2 0 1 7 F L O R I D A S E N I O R G A M E S C O M M E M O R A T I V E P R O G R A M
Bowler is a World War II history lesson
This article appeared in the November/
December, 2017 edition of the Florida
Department of Elder Affairs Elder Update
There are some who cringe at the
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loud noises of a bowling alley.
Balls weighing 10 pounds and
more hit the lane with a thud as they
roll toward the pins, only to knock
them down and make more noise.
Multiply that by 30 or more lanes and
it’s pretty loud.
That’s nothing to Florida Senior
Games Bowler and World War II veteran
Jack Appel, of Boca Raton. He’s heard
much louder noises.
He has heard the sounds of war.
These days, when the 94-year-old
Appel hears loud noises, it’s usually
followed by a trip to the medal stand
for a Florida Senior Games or National
Senior Games bowling gold medal.
In June 1944, a 20-year old Appel was
a member of the Signal Corps attached
to the U.S. First Army who landed on
the beaches of Normandy. Over the next
year, he heard the worst sounds of the
European front of World War II.
Through July 1945, when he
was deployed stateside, he set up
communications in Normandy for Army
forces and made his way to Central
France and into Belgium, where he was
involved in the Battle of the Bulge.
He and the Signal Corps advanced
into Germany, where he among the first
to arrive and liberate the Buchenwald
concentration camp, one of the largest
on German soil.
“They called us liberators even
though all the Germans had fled by then
and there was no one left for us to fight
against,” he said in a recent interview
with a Hungarian journalist during a
visit to Europe. ”We were eyewitnesses
who can testify that the Holocaust did
really happen. Photographs of the time
have captured a lot of the horrors, but I
will never forget that smell.”
He was part of the Army of
Occupation after the German surrender
before returning to the U.S. for a 30-day
furlough.
He was prepared to go to Japan
to be part of the invasion that was
sure to involve a large loss of life like
in Normandy. During his furlough,
atomic bombs were dropped and Japan
surrendered on the day he was to return.
For his efforts during the 2 years, 11
months and 10 days Appel served the
United States, he received five battle
stars and was honored in 2008 as a
Knight of the French Legion of Honor,
the highest honor of the French military.
Before and after Appel’s military
service, there has been bowling. He’s
been bowling competitively since the
age of 14 and has been around bowling
alleys even before then.
“I’ve been bowling for 80 years,”
said Appel, who was born and raised in
Brooklyn, N.Y. “My father had a bowling
alley in Queens.”
Born in 1923, Appel’s bowling
experience goes back to days of having
to clear out the pins after the ball came
careening down the lane.
“This was during the depression when
I started bowling and AMF didn’t invent
the automatic pin setter until the 1950s,”
he said.
These days, it’s much easier for him.
He just knocks down the pins and
he does it well. By himself in singles
competition and with his men’s doubles
partner, Stanley Corwin, of Boynton
Beach.
At the 2016 Florida Senior Games,
Appel rolled a record-setting three game
men’s singles score of 521 in the 90-94
age group to qualify for the 2017 National
Senior Games. He and Corwin set a 90-
94 age group Men’s Doubles record with
a combined three game score of 1003.
The duo also set the 85-89 age group
record in 2011.
Six months later and six months more
past the age of 90, at the National Senior
Games in Birmingham, Ala., Appel
was a men’s singles gold medal with a
three game score of 525. He and Corwin
combined for a three game score of 1052.
He improves with age.
Also improving with his age is the
appreciation for the decreasing number
of World War II veterans. Like Appel,
these veterans exist in the Florida Senior
Games and are competing in the 85-89
and 90-94 age group. But in talking with
Jack Appel and seeing his three-game
bowling scores of over 500, it’s safe to say
age has not slowed this American hero.
He’s quick to produce a cell-phone
photo of himself with Tom Hanks, taken
when the actor received an “American
Spirit Award,” in 2015. Appel was a guest
of the World War II Museum in New
Orleans.
“We had breakfast together the
morning after the awards ceremony,”
says the real life soldier proudly about
his meeting with the actor playing a
World War II solder in Saving Private
Ryan.
His journeys to Europe and the World
War II battlefields have been chronicled
in Forbes Magazine and Appel’s life
story is documented in a two-hour video
interview by the World War II Museum,
which can be found online.
He moved to Florida in 1972 and has
lived in various Palm Beach County
locations since. He retired after
“working 50 years on Wall Street. “I
made small fortunes for people who
started with large ones,” he says with a
grin.
Jack Appel is still building fortunes
in the form of sharing his stories of
American history while staying active in
the Florida Senior Games while enjoying
the loud noises found in bowling alleys
throughout the state.
B O W L I N G
Courtesy photo
Tom Hanks and Jack Appel at
a World War II Museum event
in New Orleans.