“Wild Bill” Donovan, the Army’s chief intelligence officer.) Later in the game - which the Dodgers won, 21-7 - another announcement ordered servicemen to report to their units. My father said he remembered a buzz in the servicemen’s section after the public address announcer, in a concerned voice, asked for a high-ranking officer to call Washington, D.C., immediately. With no television and no message boards in the stadium, it took awhile for spectators to realize what was going on. WOR, which broadcast the game on radio, interrupted with the first bulletins at about 2:26 p.m. Eastern time, less than 10 minutes before the Leemans ceremony and 37 minutes before kickoff, according to news accounts. That’s where my father was, watching the biggest NFL game of the day, when word spread that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It was also Tuffy Leemans Day, with the Giants honoring their popular halfback in a pre-game ceremony. This caused quite a stir in New York, and the rematch, promoted for days in the newspapers, brought 55,051, the largest crowd in the NFL that season, to the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan. 26, the Brooklyn Dodgers - yes, Brooklyn had an NFL team in those days - stunned the Giants, 16-13, at Ebbets Field, the cozy home of the baseball Dodgers. 7, 1941.Ī little more than a month earlier, on Oct. And since the New York Football Giants, as they were known in those days, let men in uniform into games for free, the choice of dress was the easiest decision he had to make on the morning of Dec. The way he explained it years later, the Army at that time permitted those who left the service with an honorable discharge to continue wearing their uniforms for a brief period.
Sixty-seven years ago yesterday, a recently discharged soldier in Brooklyn, N.Y., put on his Army uniform and headed for the subway.
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