KU faculty resources available with World War II experience, expertise

LAWRENCE -- From a three-time prisoner of war escapee to a concentration camp survivor to an aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, University of Kansas faculty who served in World War II have a wide range of extraordinary stories to tell.

During the dedication of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics July 19 through 22 at KU, faculty and staff with World War II experiences will speak in sessions at the Memory Tent, which will be set up just outside the institute, and at the "KU Goes To War" program at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 20, at the Lied Center. Memory Tent speakers begin at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 19, and continue through 7 p.m. Monday, July 21.

The three-day dedication event has been planned to serve as the "ultimate WWII reunion" and tribute to WWII veterans as well as one of their greatest heroes and advocates, former Sen. Bob Dole, who will celebrate his 80th birthday July 22. Honoring the men and women of the "Greatest Generation" is in keeping with the Dole Institute's mission to encourage public service and civilized debate, said Richard Norton Smith, institute director.

Many KU faculty members have experiences from World War II, and several have research expertise focused on WWII. Those available for media contacts are listed here along with faculty who have special research interests in WWII.

WWII EXPERIENCES

PEARL HARBOR
Vincent U. Muirhead, professor emeritus of aerospace engineering, (785) 843-3954, vmuirhead@aol.com
On Dec. 7, 1941, Muirhead, born in Dresden in Decatur County, Kan., was an ensign planning to spend a leisurely Sunday morning on board his ship, the U.S.S. Maryland in Pearl Harbor. As he and his shipmates were getting up for breakfast, they were jolted by loud noises. He looked out the porthole and "saw aircraft with red meat balls [Japan's Rising Sun symbol on Japanese aircraft] ¹ at about 100 feet altitude. They had just torpedoed the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which was tied up to our port side and had protected [the Maryland]." Muirhead, a February 1941 U.S. Naval Academy graduate with an interest in designing aircraft, became a Navy pilot. Pearl Harbor was on his mind when he flew his last mission, leading a dawn patrol of 16 Hellcats over Tokyo on Aug. 15, 1945. He retired from the Navy in June 1961 and in September 1961 began a second career -- teaching at KU. Muirhead says he is now in his third career, retirement.

JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC THEATRE
Grant K. Goodman, retired professor of history, (785) 842-1066, plim@ku.edu
Goodman served as a translator on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff when the Japanese surrendered. He was attached to MacArthur's headquarters from Oct. 1, 1945, through Oct. 1, 1946. He is the author and editor of several books on Asia, including "Japanese Cultural Policies in Southeast Asia During World War II." In 1992, Goodman found a copy of a document he had translated during World War II, "Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces." The report clearly implicated the Japanese government in the Japanese military's use of Asian women as prostitutes or "comfort women."

CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVAL
Louis L. Frydman, retired associate professor of social welfare, (785) 864-4720, lfrydman@ku.edu
Frydman was apprehended during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and spent two years in a succession of six concentration camps. He was liberated in Allach, a subcamp of Dachau. He has studied the Holocaust for many years, and his academic research includes the area of mental health, specifically psychiatric hospitalization. In the mid-1970s, he spent two years in Poland researching its psychiatric hospitalization laws and practices. He will speak at 6:45 p.m. Saturday, July 19, in the Memory Tent.

POW -- POLISH UNDERGROUND (ZAGAN, GERMANY)
Jaroslaw A. Piekalkiewicz (pee-eh-kuhl-KAY-uh-vich), retired professor of political science, (785) 864-9039 or jpiek@ku.edu
Piekalkiewicz served in the Polish underground army from 1941 to 1944, participated in the Warsaw uprising in 1944 and was a prisoner of war in Zagan, Germany, in 1944. The camp was evacuated, and the prisoners marched all the way to the Rhine River in West Germany. He escaped twice but was recaptured. A third escape was successful. He was liberated by the Americans on April 1, 1945. He served in the Polish army in Italy under British command from 1945 to 1947. He came to the United States in 1959, and in 1994, he attended the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising in Poland. He will speak at 4 p.m. Monday, July 21, in the Memory Tent.

