3rd Marine Division The “Fighting Third” is one of the active divisions of the United States Marine Corps and has a long and proud history including its service in World War II and the Vietnam War. The division was formed in 1942 and saw combat for the first time in September of 1943 during the Battle of Bougainville. The division next saw combat in July of 1944 in the Battle of Guam. The combat on Guam lasted a bloody 21 days before the end of Japanese resistance. The division stayed on the island until the division sailed to Iwo Jima for one of the bloodiest and savage battles in Marine Corps history. The 3rd Marine Division was initially used as the combat reserved but was quickly sent into combat as the units already on the island encountered stiff and savage resistance. Iwo Jima was the last combat the division would see during World War II. The division was deactivated for seven years after World War II and was reactivated in 1952. It next saw combat in 1965 when the division was sent to Vietnam. It served in Vietnam for 4 years, taking part in many important operations. Twenty 3rd Marines of the 3rd Division were awarded the Medal of Honor while in Vietnam. The division moved in 1969 from Vietnam to Camp Courtney in Okinawa Japan where it is currently based.

3d Marine Division operates as a Stand-In Force in the first island chain to secure, seize, or defend key maritime terrain in order to deny and disrupt adversary actions in support of the Fleet, the Joint Force, and partnered and allied forces.

3d Marine Division has five major subordinate elements: 3d Marine Littoral Regiment based in Hawaii and 12th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Regiment, 3d Reconnaissance Battalion, and Headquarters Battalion based in Okinawa, Japan.

The 3d Marine Division was officially activated Sept. 16, 1942 at Camp Elliott, San Diego, California. Most of the Division’s first members were drawn from the 9th Marines, commanded by Colonel Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., who later became the 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps. Major General Charles D. Barrett was the first Commanding General of the Division. By Aug. 1943, the Division was based at Guadalcanal where special training and rehearsals for the Bougainville operation intensified. The Division landed at Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, Nov. 1, 1943. For approximately two months, the Division participated in its first fight against heavy enemy resistance. After the transfer of command in the area to the Army's XIV Corps, the last elements of the Division returned to Guadalcanal Jan. 16, 1944.

Following the Bougainville operation, the Division began training for the next campaign. Instructions received in Feb. 1944 led to planning for an operation against the Japanese on Emirau Island. The projected Emirau operation was subsequently cancelled and instructions were received to instead plan an operation against enemy forces at Kavieng, New Ireland. This operation was also called off. A few days later, the Division began training for the amphibious assault against the Japanese on Guam.

The Division left Guadalcanal on June 2-3, 1944 and sailed for Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, en route to the Marianas. It remained afloat off of Saipan June 15-18, 1944 as part of the reserve force for the Saipan operation, conducted by the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions in conjunction with the Army’s 27th Infantry Division. With the situation on Saipan under control, the Division returned to its staging area in preparation for the Guam operation.

On July 21, 1944, the Division landed on the western beaches of Guam near Asan Point. After twenty days of savage fighting, the Division troops reached the northern coast of the island. Guam was declared secure Aug. 10, 1944. The Division continued conducting security operations on Guam until its departure for the Iwo Jima campaign in Feb. 1945.

Initially, the Division remained in reserve off the coast of Iwo Jima. The Division landed on Feb. 24, and the next morning the 3d Marine Division launched an attack in its zone between the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions. The 3d Marine Division faced well-organized and determined enemy resistance. The terrain, ideal for defense, was heavily fortified by pillboxes, caves, and covered artillery emplacements. Progress was slow and casualties were heavy during the first few days of fighting. The Division slowly pushed the enemy back and, by Mar. 3, severed the last enemy east-west artery of communication by occupying positions overlooking the sea. The 3d Marine Division secured its zone of action Mar. 11, and then initiated intensive patrolling and security operations. On Mar. 16, units of the 3d Marine Division relieved elements of the 5th Marine Division and delivered the final attack of the Iwo Jima operation - a drive to Kitano Point. Iwo Jima was declared secure on the same day. On Apr. 4, the 3d Marine Division was relieved by U.S. Army units.

By mid Apr. 1945, the Division was back on Guam preparing for the next operation. On Aug. 3 1945, the Division received initial plans for Operation Olympic, which called for an amphibious landing of Kyushu in early Nov. 1945. The 3d Marine Division, along with the 2nd and 5th Marine Divisions, was assigned to the V Amphibious Corps for the operation. Japan's agreement to cease hostilities and subsequent surrender cancelled Operation Olympic, and the Division remained on Guam until it was deactivated on Dec. 28, 1945.

The Division was reactivated on Jan. 7, 1952 at Camp Pendleton, California. Immediately after its activation, the Division began intensive combat training. During the remaining part of 1952, elements of the Division participated in numerous exercises and experimentation with new concepts, including vertical envelopment, airborne operations and attack, and defense against atomic weapons and missiles.

In Aug. 1953, the 3d Marine Division arrived in Japan to support the 1st Marine Division in the defense of the region. In Mar. 1956, the Division moved to Okinawa and remained there as an expeditionary force-in-readiness until 1965. 

On May 6, 1965, the 3d Marine Division opened the Marine compound at the Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam. The Division subsequently operated combat bases at Da Nang, Phu Bai, Quang Tri and Dong Ha. The Division departed Vietnam in November 1969 and moved to Camp Courtney, Okinawa, where it is presently located.

From 2004 to 2011, elements of the 3d Marine Division participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom. From 2004 to 2014, elements of the 3d Marine Division participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. From Mar. to May 2011, elements of the Division participated in the joint humanitarian relief effort Operation Tomodachi in the wake of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Today, the 3d Marine Division remains forward deployed in the western Pacific, prepared to fight and win alongside allies and partners with the technology of today while experimenting with the tools, systems, and organization for the force of tomorrow.

