludweiller, Germany.
"When we entered the town in 1945, the Germans had evacuated and there wasn't a person in sight. It is an industrial city, but the factories were closed down and it was almost ghost-like. It was dark, cold, and deserted, and about the only sound was from the flapping shutters and the occasional barking of a dog. We put machine guns in the windows of the buildings.
"We could see the Germans doing the same thing on the other side of town. Our engineers blasted out buildings to make better gun positions.
"We dug trenches in the streets and dug holes for our tanks. I often wondered how that town would look in peace time. It was so typical of all the deserted war towns," he said.
On his return trip he visited Ludweiller. Pink stucco homes had been rebuilt, steam was coming from the boilers and smoke from the factories. Children were playing in the streets and one could find very few scars of the war, Kappelman said.
His travels included France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany (all three zones), Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Saarland, Italy, Austria (all zones), Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Tangiers, England, and several smaller countries.
Fossil Discovery Is Told In Paper
The discovery of animal fossils 60 million years old in northwestern New Mexico is reported in a paper released today by the University.
Dr. Robert W. Wilson, associate professor of zoology, is the author of "Preliminary Survey of a Paleocene Faunule from the Angels Peak Area, New Mexico." Dr. Wilson and Russell R. Camp, preparator of the Museum of Natural History, made the find in 1948.
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