POW -- AMERICAN (STALAG LUFT III, ZAGAN, GERMANY)
Richard L. Schiefelbusch, retired distinguished professor and director of the KU Institute for Life Span Studies, (785) 864-4295, rschief@ku.edu
Schiefelbusch was a U.S. Air Force navigator during WW II. After his plane was shot down over the Baltic Sea in May 1943, he was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III, at Zagan, Germany. Two Hollywood movies were based on an escape of fewer than 100 men from the camp. Schiefelbusch was among 500 men working on the escape. The experience of watching some POWs mentally deteriorate influenced his decision to study clinical psychology. In 1995, he met with Stalag Luft III survivors in Cincinnati. Schiefelbush says that the 1995 reunion was one of several for Stalag Luft III survivors. In some reunions, they met with a few of their German captors. "I came to this point in life feeling that there were many people who were stressed by the prison camp, including the people who had to manage it. The only evil was the Gestapo," he said, recalling that the Gestapo rounded up 50 prisoners who had tried to escape and shot them in an open field as a warning to all considering escape. He says that the reunions have provided a wonderful process of healing and understanding. He will speak at 4 p.m. Monday, July 21, in the Memory Tent.

POW -- AMERICAN (STALAG LUFT IV, GROSS TYCHOW, GERMANY)
Ogden Lindsley, professor emeritus of educational administration, (785) 887-6869, olindsley@aol.com
Lindsley was a Brown University student when he joined the U.S. Army Air Force in January 1942. Although he had dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, he trained as a flight engineer and was based in Italy when his B-24 went down in the mountains of Albania on July 22, 1944. Lindsley and his surviving crew were captured by Germans and moved through jails in Yugoslavia and Hungary to Stalag Luft IV, just west of Danzig (Gdansk), Poland. He arrived at the POW camp on his 22nd birthday, Aug. 11, 1944. From January to April 1945, he was on a forced march from Danzig to Hamburg. He vividly remembers Valentine's Day as "so icy you had to flex your shoulders to break the ice coating your back." He escaped in April. He was 6 feet 1 inch and weighed 175 pounds when he was captured. He weighed 114 pounds when he escaped. His medals include two Purple Hearts, and he attributes skills learned as an Eagle Scout and his athletic cross-country training with helping him survive the POW camps and the forced marches in winter. Lindsley retired as a professor of special education in 1990. He now jokes that "I rely on every skill I used to survive the POW camps to survive senescence!"

POW -- BAD ORB and HAMMELBURG
Lloyd Martin Jones, director emeritus of business and fiscal affairs, Lawrence campus, (785) 843-3039, lmmjones@ku.edu
Jones was a student from Osage City at KU, living in the original Templin Hall, before he enlisted in October 1942 during his junior year. He was a second lieutenant infantry platoon leader in the 106th Infantry Division. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and imprisoned in two POW camps until spring 1945, when he and other prisoners were forced to march for five weeks. They were liberated May 2, 1945, in the German village of Gars-am-Inn. "No shots were fired. We had always wondered if our guards would shoot us if the Allies arrived." Jones returned to KU in 1946 to complete bachelor's and master's degrees. He joined the faculty of the School of Business in 1947 and retired in 1986.

WWII RESEARCH

MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC HISTORY
Theodore A. "Ted" Wilson, professor of history and of Russian and East European studies, (785) 864-9460
Wilson's newest book, "Building Warriors: Selection and Training of U.S. Ground Combat Troops in World War II," is due out in fall 2004. His recent books include "WW2: Critical Issues," "D-Day, June 1944" and "Victory in Europe 1945: From World War to Cold War." His earlier work includes "The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay 1941," for which he received the Society of American Historians' Parkman Prize; a co-edited volume, "Makers of American Diplomacy"; "The Marshall Plan, 1947-1951"; and a co-written volume, "Three Generations in Twentieth Century America: Family, Community and Nation."