The Corps on the Diamond: US Marines Baseball Uniforms

In one of my favorite films, Field of Dreams, actor James Earl Jones (as fictitious author Terrence Mann) monologues about what (I think) most Americans feel about the game of baseball.

“The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steam rollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field (the baseball diamond in the cornfield), this game, is part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.”

These sentiments were applicable for Americans during World War II, when all of the world was shrouded in the darkness of the Axis powers and people were being killed by the thousands in Europe and Asia. Though the United States was abstaining from direct involvement when war erupted in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Service Act (of 1940) into law, enacting the first peacetime draft in American history. The following month, in October, 16.5 million draft-eligible men registered for the draft.

In March of 1941, the first of several major league baseball players began reporting for duty following induction into the service. Though the game was being marginally impacted by the peacetime draft, the distant war was having very little impact. This would change with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The following day, on December 8th, Cleveland Indians star-pitching ace, Bob "Rapid Robert" Feller enlisted in the United States Navy and opened the floodgates of other major and minor league ball players volunteering to serve their country, leaving the 1942 season very much in doubt due to the sudden loss of manpower on their rosters.

As ball club owners grappled with how to field teams depleted by the draft, President Roosevelt and major league officials met to determine what to do with the upcoming season. FDR ultimately decided that for those supporting the war effort in the factories and on the home-front baseball games would be a good distraction and escape from the doubt and concern. For those in uniform and serving at training commands or spending time off the front lines, a mental diversion such as baseball proved to be a significant morale booster.

To outfit the players, the services adopted simple yet recognizable uniforms that tended to be representative of their services. Lettering was ordinary, making it easy for the spectators to recognize each of the opposing teams. Each service and unit team seemed to have unique uniform designs with the exception of the Marine Corps flannels. The service teams competed in relatively normal conditions on fields that were typically located well in the rear, away from the fighting, but it is not suggested that baseball wasn’t played near the front. In the Pacific, as the Navy and Marines were island-hopping in hot pursuit of the retreating Imperial Japanese forces, the men would face periods of dull and quiet boredom between campaigns. Army, Army Air Force, Marines and Navy personnel while on R & R (rest and relaxation on islands such as Pavuvu) would assemble baseball teams to compete against each other.

In my research, I have been successful in locating only a single variation: the Fleet Marine Forces (FMF) flannels seen in the accompanying photo, from the home (white flannel with red lettering and piping) or away (gray flannel with red lettering and piping) uniforms. From photos taken as early as 1943 and throughout World War II, we can consistently find this same uniform in use.

Though no photographs are available, one of the most legendary Brooklyn Dodgers players, Gilbert Ray Hodges donned the flannels of the Marine Corps on the diamond. Fresh from his first games as a rookie with the “Bums” in October of 1943, Hodges entered the war as a Marine ultimately assigned to the 16th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, 5th Amphibious Corps on the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. Months later, Gil would participate from April 1 through October 6, 1945 in the assault, occupation and defense of Okinawa Shima. Airing a few years ago on the History Channel's American Pickers (episode: Mike's Holy  Grail - original  air date: April 26, 2012) one of the show’s stars, Mike Wolfe,  discovered a box filled with a dozen or so of the WWII-era Marines baseball uniforms in a warehouse belonging to the daughter of a former Army/Navy surplus store owner. The majority of the flannel sets were so dirty, worn, and in some cases tattered, that they appeared to have been packaged up immediately following the ninth inning of the last wartime game played.

Desiring to purchase the lot of baseball uniforms (the majority of which were the road gray version, complete with trousers), Mike negotiated a price of $200 for the lot, figuring to assemble at least three good uniform sets.

To learn more about the WWII USMC baseball uniforms, the first place I turned to was the garments themselves, seeking tags or stamps that might provide clues. However, upon inspection, both the jersey and trousers were devoid of these markings showing only size tags.

Sadly, In my research for this article, I was unable to uncover any specifics that would provide exact dates (for the WWII design) or who manufactured them, other than dated photographs of Marines wearing the gear from 1943 to 1949, the year prior to the Korean War.

Research is a ceaseless task and I continue to maintain a certain level of vigilance in pursuit of the facts to either refute or validate what I have previously learned about these uniforms. Over the course of owning this wonderful Marines baseball uniform is that the overall design may predate World War II by decades. One of my collector colleagues is (as I write this) digging through his photo archive collection in search of an image that could back up this claim. If that does happen, it could potentially muddy the waters to some extent as to pinning down the age of these uniforms, broadening the time-period of their use.

Regardless of my fact-finding pursuit, to possess an original vintage military baseball uniform (at least for this baseball and militaria collector) opens the door to speculation as to who wore it on the field of play. At 6-foot-1 and weighing 200 pounds, there is that extremely slim possibility that my large-sized uniform set could have been issued to and worn by Gil Hodges, one of my all-time favorite players. It certainly is fun to dream.

Collectors seeking to fill a vacancy in their own collection with a solid placeholder or fans of military baseball don’t have to wait (or be subjected to the increasing prices) to locate one of these USMC baseball gems. Ebbets Field Flannels, makers of vintage minor league baseball jerseys and caps, released one of their latest military jersey reproductions this summer. The 1934 U.S. Marines Jersey, modeled almost exactly after the road gray uniforms (such as those “picked” by Mike Wolfe), provides a fantastic alternative to the real thing. With the exception of the missing red button due to the non-standard button alignment of the originals, there is little to complain about on this repro jersey.

I did end up purchasing one EFF’s examples just to prevent me from wearing my original.

