[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 121 (Friday, September 5, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1721-E1722]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TRIBUTE TO UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PROFESSOR EMERITUS G. BAILEY PRICE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 5, 2003

  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Professor 
Emeritus G. Bailey Price of the University of Kansas.
  The recent dedication of the Robert J. Dole Center for Public Policy 
at the University of Kansas has renewed attention upon the millions of 
Americans who made possible this nation's victory during World War II. 
One of many Americans who were essential to that war effort, G. Bailey 
Price, is now 98 years old, residing in Lawrence, Kansas.
  Professor Price, a mathematics scholar and instructor at the 
University of Kansas, was called upon in 1943 to serve our nation as a 
civilian attached to the U.S. Army's Eighth Air Force Operational 
Research Section in High Wycombe, England. Professor Price served with 
them until 1945. It was through the work of statisticians like 
Professor Price that the Army Air Force was able to apply scientific 
algorithms to help bomber pilots improve their accuracy and to help 
impede the assault over England by German V-1 and V-2 bombers. The work 
of this group was documented in the report, ``Air Force Operations 
Analysis Section''; Professor Price authored the section of the report 
entitled, ``Gremlin Hunting in the Eighth Air Force European Theater of 
Operations, 1943-45''.
  After World War II, Professor Price remained with the University of 
Kansas, helping to build one of the most outstanding mathematics 
departments of any American university. He was named ``Mathematician of 
the Year'' by the National Academy of Sciences on more than one 
occasion. I welcome this opportunity to pay tribute to a valuable and 
important American; we share the pride of all Kansans in his 
outstanding achievements and

[[Page E1722]]

include in the Record a recent article from the Lawrence Journal-World 
detailing his essential contributions to our war effort.

           [From the Lawrence Journal-World, Sept. 33, 2002]

    World War II Took Mathematician From Chalkboard to Drawing Board

                            (By Dave Ranney)

       World War II was--among other things--a math problem.
       And Lawrence resident G. Baley Rice helped solve it.
       Today, Price is leaving for England to help dedicate a 
     museum that pays tribute to U.S. airpower in World War II and 
     to the men and women who made it effective.
       A Harvard-educated mathematician, Price had been teaching 
     at Kansas University about five years when he got the call in 
     1943 from then-Chancellor Deane Malott.
       ``The war was on, but I had a deferment--I was teaching men 
     in uniform,'' Price recalled.
       But Malott told Price the U.S. Army Air Corps was putting 
     together special problem-solving units of mathematicians, 
     physicists, engineers and architects. Price, then 38, was a 
     prime candidate.
       ``They wanted me to go to the South Pacific,'' he said. 
     ``And then as soon as everything was formalized and I'd said 
     I'd go, they said, `Fine, we're sending you to England.' ''
       Price spent the next two years--from 1943 to 1945--in 
     England, helping bomber pilots improve their accuracy. Or, as 
     he explained: ``It didn't do much good to drop a bomb on a 
     cabbage field.''


                             sole survivor?

       Now, Price is 97 years old. He's fairly certain he's the 
     sole surviving member of the U.S. Army Eighth Air Force 
     Operational Research Section.
       It's both a distinction and an obligation, he said.
       ``I feel I should do what I can do to honor those who lost 
     their lives,'' Price said.
       He's leaving today for Washington, D.C., where he'll join 
     his son, Griffith B. Price, and grandson, Andrew Price, on a 
     flight to England. There, he'll attend dedication ceremonies 
     at the American Air Museum near Cambridge.
       Former President George Bush is scheduled to address the 
     gathering. More than 4,000 U.S. veterans and family members 
     are expected to attend.
       ``Last week, this nation was up in arms--rightfully so--
     over the events of Sept. 11 in which almost 3,000 people were 
     killed. It was a great tragedy, and I will take nothing away 
     from that,'' Price said recently. ``But 30,000 members of the 
     Eighth Air Force lost their lives during the war. That, too, 
     was a tragedy.''
       Price said he's not worried about today's flight.
       ``At my age, I feel like I have to go.''
       The 70,000-square-foot museum features an extensive 
     collection of World War II aircraft including a B-52 
     Stratofortress, B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Superfortress and 
     a P-51 Mustang.


                            his contribution

       Price prefers not to dwell on his contribution to the war 
     effort.
       For starters, he filed a report with the Air Force back in 
     1943. And it doesn't seem right to call attention to a 
     civilian mathematician's tasks while others lost their lives.
       But when pressed, price said he helped figure out plane 
     formations and drop procedures that improved bombing 
     accuracy.
       ``We found that smaller, tighter (formations) and dropping 
     (bombs) simultaneously improved accuracy,'' he said.
       Ted Wilson, a KU history professor who has studied World 
     War II, said Price under-estimated the section's 
     contribution.
       ``They played a very important role,'' he said, noting that 
     efforts to improve bombing accuracy played a key role in the 
     military's efforts to cripple the German economy by bombing 
     key factories.
       After the war, Price returned to KU, where he later served 
     as chairman of the mathematics department for 19 years. He 
     retired in 1975.
       Price and his wife, Cora Lee Beers Price, a longtime 
     assistant professor of classic literature at KU, have six 
     children. She is 93.
       Earlier this year, the Prices donated a collection of their 
     papers, books and photographs to the Kenneth Spencer Research 
     Library at KU.

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