GO ARMY! Beat Navy!

   1945 Army Navy Football Poster, and a New York newspaper clipping, unknown date

 It all began with a football game in 1890. The Naval Academy (Navy) challenged the United States Military Academy (Army) to a match. The inaugural contest took place on "The Plain" at West Point. Navy, with a well-established team, handily beat Army’s newly formed team, 24-0.  Army came back the next year and beat Navy 32-16. Instantly, a fierce rivalry was born. Since 1930, this annual face-off has grown into one of the most storied rivalries in all of American sports. “Go Army!  Beat Navy!”

My father talked little about his three and one half years serving in WW2. When I asked my mother about his service, she responded: ‘Your father? He was toted around Europe playing tennis at Army Navy games.” 

My father’s paperwork indicates he worked as part of HQ staff at the famed 4^th Fighter group in Debden, England. The only thing I recall him telling me about the war was when he was playing a top US tennis player at an Army Navy matchup. He told me the exact score at each step in the game. In the end, the other guy won. ‘I almost had him!” I recall my father saying, shaking his head but with a twinkle in his eye. No doubt he made a significant contribution to the esprit de corps of the Army.  

Early in the war, when crossing the Atlantic, my mother learned about her place in the military. Growing up on Lake Michigan, she was comfortable on a boat – any boat. She was soon directed to show loyalties to the Army, and not the Navy. That’s just how it worked.

The Army Navy rivalries, and other inter service banter, continue as strong as ever. Read below in Girls in a World at War. It’s just one of the many unique stories in the book – told first hand by someone who was actually there. “Go Army!”

Book Excerpt

Vivienne showed Kathy a green bottle of Mumm champagne. “I’ve bought that one man of mine his Christmas present, so he won’t forget me.”

They drove through Mourmelon, which was actually a pleasant old village. It was the tent cities around it that were lonely and desolate, empty of everything but tents.

The 191st General Hospital was a cluster of clean, well-kept permanent buildings. When Vivienne and Kathy signed in at headquarters, the Adjutant phoned the mess officer to announce their arrival.

Seconds later the mess officer banged open the front door and held out his arms with a welcome that made Mourmelon seem less bleak. The stripes on his arm indicated three years of overseas service, yet he grinned like a rookie for whom the trip was a lark. “I’m Captain Kemp. Pretty girls like you may call me D.B. And you are?”

“This is Lieutenant Collens, and I’m Lieutenant West.”

“You have first names?”

“Kathy and Vivienne. We are the two remaining dieticians of the 223rd.”

D.B. put a friendly arm around their shoulders and led them toward the front door. “Glad to have you here. We’ve been without a dietitian for two weeks. I’ll show you around.”

“How did you manage your special diets?” asked Kathy.

“Simple. We sent them to the 179th. Here we have four good cooks and a capable Oscar leads a dozen well- trained German PWs. No problems at all.”

“Sounds like our Oscar. If you inherited the PWs from the 223rd, we’ll take credit for training them,” said Vivienne.

“If that’s a sample of your work, we are glad to have you.” He dropped his arm from Kathy’s shoulder to open the door, and led Vivienne outside. Kathy followed. He gestured to the right, where patients in maroon bathrobes were standing in lunch line outside. “The patients’ mess and hospital buildings are there. Our census is down to 350.”

He turned to the left, to quaint old two-story stone buildings. “Your quarters. The small building is your shower, the PX, clubs, and assembly. Way down at the end is the post office.”

D.B. opened the ambulance door. They got in and were driven to one of the narrow two-storied barracks buildings. D.B. patted the green glass bottle that Vivienne carried in her lap. “Celebrating your arrival at our happy hospital? May I help you two celebrate, tonight?”

“Yes, but not with this bottle. This is my Christmas present to my fiancé in the South Pacific.”

“Let me tell you how to send it. Take it to the cast room. I’ll show you where it is. First, have a plaster cast put on it. Next, pack it in a box of sawdust. Then send it. Not even the Navy can break that.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

Girls in a World at War by Peggy Scholberg is available online wherever books are sold.