From the Pacific to Cooperstown

The winter months of 1944-45 provided some of the fiercest fighting of the war for American troops in both the European and Pacific combat theaters. The late October battle of Leyte Gulf paved the way for the coming invasion of the Philippines as General Douglas MacArthur was set to deliver on his promise to the Filipino people and to the Americans taken captive by the Japanese. Early January saw that promise fulfilled as the nearly eight-month campaign to wrest the Japanese occupiers from the islands commenced.  As the 1944 calendar flipped to 1945, the Battle of the Bulge in Europe was into its third week, with heavy casualties from the enemy that were exacerbated by the harshest winter in decades. 

On the home front, both the Army and Navy were dealing with a public relations mess following the Army’s early release of a prominent professional athlete. “The discharge of a well-known professional football player for physical disability,” Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, was quoted in  Chattanooga Daily Times (February 28, 1945) sports columnist Wirt Gammon’s Just Between Us Fans column, “followed immediately by successful participation by that individual in professional games, is obviously subjected to widespread [public] disapproval.” Speculation among sportswriters was that the unnamed professional athlete who was released from service was the 1942 Heisman Trophy winner and former University of Georgia halfback Frank Sinkwich, who was medically discharged due to pes planus or “flat feet.”

Following the Army and Navy’s very public Service World Series baseball spectacle in Hawaii that was covered in every newspaper from coast to coast, public perspective may have become less than favorable as casualties continued to mount and citizens were growing fatigued from strict rationing. Athletes may have appeared to them to not be lacking in necessities.

The Hawaiian Islands were nearly overrun with professional ballplayers serving in uniform, with more players arriving throughout the fall and winter months. Talk of assembling teams and taking a multi-team contingent of all-star caliber players on tour to the Western Pacific to entertain troops started ramping up and rumors began to circulate among the athletes. It wasn’t long before the scuttlebutt, a Navy term for gossip, became reality. According to author Harrington E. Crissey, Jr. in his 1984 book Athletes Away , there was a (then) unverified rumor that he was made aware of years later. “The players heard a story to the effect that when former pro tennis player Bobby Riggs had gotten on the short-wave radio one night in Pearl to announce the [baseball] tour to the servicemen in the area, “Crissey wrote, “the broadcast happened to be picked up on Guam, where Admiral Nimitz, as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, had recently moved his headquarters.” According to the story, Nimitz was unaware of the planned tour and was less than thrilled with Riggs’ radio broadcast. “That’s O.K.,” he supposedly said. “Send those athletes out here, and when they get through with their tour, we’ll put them to work with picks and shovels.”

Multiple stories cycled among the players regarding the genesis of the Pacific tour. In an undated letter written by Pee Wee Reese many years later, he responded to a memorabilia collector’s inquiry surrounding a game-used bat that had been autographed and inscribed with details of the Pacific tour. The collector asked of Reese, “How did so many well-known players come together on a little island in the Pacific?” On Louisville Slugger letterhead, Reese responded, “They got too many in Honolulu and Admiral Nimitz decided to get rid of a few. They selected two teams (baseball) – two fighters – Georgie Abrams and Fred Apostoli – tennis player Bobby Riggs. We more or less just barnstormed all through the Pacific.”

1945 Pacific Tour – Fifth Fleet Roster

The 28 men chosen for the tour played a warm-up game in early February that saw the Navy face off against a roster of Army stars. The Navy rotated their players through the order, ensuring that each one saw action. Virgil Trucks started the game and Hal White finished it. Pee Wee played the entire game at short. Despite dropping the contest, the outcome was less of a concern as the Navy wanted to get the players tuned up. The Army fielded a squad that resembled the 1944 Service World Series team and they defeated the Navy, 4-2. Days later, with the 28 players divided into two rosters for a split squad contest, the Third Fleet faced the Fifth Fleet for one last tune-up before heading to the Western Pacific. Pee Wee’s Third Fleet nine blanked their opponents, 2-0.

1945 Pacific Tour – Fifth Fleet Roster

From Hawaii, the two twin-engine U.S. Marine Corps C-46 Curtiss Commandos flew southwest to tiny Johnston Atoll, which served as a seaplane and patrol base during the war. The island was far too small to provide enough space for a baseball diamond amid the 6,000-foot runway, buildings and fuel and freshwater storage, which meant that the personnel stationed there were not able to witness a game. After refueling, the two aircraft departed for the Marshall Islands, where the Third and Fifth Fleet teams provided entertainment to the contingent of Seabees and other personnel stationed there who were suffering from boredom.  “You get so you repeat conversations. Jokes get so old they creak,” Constructionman 3/c Joseph C. Ashlock wrote in a letter to his parents. With the arrival of the Navy ballplayers, there was excitement. “There were several major league baseball players, including Johnny Mize, Pee Wee Reese, Johnny Vander Meer and Barney McCosky,” wrote the young CB in his letter, published in the March 15, 1945 edition of the Spokane Chronicle. “I might have lived a lifetime in the States and never seen half of these fellows,” Ashlock continued. “But here we were together on a backyard island in the Pacific,” he concluded.

In addition to three days of baseball, the men on the island with Ashlock were treated to a three-round exhibition bout between Fred Apostoli and Georgie Abrams as well as to “lightning-fast” table tennis matches featuring Bobby Riggs against former teen national ping pong champion Buddy Blattner.

From island to island, the teams followed similar entertainment agendas for troops on the tiny atolls of Majuro, Kwajalein and Roi in the Marshall Islands and to Anguar in the western Caroline Islands. Though it had only been a few months since the cessation of the 73-day battle at “Bloody” Peleliu, the tour made stops on that island along with Ulithi in the Carolines. Unlike games in the major league palaces, those played on the islands were intimate. The men of the Third and Fifth Fleet teams were sailors who happened to be ballplayers. Unlike the massive barrier that sets contemporary ballplayers in a protective bubble on a towering pedestal, the men on the tours were immersed in the crowds of servicemen, joining them in the chow halls and around the bases after the scheduled events. Signing autographs was normal and one can imagine that countless signatures were captured by sailors to be sent home to family and friends.