U.S. CHILDREN DURING WWII
William M. "Bill" Tuttle, professor of American studies, (785) 864-9476
Tuttle's books include "'Daddy's Gone to War': The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children," which was selected as Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. Tuttle is researching several projects, including a history of the GI Bill and a history of police brutality as a factor in American race relations in the 20th century.

Lloyd L. Sponholtz, associate professor of history, (785) 864-9443, sponholz@ku.edu
Sponholtz, who teaches modern U.S. history, was 4 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked. On the night of Dec. 7, 1941, his mother began a diary to help her child understand what was happening in her adult world. On Sept. 11, 2002, Sponholtz read portions of the diary in his classes and encouraged his students to compare today's challenges in maintaining a balance between democracy and security with those of 1941. Sponholtz describes the balancing efforts as a tension that runs through the United States in the 20th century. Listen to a KU Radio Newsline featuring Sponholtz by clicking here.

CHILDHOOD AS WAR REFUGEE
Anna Cienciala, retired professor of history and of Russian and East European studies, (785) 864-3569, hanka@ku.edu
Cienciala is completing a book on "Poland in British, American and Soviet Policy in World War II, 1939-1945." Her childhood experiences as a Polish refugee influenced her decision to focus on 20th-century diplomatic and modern East European history. In June 2000, the History Institute of Gdansk University and the City of Gdansk, Poland, honored Cienciala for her published work on Polish history. As a member of the Board of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, she received the Polish Cross of Merit, awarded by the president of Poland.

FRANCE UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION
John F. Sweets, professor of history, (785) 864-9453, jfsweets@ku.edu (available until July 15)
He wrote "The Politics of Resistance in France" and "Choices in Vichy, France: The French Under Nazi Occupation" and has edited four volumes of The Proceedings of the Western Society for French History. He is collaborating with a French colleague, Fran�ois Marcot, on a new study of Vichy. His other current research interests are a case study of the lace makers of Le Puy in the 19th century and an investigation of France and the Holocaust.

GERMAN POLITICS
Ronald A. Francisco, KU associate professor of political science and of Russian and East European studies, (785) 864-9023, ronfran@ku.edu
His books include "The Politics of Regime Transitions"; "United Germany: The Past, Politics and Prospects," written with H.G. Peter Wallach; and "Berlin Between Two Worlds," edited with Richard L. Merritt.

JAPAN: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF WWII
William M. Tsutsui, associate professor of history, (785) 864-9435, btsutsui@ku.edu
Tsutsui is working on a book to be titled "Landscapes in the Dark Valley: an Environmental History of Wartime Japan," which traces the complex ways in which war and mobilization affected the natural world during World War II. His previous books include "Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan" and "Banking Policy in Japan: American Efforts at Reform During the Occupation" as well as numerous articles on Japanese economic and business history. His current projects include studies of the environmental impact of World War II on Japan, marginalized groups in Japanese society and Godzilla as a Japanese cultural icon.

HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN IN WWII
Sherrie Tucker, assistant professor of American studies, (785) 864-2308, sherrietu@aol.com
Tucker wrote "Swing Shift: ÎAll-Girl' Bands of the 1940s," winner of the 2001 Emily Toth Award of the Women's Caucus of the American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association. Tucker's current projects include an oral history of the dance floor at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II.
Her research and teaching interests include popular culture during World War II; theories of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class and nation; cultural studies; oral history; and jazz studies.

COURSES ON WORLD WAR II TOPICS
Carl Strikwerda, professor of history and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, (785) 864-3661, cstrik@ku.edu
Strikwerda teaches courses on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and globalization in history. He serves as a consultant to the World War I Liberty Memorial Museum in Kansas City, Mo. He is researching a book on "The World at the Crossroads: The Great War and the Re-Making of Modern History."