General Eisenhower June 6, 1944
Today's blog article commemorates the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings, and looks at baseball’s largely overlooked contribution to this historic event.
By the start of the 1944 season, around 340 major league players were in military service, plus more than 3,000 from the minors, and with the vast manpower shortage, just 10 minor leagues were in operation. Every branch of the service had an abundance of former
ballplayers helping to fill their ranks and many were in Britain as part of the pre-invasion
preparations. Among them were major leaguers Larry French, Roy Bruner, Paul Campbell, Whitey Hilcher, Earl Johnson, Art Kenney, Ted Klainhans, Si Rosenthal, Tom Saffell, Lou Thuman, Monte Weaver and Elmer Gedeon; future Hall of Famer Yogi Berra; future major leaguers Russ Bauers, Ross Grimsley, Morrie Martin, Eddie Kazak and Bert Shepard; and minor leaguers Lefty Brewer, Syl Sturges, Elmer Wright, Hal Cisgen, John Fessler, Lloyd Rice, John McNicholas, Joe Marco and Frank Labuda. Six of them would be dead before the end of June. The following is an historical account of D-Day interwoven with biographical details of ballplayers who were there.
On June 6, 1944, at the beaches of Normandy, France, Allied forces made one of the largest amphibious assaults ever conducted. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel to launch an invasion that would begin the liberation of the people of mainland Europe who had lived under Nazi rule for over four years.
The Commanders
Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and was charged with planning and carrying out of the invasion. Eisenhower loved baseball. Historian Bill Swank says that in his senior year at Abilene (Kansas) High School, Eisenhower was the baseball team captain and leading hitter, and he went on to play football for Army during his sophomore year, but a horse riding injury precluded further participation in intercollegiate athletics. However, rumors that he played baseball professionally - under an assumed name - are probably untrue.
During the build-up to D-Day, Eisenhower was based at Strategic Air Force Headquarters in London - also home to the 988th Military Police and their baseball team, the Fliers. Eisenhower frequently inquired about the progress of the Fliers. "I spoke to him on numerous occasions when I was on duty at the main gate," recalled Fliers' first baseman Norbert Kuklinski. "He always asked after the team and even got to see a couple of our games."
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| Boston Braves manager Bob Coleman, General Eisenhower, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and New York Giants manager Mel Ott (Polo Grounds, June 19, 1945) |
General Omar Bradley
Bradley was in charge of the 1st U.S. Army at Normandy, and during the months before the invasion, he supervised the refinement of assault plans and troop training.
Bradley had been a star on the baseball team at Moberly High School in Missouri. He enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point in the fall of 1911 and became an alternate on the freshman baseball team the following spring. He went on to letter three years in baseball and one in football. “It is almost trite to observe,” he said, “that in organized team sports one learns the important art of group cooperation in goal achievement. No extracurricular endeavor I know of could better prepare a soldier for the battlefield.”
Colonel Reeder, commander of the 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division at Utah Beach, was an exceptional baseball and football player at West Point in the 1920s and had a tryout with the New York Giants. He was offered a contract but chose to stay with the army. On June 11, 1944, Reeder was severely wounded when an artillery shell exploded close by, shredding his left leg below the knee. His leg was later amputated at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington but he went on to become athletic director at West Point in 1947.
Fooling the Germans
On Sunday, May 28, 1944, the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) Red Devils baseball team played the 505th PIR Panthers before an enthusiastic crowd of 7,000, at the local soccer stadium in Nottingham, England. The Red Devils had been Camp Mackall, North Carolina, champs in 1943, and this was their first chance to play baseball in over nine months. “We had no uniforms,” recalled Adolph “Bud” Warnecke of Fayeteville, North Carolina. “We had to wear remnants of military clothing and jump boots, so we didn’t look much like a ball team. But I’ll always remember the great reception we got from the British people.”
The Panthers proved no match for the Red Devils. “We beat the heck out of the 505th,” said Warnecke. “The score at the end was 18 to 0, to our guys.”