Petty Officer 1/c H. K. Emmons and his brother-in-law, William H. Bowes, sent home a game program that was autographed by former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer, according to Walt Hanson’s Sportsfolio column in the March 15, 1945 edition of the Long Branch, New Jersey’s Daily Record.

The Third and Fifth Fleet teams entertained thousands of troops throughout the Mariana islands including Tinian, Saipan and Guam, from which the B-29 Superfortresses conducted raids on the Japanese homeland. Seabees stationed on each location carved out ballfields in the coral for the teams to play on. With the majority of the athletes being graduates of the athletic Instructor schools that were the brainchild of the “fighting Marine,” Gene Tunney, the former heavyweight champion boxer-turned Navy Commander joined the men on a few of the tour stops, raving about his players. “About the hottest player right now is Johnny Mize, the old Giant,” the boxer stated. “I dare say he would lift any second division big league team at least two notches in the standings. He is hitting home runs which travel about a mile and never get much higher off the ground than a trolley wire,” Tunney professed. Without fail, Tunney shined a spotlight on the former Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop, “I hasten to add, too, that Pee Wee Reese is at the very top of his form,” said the still very fit 47-year-old pugilist. “He scampers like a rabbit, has lost none of his bounce and still covers a world of ground.” Dan Parker relayed this quote in his March 29, 1945 column in the Camden, New Jersey Courier Post, from a report submitted by Bob Sylvester, who was embedded with the players on the tour.

The ballplayers were loose and playing well together despite the demanding schedule. As is normal for most GIs stationed in far-off locations, spontaneity combined with a lack of foresight of consequences can lead to rather humorous if not dangerous situations. While riding between Saipan and Tinian in a landing craft, returning from a ballgame, “Elbie Fletcher, smoking a cigar, offered to jump overboard for $25,” reported Bob Sylvester. “It was quickly raised. In he (Fletcher) went, after first giving the coxswain $5 to come back and pick him up. As the coxswain came alongside,” Sylvester continued, “Pee Wee Reese, who had contributed some of the $25, leaned over the side and tried to keep Elbie’s head under water by poking at him with an old mop.” Sylvester concluded the tale, “Fletcher was immediately hauled aboard with the (soggy) cigar butt still in his kisser.”

Though the Americans held control over the islands and hostilities had effectively ended, not all of the Japanese soldiers were neutralized when the ballplayers were present. Sylvester reported that some of the enemy combatants, themselves baseball fans and keen on American major leaguers, were keeping a watchful eye on the American activities and would sneak up close enough to watch the ball games.

 “After a few more exhibitions as a group, the troupe will be broken up and its members assigned to various Mariana Islands for athletic drills and to supervise rehabilitation training in the hospitals,” reported the Kenosha News on March 27, 1945 in Sports Stars Go Overseas to Play for Service Men.

Nearly two dozen games were played on the tour and true to Nimitz’ word, rather than being sent back to the U.S. or Hawaii, the men were put to work. In the aforementioned Reese letter, Pee Wee said, “When we finished, they broke us up (and) sent us everywhere. I ended up on Guam. I guess you could say we were suppose (sic) to entertain the troops. They seemed to enjoy it.”

With as many as 10,000 troops surrounding makeshift ballfields, the stars not only put on highly competitive exhibitions but also took the time to interact with sailors, marines and soldiers before and after the games. “I saw Pee Wee Reese, Vander Meer and others on an island out here recently,” OAM 1/c David P. Charles wrote in his letter to the Greenville (South Carolina) News, published on May 15, 1945. “The ballpark is a little rough but it serves the purpose.” GIs wrote letters to many hometown newspapers, relaying details about the tours or encounters with players as thousands of them were positively impacted by the players’ presence. 

At the end of the tour, Chief Athletic Specialist Reese was sent to Guam, where he was quickly put to work by former Notre Dame tailback and 1943 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Lt. Angelo Bertelli as a physical fitness instructor and a coach of the Third Marine Division’s All-Star baseball team. The Paducah (Kentucky) Sun-Democrat reported on May 16, 1945 that Pee was ineligible to play on the Marine All-Star team.

In early May, the Third Marine All-Stars held a “spring” training of sorts in 100-degree temperatures on the island, with Bertelli having been assigned there following fierce fighting on Iwo Jima. Down more than 20 pounds from his playing weight at Notre Dame, Bertelli was not only leading the team with Pee Wee as an assistant but he was also playing in the field. Ineligible to play alongside Lt. Bertelli, who was playing third base, Pee Wee was itching for some game action. “I had hoped I’d be able to get into a lineup now and then,” the Dodgers infielder lamented to Marine combat correspondent Sgt. Bill Ross (published in the May 24 edition of the New York Daily News). “I’ve played just occasionally in the past year and I’d like to get into the game with a fast bunch of boys like this Third Division outfit,” Reese remarked.

Though he relayed no details of the game, Marine 1st Lt. C. E. Williamson sent a note that was published in the May 24, 1945 Nevada State Journal regarding the somewhat incomplete line-ups for a game between the Third Marine Division All-Star team and a Navy All-Star team. In this game, rather than being posted at his normal third base coaching position, Chief Petty Officer Pee Wee Reese opposed the Third Marine team from the shortstop spot in a line-up that included Connie Ryan, RF; Red McQuillen, CF; Del Ennis, 3B; Johnny Vander Meer, 1B-P; Virgil Trucks, LF-P; George Dickey, C; Tom Ferrick, P; and Hal White, UT.

