William P.G. Chapin
Fighter for peace, Bill Chapin, passed away on Sunday, December 28, 2003. Bill was a WWII veteran and former POW in Stalag 17, and member of VSA and VFP for many years.
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William P.G. Chapin, who combined half a dozen careers in a long and colorful lifetime, died of pneumonia Sunday at the Sonoma Valley Hospital. He had turned 85 earlier this month.
Mr. Chapin was an editor and columnist at The Chronicle for 15 years, but he was also at various times an athlete, a World War II bomber pilot, a prisoner of war, a newspaper reporter, a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, the author of three books and a mentor to a generation of newspaper people.
"He was one of the most remarkable, multitalented journalists I ever met," said William German, retired editor of The Chronicle. "He had very good judgment as an editor. He was an excellent writer and a great teacher of young reporters and writers."
He was also handsome enough to be a model, sportsman enough to earn an athletic scholarship to Dartmouth University, where he excelled in tennis and skiing, and shrewd enough to be a master poker player even into his 80s.
Mr. Chapin was born in Rutland, Vt., graduated from Dartmouth in 1940 and, like many young men of his generation, was soon swept up in World War II. He became a bomber pilot and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster.
He made many runs over German-occupied Europe and in 1944 volunteered for what he thought was an easy bombing run over Yugoslavia. His plane was hit by enemy flak, and he was wounded as he bailed out. He was taken prisoner, and a German doctor amputated his right foot. The Germans took their Allied prisoners along when they evacuated Greece and Yugoslavia, and the retreating columns came under attack by partisans and were bombed by Allied planes. Finally taken to a POW camp in Austria, the prisoners were liberated by Russian troops two days after the war in Europe ended. "I have enough to tell you to fill a book,'' he wrote his wife in May 1945. He wrote that book years later. It was called "Milk Run."
After the war, and other operations that removed much of his right leg, Mr. Chapin was a newspaper reporter and editor in Rutland and Worcester, Mass. He came west to work briefly for the Oakland Tribune before moving on to The Chronicle, where he soon rose to be chief of the copy desk in the late 1950s.
At the time, The Chronicle was one of three newspapers in San Francisco and was engaged in one of the last of the country's newspaper wars. The main target was the Examiner in the days when it was a large and powerful morning paper. The Chronicle aimed at becoming the dominant paper in Northern California, and its chief tool was a sharply edited, well written and somewhat irreverent newspaper. Much depended on the headlines and the style of the paper, and Mr. Chapin was a master at the art of pencil editing.
He could make any story better and sharper, and his headlines always went to the heart of whatever story he was working on. He was responsible for all the copy in the news section and supervised a number of other editors. Mr. Chapin's judgment was impeccable, and better yet, he could work under any kind of deadline. His copy desk crew swore by him. "He helped make The Chronicle a very lively newspaper,'' said Bruce Colvin, who succeeded him as chief of the copy desk. "And he was a delight to work for.''
After a few years of this, Mr. Chapin took a leave to spend a year as copy desk chief of the Pacific Stars and Stripes, published in Tokyo for U.S. military forces. When he returned to The Chronicle, he became a reporter, an assistant city editor and a sports columnist.
He could do anything, it seemed, but take pictures.
He also wrote "Wasted," a wrenching account of his son's drug addiction. The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. After retiring from The Chronicle, he taught journalism at San Francisco State. Some thought it was his true calling. "He was the most effective teacher of editing on a common-sense, practical level I ever saw," said Lynn Ludlow, who was both a newspaper reporter and a teacher himself.
"He was very practical, very funny. He was insightful, and he really liked his students. He was a great teacher," said Laura Merlo, a former student who became an editor. Like Merlo, many of Mr. Chapin's students became lifelong friends.
Mr. Chapin became a full professor, an unusual honor for someone whose practical experience far outweighed his academic credentials. "Milk Run" was published in 1992 after Mr. Chapin's retirement from teaching. He wrote a third book about his newspaper life, but it has not been published.
In retirement, Mr. Chapin wrote frequent letters to the editor and even posed for ads for Creekside Village, a retirement home in Sonoma. To keep in shape, he played tennis; to keep his mind sharp, he played poker. "He always talked about how much he won," Ludlow said. "He never talked about losing."
Mr. Chapin's wife, Eleanor O'Hara Chapin, who had her own career as a community leader in Sausalito when the couple lived there, died in 1992. Mr. Chapin is survived by his son, Mark, of Fairfax, his daughter, Pennell, of Corte Madera, two grandchildren and a great granddaughter.
From San Francisco Chronicle. December 29, 2003