Category: The Green Machine
This is a man, name of George Marshall. Who almost completely rebuilt the US Army from basically a bad joke to the greatest killing machine that the world has ever seen. Led by for the most part, some of the best Generals that the green machine had seen since the Civil War.
All of them having been hand picked by this man with his “little black book”. Folks like Eisenhowser, Patton, Bradley, Truscott, Gavin, Ridgeway, Van Fleet, Roberts and this list could go on for a very long time.
But in the same time, it was the only Army that should see out in the liberated territory . Where the locals would be out in the open to greet the GI’s. Every other army would have the locals hiding and seeing how the troops would behave. Before coming out to greet them or not. Quite a testament to him and his Troops if you ask me.
I also really do believe that the butchers bill for the Army would of been MUCH more higher with a long list of defeats in War II added to it. If he had not been in charge when he was.
Here is some more about this amazing man. Grumpy
Americans love football. In fact, they love the gridiron game so much, they’re even ready to play (and watch) football in a combat zone. On January 1, 1945, American troops based in Italy did just that.
Now, this isn’t the story of some pick-up game played by a group of G.I.s during a brief respite in a rest camp or in some secluded area near the front. This is the story of the Spaghetti Bowl, a full-on, full-contact, football extravaganza with all the ceremony and celebration found with any major bowl game played on New Year’s Day.
The U.S. Army announced it and promoted it. Then, the German Luftwaffe heard about it, and threatened to find the stadium and bomb it. Teams from the US 5th Army and the US 12th Air Force played it. And by the time it was done, more than 25,000 officers and men enjoyed every block-and-tackle minute of it.
Really Away Games
As far back as 1918, football travelled with American troops when they deployed to Europe. As the ranks of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) began to swell during the summer of 1918, football teams started to form at American bases in Western France. By the fall of that year, American football was played in front of sizeable crowds of enthusiastic Doughboys, dismayed French and British allies, and some confused German prisoners.
After the Armistice in November, American units began to move into Germany for duty with the Army of Occupation. By late January 1919, U.S. troops were playing football in divisional grudge matches in several locations in Western Germany. Photos show the teams equipped with proper uniforms, including leather helmets and pads of the era.
In those days, before the birth of National Football League, the jerseys were without numbers — and helmets were optional. Even so, goal posts were erected, fields marked with chalk, and gentlemen officers enlisted as referees. In one game near Coblenz in early 1919, a Signal Corps observation balloon was anchored near the corner of the field and a camera crew filmed parts of the game from on high. In another game, a balloon featured in the halftime entertainment as a daredevil U.S. Air Service officer jumped out, landing safely on the field by using an early parachute.
Including several aspects of the game we take for granted now, American football kicked off in Germany in the winter of 1919 — long before the first NFL regular-season game in Germany (November 13, 2022, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-16). American troops even took a football with them to Northern Russia during their intervention there in 1918-1919. Hazy photos show the boys blocking and tackling in the receding snow near Archangel in the spring of 1919.
By the time the United States entered World War II, football had grown into an American institution. The college game was dominant, but pro football was advancing as the NFL picked up steam. Football was quickly becoming America’s favorite pastime.
Once America joined the war and the draft was fully enabled, the U.S. military was populated with athletes — high school, college, and professional football players traded their leather helmets and jerseys for steel pots and fatigues, and their cleats for Army boots. But it wasn’t long before American football games broke out in some of the most unusual places. The Marines played football in Australia. The U.S. Army Air Forces played ball in China. The Army and Navy fielded teams in England, North Africa, India, Italy, and by the fall of 1944 Americans were playing football in France.
The large concentration of American troops in England and Ireland before the invasion of Normandy led to multiple teams and several knock-down, drag-out grudge matches. In November 1944 an Army versus Navy matchup (featuring a wide range of former college players) was played for the “European Championship” (called the “GI Bowl”) drew nearly 50,000 fans to a London stadium. Army won that game, but big-time football was just getting started in the ETO.
The Spaghetti Bowl
As the calendar changed to 1945, the war still raged in Europe. By January 1st, even as American forces were steadily pushing back the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes forest, the war was far from won. In Italy, the fighting was a slow, bloody slog in the mountains. Germany still needed to be beaten on multiple fronts, and it would take a maximum effort in the New Year. Keeping up morale was critical. American commanders in the MTO planned a football event to equal the annual New Year’s Day bowl games played stateside. The result was the iconic Spaghetti Bowl.
Despite maintaining the game’s specific location as a military secret, the event was still promoted, and G.I. fans were recruited and given brief leave to Florence to attend. Media reports noted that a German broadcast said the Luftwaffe called it “a great opportunity to bomb Florence”. P-38 Lightning fighters patrolled the skies overhead, in case the German air force decided to drop by. In the end, no Nazi aircraft made it to Florence for the game.