One of Reese and Bertelli’s Third Marine team members, Pfc. Stanley Bazan, a former catcher in the St. Louis Browns organization, was wounded in combat on Iwo Jima while serving as a machine gunner in the 21st  Marine Regiment. An enemy round penetrated his right shoulder and after two months of healing, his coaches were skeptical of his ability to play behind the plate. The East Chicago native found approval from Reese after demonstrating his prowess both behind and at the plate. “The Browns have a good prospect in Bazan,” Reese was quoted in The Times of Munster, Indiana. “He handles a pitcher well, has a strong, accurate arm and hits all sorts of pitching.” Bazan was under contract with the Toledo Mud Hens in 1943 when he enlisted into the Marines. Rather than returning to professional baseball and despite Reese’s assessment, Bazan signed with the semi-pro “Autos” of the Michigan State League in 1946.

The 1945 Third Marine Division club roster managed by Angelo Bertelli and Pee Wee Reese.

Bazan’s teammate, Corporal Edmund J. Beaumier of Maine, a veteran of campaigns at both Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima and a former left-handed pitcher in the Indians organization, was wounded in action on Guadalcanal, taking a hit to his pitching arm. Fully recovered from his wound, the 23-year-old Beaumier was striking out the competition with relative ease. Beaumier returned to his professional career after the war, making it as high as class “A” in the minor leagues in 1949, when he stepped away from the game.

"July 4, 1945 – Sports Figures Gather for Game on Guam – Stars of the sports world gathered at Guam as the Gab Gab All-Stars defeated the Island Command nine, 9-4, in a game played at Gab Gab Fleet Recreation Park. Awaiting their turn at bat are, right to left: Hal White (Detroit Tigers), Pee Wee Reese (Brooklyn Dodgers), Johnny Rigney (Chicago White Sox), Lt. Hal Williams (track star) and Angelo Bertelli (Notre Dame). (photo courtesy of Harrington E. Crissey, Jr.). The day Rigney threw his arm out on this day."

The ballfields on Guam were rudimentary, with simplistic features such as backstops and dirt or coral playing surfaces. Venues such as Gab Gab and Geiger Fields were quite literally carved into the landscape by Seabees using heavy equipment. In the high temperatures and humidity, the sunlight would heat the ground which, in turn, reflected the heat upwards to make play fairly miserable. When Pee Wee Reese wrote home about the conditions, his wife, Dorothy, dispatched a rather heavy care package that took a mere three months to reach her sailor husband on Guam. Inside the box, Pee Wee found 20 pounds of Kentucky blue grass seed. “Pee Wee planted it immediately,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reported on July 25, 1945. “He waters it daily and has it protected with several ‘Keep off the grass’ signs.”

While baseball was being played on the island, the 20th  Air Force was pressing the fight on the Japanese home islands with incessant daytime bombing missions originating from Guam, Saipan and Tinian. For several months, the 20th  also dropped more than 63 million leaflets warning the citizens of Japan of the continued raids. With many of the population pouring out of the cities that were potential targets, one of the objectives of the leaflet campaign, Japanese officials ordered the arrest of citizens in possession of the documents. On the morning of August 6, Colonel Paul Tibbetts guided his B-29, Enola Gay, airborne from Tinian. A few hours later, the first bomb, “Little Boy,” was released over Hiroshima. Three days later, the second bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped over Nagasaki from the bomb bay of Bock’s Car, another 20th  Air Force B-29, piloted by Major Charles Sweeney. Following the second bombing, the Emperor announced the unconditional surrender of Japan on August 15 and eighteen days later the formal instrument was signed aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

With the end of hostilities, the operations on Guam changed from supporting bombing missions to dropping supplies to the POW camps spread throughout Japan and Japanese-held territories. With the continued operations and with players yet to begin rotating home, baseball continued in the Pacific. Back in Brooklyn, there was already talk of Reese’s job being up for grabs in ‘46 as the Dodgers had players such as Stan Rojek, Bob Ramazzotti, Tommy Brown and Eddie Basinski, whom some speculated could contend for his position. In addition to the prospects in the pipeline, Brooklyn had infielders including young Alex Campanis, Gene Mauch and Boyd Bartley in the service besides Reese. Still serving and coaching the Third Marines on Guam, Pee Wee was far removed from the personnel happenings and rumors in Brooklyn.

Having previously been declared ineligible to play for the Third Marine Division All-Stars , Pee Wee Reese was turned loose to suit up for the team that he had been coaching since the end of the Third and Fifth Fleet Pacific Tour.  In his September 27, 1945 Globe-Gazette (Mason City, Iowa) Spotlight Sports column, Roger Rosenblum reported that Reese’s impact on the team was immediate. Not only was Reese the team’s leading hitter, he was “chiefly responsible for the 26 triumphs in 30 games the Stars have registered,” wrote Rosenblum. “Pee Wee is hitting above the .400 mark.”

In the office of the Brooklyn Dodgers, club President Branch Rickey hosted a WWII veteran and former Army officer, Jack Roosevelt Robinson. A 26-year-old infielder who played the 1945 season with the Kansas City Monarchs, Robinson publicly signed a minor league contract that was previously negotiated in August. With the Monarchs, Robinson had appeared in 33 games at shortstop, Pee Wee Reese’s natural position, and one at first base. The Dodgers were taking a significant step forward that was about to change the face of minor and major league baseball as well as the Dodgers’ future roster and Reese had yet to learn of what awaited him.