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| 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment Nottingham, England May 1944 |
“I think most of the spectators enjoyed the game,” remembered Lee Reisenleiter, “but it must have been hard for them to make sense of it all.”
“I certainly enjoyed myself,” added Warnecke, “but little did I know that eight days later we would jump into Normandy!”
Speculation still hangs over the true reason this baseball game was staged. The “official” story at the time was that the Nottingham Anglo-American Committee requested the Americans to stage a sporting event because the people of Nottingham had for years been void of entertainment. However, because the game was arranged by Brigadier General James M. “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, many believe the game was designed to fool the Germans. If American paratroopers were playing baseball in England, how could an invasion be imminent? To further publicize the event, photographs were taken of each player and sent back to their hometown newspapers. Probably the most convincing fact that this game was staged to fool the Germans was the noticeable absence of paratroopers in the stands at the game. Having been such a familiar sight in Nottingham for the last few months, only officers and players were on hand. As the crowd cheered each crack of the bat, the rest of the regiment made a 40-mile journey to a local airfield where runways were packed with C-47 transport planes adorned with black and white stripes. Preparations for the invasion had begun.
The airborne assault into Normandy was the largest use of airborne troops up to that time.
Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions, the British 6th Airborne Division, and the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion took part in the assault. Numbering
more than 13,000 men, the paratroopers were flown from bases in southern England to the Cotentin Peninsula in more than 900 planes. An additional 4,000 men, consisting of glider infantry with supporting weapons and medical and signal units, arrived in 500 gliders later on D-Day to reinforce the paratroopers. The parachute troops were assigned what was probably the most difficult task of the initial operation - a night jump behind enemy lines five hours before the coastal landings.
Airfields all over England were a hive of activity during the days prior to June 6. The
runways were packed with Douglas C-47 transport planes adorned with black and white invasion stripes, with groups of paratroopers meticulously studying maps of the drop zones in Normandy. They packed equipment, cleaned rifles, played cards and shot dice in the hangar buildings. They attended movies, wrote letters to loved ones, and learned of their objective: to keep the Germans from reinforcing troops that were defending the beaches.
On June 4, they were ready to take off but the weather forced a delay. The following
night - with their faces blackened and hearts racing – men of the 101st and 82nd
Airborne Divisions boarded C-47s for the flight across the English Channel. D-Day had
begun and the paratroopers would spearhead the invasion.
Escorting the C-47s in a P-51B Mustang was First Lieutenant Bob Stephens, a pitcher with the Fulton Tigers. Stephens had finished the 1941 season with a 5-6 won-loss record and a 3.97 ERA before entering military service. C-47s were stark inside. A row of hard metal bucket seats lined both sides of the plane and the roar of the engines drowned out any attempt at conversation as they trudged through the dark skies towards the Normandy coast. Once over the mainland of France the sky became illuminated with searchlights, and deadly tracer bullets pierced the wings and fuselage of the unarmed and unarmored planes. At an altitude of just 400 feet, anti-aircraft fire exploded all around as they neared their drop zones. When the red light over the door of the planes flashed on, everybody stood up and clamped themselves onto the cable that ran down ceiling. Amidst yells of “Go! Go! Go!” American paratroopers ascended through the darkness into chaos, panic and confusion.
The first paratroopers to land in Normandy were the pathfinders who began to drop at
00.15 on June 6, and were assigned to set up landing zones for the main force of
airborne troops. Due to low clouds and anti-aircraft fire, their planes were scattered and
many never found their assigned landing zones. However, the pathfinders’ radar beacons worked effectively and many of the sticks of follow-up paratroopers landed clustered near these beacons. Among the pathfinders was Private Bill Robbins of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), an outstanding high school athlete from Coldwater, Kansas, who went on to play at Kansas State Teachers College and in the Kansas Ban Johnson League. Robbins was captured by German troops soon after landing in Normandy and remained a prisoner of war until being liberated in April 1945.
