Daily hansan
62nd Year, No.125
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Thursday, April 29, 1965
U.S. Copters Aid Assault Against Northern Forces
SAIGON —(UPI)— Government forces aided by armed U.S. helicopters have killed 231 Communist guerrillas and captured 57 in three major assaults against the Viet Cong, a U.S. military spokesman reported today.
Two of the operations were airborne and amphibious assaults against Communist training centers in the Mekong delta 50 and 80 miles south of Saigon. The third major attack was against Viet Cong positions in Quang Nam province 370 miles northeast of Saigon and west of Da Nang.
IN THE air war, a force of 57 U.S. Air Force, Navy and South Vietnamese planes carried out a successful series of strikes against bridges, highways and communications in North Viet Nam. All planes returned safely and there was little anti-aircraft fire.
In Sydney, the Australian government advanced it was sending a battalion of about 800 combat troops to South Viet Nam to aid the Americans and Vietnamese in the war against the Viet Cong. Australia now has about 100 advisers and transport pilots in South Viet Nam.
Sophomore 'Hooters Named to Owl Society
Twenty-five sophomore men were announced today as initiates for Owl Society, junior men's honorary organization.
Mike Vineyard, Wymore, Neb., junior and president of the group, said, "The men are selected on the basis of scholarship, leadership, service and campus activities."
There was no particular emphasis placed on scholastic success this year but the overall grade point for the group is 2.71
THE NUMBER OF initiates for this year was set when KU enrollment reached 5,000, and will be increased by 5 next fall.
THE OWL SOCIETY initiates, all sophomores, are: Paul Bock, Dodge City; Mike Cann, Russell; Jim Dowell, Haviland; Tom Edgar, Bartlesville, Okla.; Bill Emmot, Independence; Kirk Flury, Prairie Village; Alan Fries, Manhattan; Mike Grady, Leawood; Gary Gregg.
Coldwater; Ted Haggart, Salina;
David Hall, Coffeyville; Rick Harrington, Terre Haute, Ind.; Alan Hitt, Lawrence; Martin Holmer,
Wichita; Dolph Johnson, Wymore,
Nebr; Larry Meeker, Garden City;
Boyd Pearce, Topeka; Jim Perkins,
Prairie Village; Bill Porter, Topeka;
Larry Salmon, Winfield; John Stinson,
Topeka; Dick Warner, Lawrence;
Bruce Warren, Emporia; Dave Waxse, Oswego; Jim Whitaker, Nortonville.
Weather
In the Mekong delta section where the government hoped to clear out this Communist-infested swampland south of the capital one American helicopter pilot was wounded today. The other Americans were killed Wednesday when the offensive opened. Their deaths were reported earlier.
Fair skies and warmer temperatures are forecast for tomorrow by the weather bureau. The high temperature is expected to be near 80. Winds will be southwesterly with velocity five to 15 miles per hour. Tonight's low will be in the upper 40's.
THE LARGEST government offensive began Wednesday in Kien Hoa Province with a combined air-amphibious operation along the Song Co Luong River, one of the mouths of the Mekong, about 50 miles south of Saigon.
In this operation government forces reported 86 Viet Cong killed and 31 captured Wednesday. American helicopters estimated they killed 70 more with supporting machine gun and rocket fire. Preliminary softening up strikes by U.S. Air Force F100 Skyraiders may have killed more.
The Kien Hao battle began when elements of two Vietnamese army battalions—up to 1,600 men—made an amphibious landing near a suspected Viet Cong training center. Then 70 helicopters swooped in under heavy Communist fire to land Vietnamese rangers.
U. S. ARMY Capt. Jack W. Sanford of East Rainelle, W. Va., led the strike into the landing zones with protective fire. Capt. Bryce R. Kramer of Greensburg, Pa., led another wave which knocked out two Viet Cong machine gun emplacements near the landing zone.
The second Mekong delta offensive was further west. A total of 34 Viet Cong was reported killed in this operation while the government suffered 18 killed and 51 wounded. This was the operation in which two American officers were killed. A third was wounded.
SUA Poetry Hour
Negro Poet Observes Life
FAMOUS POET AT KU—Langston Hughes pauses for a moment during his reading and discussion of his own poetry yesterday at the SUA Poetry Hour in the Kansas Union.
Langston Hughes wove episodes of his life, examples of his poetry, and observations of life into his appearance at the SUA Poetry Hour yesterday in the Forum Room of the Kansas Union.
By Mary Dunlap
Before an audience of 300, Hughes tried to show a relationship between poetry and life, especially my poetry, and life."
"I sort of claim to be a Kansan," he said, "for I spent most of my childhood in Lawrence and Topeka." Hughes, who was born in Joplin, Mo., said that the first place that he could remember was Lawrence.
When he was a small boy, he continued, he never thought of becoming a writer; rather, he wanted to be a doctor. Later, he said, a streetcar conductor was what I most wanted to be."
HIS FIRST experience with the problem of segregation came when he was in the first grade, and his mother took him to the nearest school, an all-white school in Topeka.
(Continued on page 10)
"My mother didn't have time to take me to a negro school," he said. He spoke of a group of white students who threw stones at him. Other students came to his aid, and threw stones back at the others.
... Prof. Charles Michener
National Academy Honors Michener
The National Academy of Sciences has elected to membership Charles D. Michener, Watkins Distinguished Professor of Entomology.
"I am naturally pleased with my election," Prof. Michener said. Expressing surprise at the news, he added that he had only a vague hint that he was even being proposed for membership.
"The position of new members is only honorary," Prof. Michener explained, but he said he is optimistic about participating in the Academy's programs in the future.
He also may be the only entomology faculty member among the Academy's zoology and anatomy section of about 60 members.
PROF. MICHENER is believed to be the first Kansas resident in modern times, if not the first ever, to be recognized by the National Academy.
"I am tremendously pleased for Dr. Michener that this high honor has come to him," Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe said. "I am pleased, also, for the University of Kansas and the state; in honoring Dr. Michener, the National Academy of Sciences honors us all. I hope all Kansans share my pride today in Dr. Michener and in the University that brought him to the state."
THE NATIONAL Academy of Sciences, a quasi-official agency of the U.S. government, was founded in 1863 for "the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare." Admission is obtained only through election by the membership, which on July 1, 1863, totaled 673.
Only 35 scientists from all fields can be elected in one year. Another measure of the Academy's exclusiveness is that a recent roster showed only 115 members from all the states between those actually touching the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The 46-year-old Prof. Michener has been a member of the KU faculty since 1948. He was entomology department chairman from 1949-61 and was named the first holder of the Elizabeth M. Watkins distinguished professorship in 1958.
HE ALREADY was recognized as the authority on chigger mites when he came to Kansas and during the Korean conflict Prof. Michener was called upon to train and supply experts in the fight against certain Asiatic diseases that were new to American medicine.
Prof. Michener will go to Italy and England this summer for further research on the behavior and taxonomy of bees.
IN RECENT years Prof. Michener has been one of a KU-based group advancing the use of numerical taxonomy, a revolutionary method of classifying physical characteristics of specimens through the use of mathematical and computer techniques.
Prof. Michener is the author of two books and nearly 200 shorter papers and is the editor of "Evolution," a scientific journal. Active in the International Union for the Study of Social Insects, he has been the American editor of its journal and president of its North American section.
Within a year and a half he has become the second Kansan elected a fellow of the 1,500-member American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the Linnaean Society of London. The other Kansan in the American Academy is Raymond C. Moore, professor emeritus Summerfield Distinguished Professor of Geology.