With his duties on Guam completed, Reese, along with Tom Ferrick and other service members, boarded the Bayfield Class attack transport ship, USS Cecil (APA-96), bound for the U.S. mainland. With more than 1200 sailors, Seabees and Marines aboard, there were many idle-handed passengers and one of the ship’s officers took notice. As was customary at the time, finding busy work for the passengers was put upon the two athletic specialist chief petty officers, Ferrick and Reese. They were told to round up men for a working party, which neither of them desired to do. Reese, instructed to round up men as Ferrick was told to wait by a hatch, ditched and hid from the officer. Ferrick soon followed, later explaining to the officer (who discovered him missing) that he had gone to investigate what became of Reese. The two ballplayers had no desire to make enemies among the men, who simply wanted to return home and put the war behind them.

In Roger Kahn’s August 19, 1992 Los Angeles Times article (He Didn't Speculate in Color,) the author detailed a conversation during the homeward bound transit that Reese had with a petty officer. Reese was informed of what was happening in Brooklyn and came to terms quickly with the notion that Branch Rickey was building a team to emerge from a survival-mode operation and truly contend as the club did in 1941 and ’42.  He accepted the situation for what it was and attempted to step into Robinson’s shoes in order to see the situation from the newcomer’s perspective. “I don’t know this Robinson,” Reese told himself, “but I can imagine how he feels. I mean if they said to me, ‘Reese, you have to go over and play in the colored guys’ league,’ how would I feel? Scared. The only white. But I’m a good shortstop and that’s what I’d want ‘em to see. Not my color. Just that I can play the game.”

After the Cecil docked in a California port in early November, Reese disembarked and was back on U.S. soil for the first time in nearly two years. By November 13, Pee Wee was discharged and home with his wife and daughter. In a widely circulated newspaper photo, Reese is seen sitting at his wife’s bureau, still wearing his dress blue uniform and exchanging his chief petty officer’s cap for a familiar royal blue ball cap as his wife Dorothy can’t contain her joyful approval.

Reese returned to the Dodgers’ camp for the first time in three years while not too far away, Jackie Robinson was drawing the attention of the press as he arrived at spring training for the Dodgers’ class “AA” club, the Montreal Royals. Following a championship season in Montreal, Robinson was promoted to Brooklyn and would make his debut at first base with Pee Wee playing nearby at shortstop. In a season that culminated with the Dodgers returning to the World Series for the first time since 1941, Pee Wee Reese’s naval service during World War II was behind him as he built upon his Hall of Fame career. It would take winning four more National League pennants before he and the Dodgers captured the franchise’s first world championship in 1955. Reese would make one last trip to the World Series the following season and then make the move with the team to Los Angeles and play in just 59 games in his final season in 1958.

After 16 major league seasons and three years spent in the Navy, the majority of voting sportswriters did not consider Reese as a lock for the Hall of Fame and the election results during Pee Wee’s eligibility run demonstrated that. Needing to be named on 75-percent or more ballots, Pee Wee Reese’s best showing was in 1976, his second to last year on the ballot, when he received 47.9 percent.

Pee Wee Reese’s year-by-year Hall of Fame balloting results. Bold indicates the highest percentage of ballots Reese where Reese was named.

Pee Wee Reese was elected to the Hall of Fame by his peers in the Veterans Committee and inducted in 1984.

Author’s Note: We wish to extend our gratitude to Harrington E. Crissey, Jr. who, in addition to providing several photographs from his personal collection has been invaluable for his friendship and many conversations and the mountains of research he provided for this series and many others.

Ray Champagne

 

Date and Place of Birth:   July 4, 1921  Woonsocket, Rhode Island

Died: September 2, 2014 Woonsocket, Rhode Island

Baseball Experience:  Minor League Position:  Third Base Rank:  Corporal Military Unit:  HQ Battalion, 21st Marines, Third Marine Division, US Marine Corps

Area Served:  Pacific Theater of Operations

Third baseman Ray Champagne was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island  on July 4, 1921 .  A t the age of 15 he played for the Kornstein Juniors who won the Junior Twilight League. He also played high school baseball at Franklin High and American Legion ball in Providence, Rhode Island .

After leaving high school, Champagne played for the Model Dairy team that won the Twilight League title.

Champagne  went to Albany, Georgia in 1941 for a tryout with the St Louis Cardinals. He played in an exhibition game against the major league club which was coming up from spring training and remained in Albany for three weeks before returning to Rhode Island to play with American Wringer in a semi-pro league.

In 1942, Champagne played for Marquette in the New England League. He joined the Marines in July 1942 and served in the Pacific with the Third Marine Division.

Following the Guadalcanal campaign in 1943, Corporal Champagne helped guide the HQ Battalion baseball team to the Third Marine Division pennant. The team’s line-up included Art Manush (nephew of Hall of Famer Heinie Manusch and a minor league player before the war), James Trimble (an outstanding high school pitcher signed by the Senators before enlisting) and Bobby Schang (a minor league player and son of former major league catcher Wally Schang). Champagne - along with Manush, Trimble and Schang -  were selected to play for the Third Marine Division all-star team that lost to the Army all-stars, 4-3, in 12 innings, in the Pacific World Series.

Champagne   left Guadalcanal for  Guam  in July 1944. After the  Guam  campaign ended in August 1944, the Third Marine Division baseball team was back in action on the ballfield. They played a series of exhibition games, and even traveled by air to neighboring islands for games against the Second Marine Division.

Ray Champagne returned to the United States in 1945. The Marines wanted him to play for their team in San Diego, but he chose to play at Quonset Point, Rhode Island which was much nearer home. He played in the 1st Naval District League and helped defeat the Portland (Maine) Navy team for the championship.

 

During his time at Quonset Point in 1945, Champagne – along with about 30 other players - was invited to Ebbets Field by the Dodgers, where he met Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi.

 

During the summer of 1945, Champagne also played for the Worcester Nortons in the semi-pro New England League, and was signed by Red Sox scout Jack Egan, receiving a $200 bonus. He was also offered a contract by Torchy Torrance – vice-president of the Seattle Rainiers – who had managed the Third Marine Division team in the Pacific.