Compton was back in England by July, but was badly wounded during Operation Market Garden in Holland in September. He was hospitalized for more than two months but returned to combat in December 1944 - in time for the defense of Bastogne. The 506th suffered heavy losses during the Battle of the Bulge. Weather conditions were treacherous and, in the heavy snow, Compton suffered a severe case of trenchfoot. He was evacuated and his combat days were over.
Compton was back at UCLA after the war and played varsity baseball in the spring of 1946.
In June, he tried out with the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field. On June 24, the team
bus of the Western International League’s Spokane Indians veered off the road and down an embankment before crashing and bursting into flames. Nine men died. Spokane was an Angels' farm team and Compton was signed to join the club as a replacement player but at 24 he and his wife decided he was too old to start a career in pro ball. He went on to spend five years as a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1952 he began 20 years as a prosecutor for the district attorney's office, and in 1968, he was responsible for the investigation of Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. He was later appointed an associate judge in the California Court of Appeals.
With the 501st PIR of the 101st Airborne Division was Tom Niland, and outstanding
baseball and basketball player from Tonawanda, New York, who had just enrolled at Canisius College when he was drafted. Niland went on to earn a Silver Star at the Battle of the Bulge but suffered a severe arm wound. After the war he served as a coach and then athletic director for 43 years at LeMoyne College in Syracuse.
Landing in Normandy with the 82nd Airborne Division were 26 members of the 508th PIR Red Devils baseball team - Camp Mackall, NC, champs in 1943. Among them was Private Forrest “Lefty” Brewer; Private Elmer Mertz was a star infielder on Sheboygan's Gmach softball team; Corporal William Maloney was a high school ballplayer from Hartford, Connecticut; Private Okey Mills was a semi-pro pitcher who played in the Coalfield League in West Virginia; Sergeant John Judefind had been a star infielder with St. James High School in Chester, Pennsylvania; Private Merle Blethen was the son of Clarence Blethen who played for the Red Sox and Dodgers in the 1920s; Private Joe Laky was a sandlot player from Ottawa, Illinois; Private First Class Rene “Punchy” Croteau was a semi-pro player from Holyoke, Massachusetts; Corporal Frank Labuda was a star shortstop with the Chicago Heights Owls in the late 1930s and briefly played minor league baseball with the Ogden Reds; Corporal Walt Lupton was a New York sandlotter; and Private First Class John McNicholas was a minor league outfielder with the Oneonta Indians in 1942.
Philadelphia Phillies, was also with the 505th PIR, as was Private Joe Dunn, an amateur first baseman from Troy, New York, who played his last ball game on May 28, 1944, in an exhibition game against the 508th PIR in England. Two days after landing in Normandy, Makuch was wounded and lost a finger. He never played baseball again. Dutch Schultz would earn a Bronze Star for his heroics at Normandy. Joe Dunn survived D-Day and went on to successful combat jumps in Holland, but died from wounds he received during the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945.
Staff Sergeant John Fessler parachuted into Normandy with the 507th PIR. Fessler was an
infielder from Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, who had played three years of minor league
baseball before the war. In 1941, he played 116 games as a shortstop with the Goldsboro Goldbugs and batted .279. He had been an outstanding member of the 507th PIR basketball team since entering military service. Fessler was killed in action on June 10, 1944.
With the 505th PIR was Cloid Wigle, a high school ballplayer from Silverton, Oregon. Wigle was wounded the day after D-day and was a prisoner of war for a brief time in Normandy. In his retirement years, Wigle used his wood lathe to produce baseball bats and fungoes which ended up in the hands of many players and coaches across the country including Alex Rodriquez and Sparky Anderson.
Among the C-47 pilots that delivered the paratroopers to their drop zones on D-Day
was Second Lieutenant Syl Sturges, an outfielder who had played three seasons in the minors prior to military service. By 1944, Sturges was in England with the 314th Troop Carrier Group and at 03:25, on June 7, 1944 – the day after the invasion - Sturges was the co-pilot of a C-47 that took off from Saltby Airfield in England, in light rain and ground haze. The plane was heading to Picauville, France, as part of Operation Freeport - a mission to drop supplies to troops on the ground. Shortly after take off, the plane was lost out of formation in the low cloud and not seen again. At 17:00 that evening, the burnt out wreck was discovered about a mile northeast of Sébeville in France. The badly burned bodies of Sturges and pilot, Second Lieutenant George Risley, Jr., were still at the controls.