The AP’s Sid Feder wrote before the game, in a syndicated column coming from “Spaghetti Bowl Headquarters, Italy”:
“In a modern stadium that would make a lot of graduate managers back home green with envy, the Fifth Army “Krautclouters” and the 12th Air Force “Bridgebusters” today tangle in what is billed as the “first and last” Spaghetti Bowl game. The name of this town, where between 25,000 and 35,000 assorted soldiers and WACs are going to hold down benches is “unmentionable”, because Jerry hasn’t been invited — and isn’t wanted. It’ll be a battle of two undefeated clubs for the simple reason neither has yet played. It all started with a challenge the 12th Air Force tossed at the 5th Army…”
Teams were drawn up from the deep football assets of the 5th Army (the “Krautclouters”) and the 12th Air Force (the “Bridgebusters”), with proper uniforms provided. The Army team was coached by Lou Bush, who had starred for the University of Massachusetts, while the 12th Air Force was led by George “Sparky” Miller, who had played and coached at Indiana University. Both rosters were full of experienced players, many from major colleges and a handful with pro experience.
Captain for the Army team was former Philadelphia Eagles tackle Cecil Sturgeon. Ultimately, the star of the Spaghetti Bowl had pro football experience, but not in the NFL. John “Big Six” Moody had been an All-American at Morris Brown College, and had played professional football as recently as 1943. Moody played for the Los Angeles Bulldogs in the highly-regarded Pacific Coast Football League (1940-1948) — which featured black players while the NFL was segregated until 1946.
Moody, a 230-lb. fullback/linebacker was a powerful force throughout the game — scoring two touchdowns (one rushing, one on a long interception return) and kicked two extra points to lead the 5th Army in their 20-0 victory. A New York Times account of the game described Corporal Moody (of the 92nd Infantry Division) as a “one-man army”. After the war, Moody played for a short time with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. In 2022, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Conclusion
For the more than 25,000 U.S. troops in attendance (plus a few interested locals), the Spaghetti Bowl delivered everything one would expect from a stateside bowl game: there were two bands, several military vehicles were dressed up as parade floats (carrying cheerleaders and two bowl queens), Broadway performer Ella Logan was on hand to sing, Brooklyn Dodgers’ manager Leo Durocher gave a speech at halftime, and lovely majorette Peggy Jean twirled her batons. Meanwhile, the USO was on hand to provide coffee and donuts. By any measure, the Spaghetti Bowl was a successful operation for the U.S. military.
Five months later, five long and awful months, World War II in Europe would be over. G.I.s like John Moody would return home as winners, but their lives would be forever changed by the things they had seen and done. Football would continue to grow in popularity, reaching unprecedented levels of media exposure and fan interest with each passing decade. And for one afternoon, in the midst of a world war, in an ancient Italian city, a modern American gridiron tradition would play out to raise the morale of young men so far from home.
This might be an obvious statement, but armies like to drink. That’s true now, and it was true nearly 250 years ago when the Continental Army fought in the American Revolution.
It’s the Fourth of July weekend and soldiers, veterans and Americans around the country are celebrating the founding fathers, the revolution and all of the related elements tied up in the holiday. But it’s also worth remembering that the original American soldiers liked to drink. A lot. So much so. This isn’t an exaggeration.
The Journal of the American Revolution looked into the documented cases of the Continental Army not only getting its hands on booze, but going overboard and getting into trouble thanks to it. That ranged from enlisted soldiers beating an officer, drunken gambling on days of rest and other forms of insubordination. The soldiers were considered “ungentlemanlike” for their actions. Soldiers would raid captured officers’ stores of alcohol, threaten store owners for more than their daily ration and get into fights with one another while plastered.
At the time the American Revolutionary War started, alcohol was both a part of military life – alcohol rations were a common practice – and booze such as beer was considered safer to drink than many sources of water. George Washington himself tried to make soldiers avoid alcohol with threats of punishment, but an army of young revolutionaries gathered together and away from home found ways to not only get their hands on alcohol but get large amounts of it, as part of the fight against the British. And it was a wide range of drinks. The Continental Army and Patriot militias might not have Navy grog, but it had regional beer, pilfered wine, cider, whiskey, applejack and other spirits.
Hey, Samuel Adams was a brewer, remember?
It wasn’t just the camp activities the Continental Army engaged in that were “ungentlemanlike.” The soldiers even factoring in the universal love soldiers have for booze into tactical plans. As War on the Rocks notes, George Washington’s army expected the British-employed Hessian mercenaries in Trenton to drink heavily for Christmas celebrations. American beer being different and more potent than that in Europe, Washington was counting on the Hessians to be utterly wasted and hungover, if they were even awake at dawn. When the Continental Army attacked and routed the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas Day, the soldiers were unexpectedly sober.
It might not be cases of cheap beer on base to wash down a day of Rip Its, but for a hard-scrapped army often struggling with morale, supplies and funding, and going up against the much more resourceful British army, the Americans’ ability to source and consume booze is impressive.
And if you’re thinking this was just the enlisted soldiers, it went up to the commanders as well. In 1787, George Washington and several of his friends from the Army were celebrating the signing of the U.S. Constitution and decided to, what else, get drunk. At least 55 people, but definitely no more than 100, bought dozens of bottles of wine, jugs of beer, alcoholic punch and cider for good measure. Seriously, there’s the receipt to prove it. According to adjustments, that bill today is more than $17,000.
It’s unlikely that the call of “Remember Valley Forge” was to bring up memories of a bad hangover. But a few revolutionaries probably had those thoughts. So if you’re enjoying a drink this Fourth of July weekend, know that the original American army also liked its drink. And could likely drink you under the table. Drink responsibly – the revolutionaries apparently didn’t.