 

Champagne  chose to join the Red Sox and went to spring training in 1946. His wife, Violette, was expecting their first child at the time, and the Red Sox wanted to send Champagne to Scranton, Pennsylvania, but he wanted to stay close to home and requested to play for the Lynn Red Sox in the New England League which was a Class B status league in organized baseball for 1946. The Red Sox would not allow this and Champagne chose instead to play for a local semi-pro club.

 

Between 1947 and 1950, Champagne played baseball with the PQ team in the Suburban League and Jennie’s Ice Cream in the Providence Amateur League. In his last time at bat at Roosevelt Park, Blackstone (Massachusetts), Ray hit a home run!

Ray worked as a salesman for 32 years for the International Supply Company in Cranston, Rhode Island. He and Violette had two sons (Robert and Gerald) and two daughters (Janice and Denise). Ray Champagne passed away on September 2, 2014, aged 93.

 

Thanks to Ray Champagne  and his daughter Janice Pelletier  for sharing this information.

 

Created January 8, 2007.  Updated February 20, 2015.

Jimmy Trimble

 

Date and Place of Birth:	October 10, 1925 Washington, DC
Date and Place of Death:	March 1, 1945 Iwo Jima
Baseball Experience:	Minor League
Position:	Pitcher
Rank:	Private
Military Unit:	4th Platoon, 3rd Reconnaissance Company, 3rd Marine Division, USMC
Area Served:	Pacific Theater of Operations

James Trimble III grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he filled his time playing baseball and watching the Senators at nearby Griffith Stadium. He attended St. Albans, a prep school located in the shadow of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and was a star athlete for four years. [1] Trimble was all-district end in football, captained the basketball team and stunned baseball onlookers with his blistering fastball and hard breaking curve. In his time at St. Albans, Trimble hurled three no-hitters and was rarely defeated. His coach Bill Shaw, who was a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic baseball team, considered Trimble one of the finest prospects he had ever seen, but Trimble was not prepared to take all the glory for his success. "Buddy's the best catcher in the District," he said of batterymate Paul "Buddy" Cromelin. "Cromelin's been handling my pitches for five years now, and has made very few mistakes." [2] Trimble was exceptionally popular during his years at St. Albans. His good nature was infectious and his colorful play on the athletic field endeared him to everyone. "The curly-haired Casanova spends many torrid weekends giving the local girls lessons in rug-cutting," declared the school yearbook in 1943. [3] During his senior year, Trimble's mound heroics caught the attention of Senators owner Clark Griffith, who invited him to a tryout on May 29, 1943. Manager Ossie Bluege was impressed with the youngster, and on June 4 Griffith gave him a $5,000 signing bonus and agreed to pay for a four-year scholarship to Duke University, where he would be under the direction of Jack Coombs, baseball coach and former major league pitcher who won 31 games for the Athletics in 1910. "Conservatively speaking," wrote Joe Holman in the Washington Times-Herald, "the happiest boy in Washington, D.C., today is Jimmy Trimble ... who yesterday signed a contract with the Washington Club and its president, Clark Griffith."[4] Two days later, by way of celebration, Trimble pitched a 4-0 one-hitter for Chevy Chase A.C. against Mount Pleasant A.C. in the City League, striking out 16. Trimble enrolled at Duke in September 1943, and played fall baseball for Coombs. With World War II in full stride, he hoped to enter officer training at the university but was rejected due to defective sight in one eye. Instead, he enlisted with the Marines on January 13,1944, and took basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina, where he pitched for the base team. He later graduated from Combat Intelligence School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he was taught a little of the Japanese language, rubber boat reconnaissance, map reading, demolition, and radio operation. In June 1944, Private Trimble headed to the Pacific Theater as a scout and observer with the 4th Platoon of the 3rd Reconnaissance Company, 3rd Marine Division. His first taste of combat was on Guam where he was involved in mopping up the remaining Japanese resistance during July. But once hostilities ceased on the island, he had the opportunity to return to the pitcher's mound. "Baseball," declared Trimble at the time, "is as important to the tired fighter as it is to the tired executive or worker, if not more so." [5] Pitching for the Headquarters Battalion team during the winter of 1944-1945, Trimble's teammates included tobacco-chewing catcher Bob Schang (a minor leaguer in the White Sox organization and nephew of former major league catcher Wally Schang), minor league third baseman Ray Champagne, left fielder Arthur Manush (nephew of Hall of Famer Heinle Manush), and minor league pitcher Jim Hedgecock. Headquarters Battalion clinched the 3rd Marine Division championship in a three-game series against the 12th Marines. Hedgecock won the first game, 6-2. Trimble, who gave up five untimely hits over six innings in the second game, was charged with the loss as the 12th Marines won, 6-2. Hedgecock then came back in the third game to shut out his opponents, 6-0. Trimble was one of seven Headquarters Battalion players selected for the 3rd Marine Division All-Stars team that played the 2nd Marine Division in the Pacific Little World Series early in 1945. In a scheduled four-game series, Trimble won the opening game with an 8-6 victory - his sixth-inning sacrifice scoring a crucial run. The 2nd Division won the next two games, then Hedgecock combined with Bill Connelly -who had hurled for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1945 - to end the series at two games a piece. "Jimmy was a celebrity in camp," recalled Private Don Mates, who had been Trimble's tent-mate back on Guam. "He carried himself like a movie star, but he was liked by everybody, officers and enlisted men alike." [6] In February 1945, the 3rd Marine Division left Guam bound for Iwo Jima. "Yes, Mom, I am going into combat, but don't let that worry you," he told his mother in a letter dated February 18, 1945. "I know everything is going to be all right, so promise not to worry-just pray as I know you have been doing." [7] At 8:59 A.M. on February 19, the first wave of Marines went ashore at Iwo Jima against little opposition, but as they moved inland in the deathly silence, the Japanese opened fire from cleverly concealed bunkers and killed row upon row of Marines with machine gun and heavy artillery. Trimble's platoon had been told that they probably would not go ashore as the battle would be over in 72 hours. However, it was soon realized that every man was needed and he was soon aboard a Higgins Boat heading for the beaches. "I was in for the shock of my life," recalled Mates. "I had never seen anything like it, and never expect to see anything like it again. There were bodies all over. There were pieces of bodies. There were bodies without heads, without arms. There were bodies that were completely eviscerated. They hadn't started to bury the dead, and it was just one holy mess." [8] Trimble was part of an eight-man squad that set up a command post area for General Erskine, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division. For the next three days Trimble was assigned to guard duty at the command post. Meanwhile, the division was suffering heavy casualties from concealed Japanese spigot mortars and on February 27, the platoon commander, Lieutenant John Staak, asked for eight volunteers to go out on patrol and find out where the mortars were located. Private Trimble was among the first to volunteer. The following day, Trimble was part of the eight-man reconnaissance team that set out towards the front line, passing weary-eyed, battle-fatigued Marines returning to the rear for a brief respite. As darkness began to fall the team dug in for the night. There was an eerie quietness to the place. Craters sporadically released foul-smelling wisps of sulfur and everywhere was covered with volcanic ash. The whole place resembled the surface of the moon. Trimble and Private Don Mates were in the third foxhole from the top of a ridge and Mates slept while Trimble took the first four-hour watch. Just after midnight on March 1, a flare unexpectedly lit up the area. They had been overrun by the Japanese and Mates awoke to see Trimble take a bayonet in the right shoulder. Amid the yelling, screaming and chaos, Mates hurled grenades while the wounded Trimble fired his rifle in the direction of any movement. Seconds later, two grenades dropped into the foxhole. One exploded between Mates' legs, the other exploded alongside Trimble. The young pitcher caught the full blast of both grenades. His back, upper arms and the back of his head were a mass of wounds. Mates pulled himself out of the hole, and as he turned to Trimble to help him out, a Japanese soldier, with a mine strapped to his body, jumped in the hole, wrapped his arms around the severely wounded Marine and detonated the mine, killing them both. Mates, with both his legs broken and bleeding profusely, escaped by rolling himself down the hill. He had lost 20 percent of his left thigh and five percent of his right thigh, and would undergo repeated operations for shrapnel removal for over 30 years. Of the eight-man patrol, two others were dead and Private First Class Joseph McCloskey was missing. McCloskey was found a week later in a cave, where he had been brutally tortured and killed by the Japanese. Two months after Trimble's death, Baza Garden Baseball Field, the 3rd Marine Division's home ground on Guam, was renamed Trimble Field. "Private Trimble was an outstanding member of the 3rd Marine Division All-Star baseball team," announced Major General Graves Erskine, Division commander. "His name will not be forgotten and his brave spirit will continue to inspire us in the tough battles that lie ahead." [9] Among the many Marines at the opening of Trimble Field was the pitcher's batterymate at St. Albans, Buddy Cromelin. Trimble's body was returned to the United States after the war and rests at Rockcreek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Trimble Field was abandoned in the 1960s when the 3rd Marine Division left Guam, but about a mile away another ball field saw regular use by the locals until severely damaged by a typhoon. In March 2005, 60 years after Trimble's death, this field was renamed Trimble Field and the American Veterans Center set about raising $70,000 to pay for reconstruction work and a memorial to Trimble and the 3rd Marine Division All-Stars. On March 9, 2008, the long-time dream of the American Veterans Center was realized when Trimble Field was dedicated before a crowd of 1,000 people. The new Trimble Field includes fences, bleachers and a scoreboard as well as a life-size bust of Trimble fashioned by sculptor Terry Karselis. During the ceremony a letter was read out from President George W. Bush. "As part of the Yona, Guam, community," wrote President Bush, "this baseball field will serve as a lasting tribute to Private Trimble, a talented baseball player and outstanding Marine whose exemplary service in combat reflected how he lived his life with character and courage."