Elements of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and U.S 29th Infantry Division faced the veteran
German 352nd Infantry Division at Omaha, the most heavily fortified beach, with high
bluffs defended by mortars, machine guns, and artillery. As infantry disembarked from the landing craft, they had to wade through water sometimes neck deep. Those that made it to the shingle did so at a walk, because they were so heavily laden, and had to brave the full weight of enemy gun fire. Within minutes of the ramps being lowered, troops were leaderless and almost incapable of action. It had become a struggle for survival and rescue.
Allied commanders considered abandoning the beachhead, but small units of infantry,
often forming ad hoc groups, supported by naval artillery, eventually infiltrated the
coastal defenses by scaling the bluffs between strongpoints. Further infantry landings were able to exploit the initial penetrations and by the end of the day two isolated footholds had been established. American casualties at Omaha on D-Day numbered around 5,000 out of 50,000 men, most in the first few hours, Approaching Omaha Beach during the early hours of June 6th were the landing crafts of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division. Aboard these were Frank Draper, a superb, naturally-gifted athlete, who had been the lead-off hitter with the semi-pro Hampton Looms mill team in Bedford, Virginia; Elmer Wright, a minor league pitcher in the St. Louis Browns’ organization; Lou Alberigo, a semi-pro third baseman from Rhode Island; Hal Baumgarten, a catcher at New York University; Private Robert Marsico, a catcher with the Piedmont Label team of Bedford, Virginia; and Carl “Chubby” Proffitt, a semipro first baseman from West Virginia.
As they approached the beach the enemy opened fire with artillery, mortar, machine-gun and small arms fire. Draper was on a craft that violently shook with the horrifying impact
of an antipersonnel shell that ripped through the metal side and tore off his upper arm. Rapidly losing blood, the young soldier slumped to the floor where died in a pool of blood,
seawater and vomit. The landing craft’s of the other men made it to the beach but as the
ramps dropped they were met with a hail of enemy fire. Many were killed outright. Others lay critically wounded, screaming for help. Those that could jumped in to the sixfoot of water and desperately tried to make their way to the beach. Elmer Wright and Lou Alberigo were killed in the hail of gunfire almost as soon as they hit the beach. Baumgarten had his jaw shattered by a shell that exploded nearby. In shock he gradually moved forward using the bodies of dead GIs as cover eventually making it to the sea wall. “When our ramp went down it was a signal to every machine gun on that beach,” Baumgarten said, “and there were a lot of them to open up on our little boat.”
Marsico suffered severe wounds to his right arm and leg. He was hospitalized in England
for three months and spent the next year at a rehabilitation center in Norfolk, Virginia. Carl Proffitt miraculously survived D-Day and was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and two Bronze Stars.
Coming ashore at Omaha Beach with the 1st Infantry Division was Technician Fifth Grade Joe Pinder, a stockily built right-hander from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Pinder had played in the minor leagues since 1935 and was a 17-game winner with Sanford of the Florida State League in 1939. For Pinder, June 6 was a special day - his birthday. He was 32. As the landing crafts approached the beach an artillery shell exploded close to Pinder's landing craft, tearing holes in the boat and causing carnage among the men inside. For those that survived - Pinder included - panic set-in as the vessel filled with water and began to sink. Still 100 yards from the beach the ramp was dropped and they were instantly met with a hail of deadly machine-gun fire, killing many outright as they struggled to reach the shore. As in baseball, Pinder took his work very seriously, and despite the chaos, he was determined to do what he was there for – to ensure vital radio equipment made it to the beach so a line of communication could be established. He grabbed a radio and placed it on his shoulder and amid the deafening sound of gunfire, made his way down the ramp and into the waves. With the air filled with small arms fire and exploding artillery it was only a matter of time before Pinder was hit. As he desperately waded through the water, a bullet clipped him, causing him to stumble, but he did not stop. Another bullet ripped through the left side of his face and he held the gaping flesh in place as he carried on. Pinder made it to the beach, dropped the radio and returned to the water to retrieve more equipment. Then, instead of looking for somewhere to protect himself from the relentless enemy barrage, he returned a third time to collect essential spare parts and code books. Again he was hit - a burst of machine gun fire tore through his upper body and he fell, then somehow struggled to his feet, and with his last ounce of energy made it to the beach and his radio equipment. Moments later he passed out from loss of blood and died later that morning. Joe Pinder had made the ultimate sacrifice in helping to establish vital radio communication on Omaha Beach.On January 4, 1945, Pinder was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. “The indomitable courage and personal bravery of T/5 Pinder,” claimed his citation, “was a magnificent inspiration to the men with whom he served.”
