Military bases played ‘college level’ football during WW II

For a brief period of time during World War II, Camp Davis Army Air Field at Holly Springs had a football team that was highly competitive on the gridiron. Its schedule in the 1942 and 1943 seasons included a mixture of other military teams as well as squads from area colleges and universities.

 Eddie Dooley, a former star quarterback at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., who worked as sports journalist and radio broadcaster in 1942, saw it coming. He said:

“Football is a body-toughener. Football lights the fighting spark in fighting men. It develops aggressiveness, teamwork, stamina, physical and mental coordination under active stress, and therefore it holds a foremost place in our national wartime training program. Teams by the hundreds are in formation at various Army camps and posts and Navy bases.”

 

The Camp Davis Fighting AA’s (named for anti-aircraft guns that the soldiers trained to fire) was also nicknamed the “Blue Brigade.” The Camp Davis team captain was lineman John Mellus, who graduated from Villanova (Pa.) University, a second team All-American.

 

Mellus was selected in the 1938 National Football League (NFL) draft by the New York Giants and was a first-team NFL all-star in 1941. The Army drafted Mellus in 1942 and he landed at Camp Davis.

Another standout player for Camp Davis was Norm Standlee, who played fullback at Stanford (Calif.) University, and earned All-American second team honors as well.

 

In the 1941 NFL draft, Standlee went in the first round as the third overall pick to the Chicago Bears. He helped the Bears win the league championship over Mellus’ Giants that year. Standlee, too, was drafted by the Army and wound up at Camp Davis.

 

In 1942, Camp Davis posted a record of 4-3-2, registering wins over High Point College, Navy Pre-Flight Cloudbusters B Team (from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Cherry Point Marines Flying Leathernecks and Air Force Daniel Field Fliers from Augusta, Ga.

The 1943 season saw a vast improvement as Camp Davis went 8-2, disposing of Wake Forest College, Charleston (S.C) Coast Guard, N.C. State College, Davidson College, Army Fort Monroe Gunners from Hampton, Va., Presbyterian College, Air Force Daniel Field Fliers and Army Fort Bragg.

All servicemen were granted immediate eligibility to play on the military teams. Many bases stocked their teams with former pro players and college stars, said Christopher Klein, an author and historian. He remarked: “With rosters that included NFL players and All-Americans, the service teams often had size and speed advantages.”

Challenged with a shrinking pool of student-athletes enrolled, about 250 institutions dropped varsity football altogether during the war years. “Many of the collegiate teams that continued to play relied on freshmen too young to be drafted and those excused from military service because of medical conditions or deferments,” Klein said.

However, several universities and colleges were tapped by the federal government to offer military officer training programs on their campuses. These schools benefited from having a large influx of “new recruits” who they could weave into their football programs.

One such school was the University of Michigan. An alumnus called this situation “one of the greatest aggregations of gridiron talent ever brought together” on the campus in Ann Arbor.

For the 1943 season opener against Army Camp Grant (Rockford, Ill.), Michigan’s starting line-up consisted of six Marines, four Sailors and one civilian, a senior engineering student who had secured a deferment from his local draft board.

One of the Marines who stepped into the starting lineup at Michigan was Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.

 

A few of the military teams during this period in football history challenged for the national championship.