German, was interrogating a German civilian when an American soldier in another unit heard the German and simply started shooting at close range! On the third occasion he was in Germany when machinegun fire broke both his legs and severed vital nerve fibers. Fennhahn was in hospitals in Europe and the United States for sixteen months. Despite these severe injuries, Fennhahn's pre-war ambition to play professional baseball remained with him. "He tried out for the Giants in Phoenix, Arizona, and accepted an offer to play with Peekskill," recalled his widow, Terry Fennhahn. Fennhahn made 13 appearances with the Peekskill Highlanders in the North Atlantic League in 1946, and posted a 4-3 record with a 5.18 ERA. The following year - 1947 - he made three appearances with the Quebec Alouettes in the Canadian-American League and was 2-0, but recurring leg problems kept him off the mound for most of the season. He was back with Quebec in 1948 and made 20 appearances with a 4-5 record and 4.60 ERA. "A lot of guts," said his manager Tony Ravish, "I always pitched him in seven-inning ball games because he had shrapnel in the back of his legs ... then his legs would get tired naturally. But for seven innings, boy, he could fire that ball for me!" "As much as he wanted, he couldn't continue playing professionally," recalled his widow.
Utah Beach was added to the invasion plan toward the end of the planning stages, when more landing craft became available. It was about 3 miles long, and the westernmost of the five landing beaches, located between Pouppeville and the village of La Madeleine.
Despite being substantially off course, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division landed with relatively little resistance in contrast to Omaha Beach. There were approximately 200 casualties. “Because we were combat engineers,” Morrie Martin told Bill Swank in When Baseball Went to War, “we were the first to land on Utah Beach at HHour just as dawn was breaking on June 6. Artillery was flying overhead, but we didn’t fire a shot because the Germans didn’t know we’d come ashore.”
“I got my second purple heart on March 23, 1945 at a crossroads near Bonn. I was shot in the leg. I don’t remember much after that. I woke up once and heard a doctor say, ‘That’s one sick man.’ They wanted to saw off my leg. A nurse from Georgia looked at my records and saw I was a ballplayer. She told me not to let them cut my leg off. They had a new drug - penicillin. She told me I had over 150 shots, one every four hours, and that finally stopped the infection. I wish I knew who she was to thank her. Martin received his medical discharge in October 1945. He made it to the major leagues as a 26 year-old rookie in 1949. He pitched 10 games for the Dodgers and had a 1-3 record. He was back in the majors in 1951, this time with the Athletics. It was to be his best season with an 11-4 record and 3.78 ERA, beating every American League team at least once. In total, Martin pitched 10 seasons in the majors with the Dodgers, Athletics, White Sox, Orioles, Cardinals, Indians and Cubs. Primarily a relief pitcher, he hurled a career-high 58 games in 1953 with the Athletics, posting a 10-12 record and 4.43 ERA.
Petropoulos was shipped back to the United States with a Silver Star and Purple Heart. He
was sent to Rhoads General Hospital in Utica, New York, where it was feared he might have to have both legs amputated. Seven major operations followed and the former ball player’s legs were saved. After Petropoulos left hospital he went to work for the New York Giants as a scout, and in 1948 he became a goodwill ambassador to servicemen and veterans, conducting The Sporting News Sports Caravan, which, in conjunction with Liggett & Myers the makers of Chesterfield cigarettes, visited veterans’ hospitals in the New York metropolitan area. “I know from my long years of association with Pete Petropoulos,” David Woodside told The Sporting News, “that he can talk the language of any vet either in or out of a hospital.”
This tour was later expanded to take in veterans’ hospitals in southern states, and
Petropoulos also managed the Chesterfield-Sporting News (later Chesterfield Satisfiers)
baseball team that played at veterans’ hospitals for the next 12 years.
Also with the 4th Infantry Division was First Lieutenant Ordway “Hal” Cisgen, who had
signed with the Yankees’ organization in 1939 and was last with Utica in 1942, where
he posted a 5-3 record and 2.32 ERA. Cisgen was born in Lorain, Ohio, about 30 miles
west of Cleveland, and had attended Lorain High School, where he starred in basketball
and baseball. He was killed in action on July 11, 1944.
Other D-Day Casualties
Among the 2,500 killed on D-Day was Private First Class Gordon S. Cochrane, Jr., the son
of Hall of Fame catcher Gordon “Mickey” Cochrane. Former major league pitcher, Elden Auker, wrote in his autobiography, Sleeper Cards and Flannel Uniforms: “The bullet that killed him [Gordon, Jr.] had some kind of range. It traveled all the way across the Atlantic, lodged itself into the spirit of Gordon's father, the great Mickey Cochrane, and slowly killed him. Mickey's gravestone shows he died June 28, 1962, but he started dying June 6, 1944. Consider his another life claimed by World War II.”
Coming ashore at Omaha Beach a few hours after Morrie Martin was his cousin Private First Class Ralph Hickey of the 1st Infantry Division. He never made it to the beach and his body was never recovered. “We were born and raised together,” Martin recalled. “He was like a brother.”
First Lieutenant Lloyd Rice was wounded in the shoulder while coming ashore on D-day.
Rice, a minor league outfielder, had batted .363 in 97 games with Federalsburg
Athletics in 1940. He returned to the minors in 1946 and played two seasons with the
Wilmington Blue Rocks. Also among the D-Day wounded was Sam Colacurcio, Jr., mascot for the Jersey City Giants from 1931 to 1934 when his father operated the team.
The Navy
The Invasion Fleet was drawn from eight different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels:
1,213 warships, 4,126 transport vessels (landing ships and landing craft), 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. Warships provided supporting fire for the land forces.
"And [Yogi] said, 'Oh, I played ball, at Norfolk, in the minors.' "And we looked at him, with his bandy legs. What the hell kind of ballplayer is this; are you pulling our leg? Were you a batboy or something? And we never paid much attention. He didn't elaborate on it too much. It would come up every now and then, and we would kid him about it.”
He would be back in baseball in 1946 for the first of 18 years as a catcher in Yankee
pinstripes, World Series winning manager and Hall of Famer.
Also off shore during D-Day was former major league outfielder Si Rosenthal, who had played over 100 games for the Red Sox in 1926. He was aboard the minelayer USS Miantonomah, which was off Omaha Beach, performing services for the battleship USS Texas.
Playing a critical role for the Navy during the build-up to D-Day was Lieutenant Larry
French, with the U.S. Navy Supply Corps. Based in England, French – who had won 197
games over 14 seasons in the major leagues prior to entering military service in 1942 – was responsible for the provision of spare parts for landing craft. French would later serve in the Pacific Theater aboard the USS New York during the Okinawa invasion. He was recalled to active service during the Korean War and made the Navy a career, retiring in 1969 having attained the rank of captain.
I am sure you will agree that, as with other major battles during WWII, baseball made
no small contribution on D-Day. For that reason, I hope you will remember these heroes
of our game on this 70th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.
Great work, Gary. I assume that you have read The Bedford Boys, by fellow Brit, Alex Kershaw. Spent June 6-8 in Bedford this year for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary. The baseball glove of Draper and several other Bedford Boys are in the county museum there.
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