The Legacy of Jimmy Trimble
By James C. Roberts
Special to ESPN.com

At the 2000 World War II Veterans Committee conference "Salute to Baseball Heroes of World War II," Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller said, "The real heroes were the ones that didn't come back." One such hero, a young man named James Trimble III, certainly deserves a place in this volume. More than 50 years after his death on Iwo Jima, Trimble is still recognized as one of the greatest athletes ever produced in the Washington area.

Jimmy Trimble was a star athlete at St. Albans, a prep school in Washington, D.C. During his years at the school, located on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral, he was the captain of the basketball team and a leading scorer on the football team.

But baseball was Trimble's true passion, and he excelled on the mound as no pitcher before or since at St. Albans, a school noted as a baseball powerhouse for most of the century. He enjoyed spectacular success as the school's leading pitcher, throwing three no-hitters. Fittingly, one of his heroes was Bob Feller.

"Jimmy Trimble is still a legend at St. Albans," said Don Swagart, the school's director of alumni affairs. Swagart's father was a classmate of Trimble's, and said Trimble was considered by many to be the next Walter Johnson. His coach, Bill Shaw, a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic baseball squad, considered him to be one of the finest baseball prospects he had ever seen.

Earle Elliott was Trimble's best friend and a teammate on the school's basketball, football, and baseball squads. He remembers Trimble as "a solid basketball player, an excellent football player, and an outstanding baseball player -- the best high school baseball player I ever saw by far." St. Albans never lost a baseball game with Trimble on the mound, and only tied one, against Woodrow Wilson High.

"He threw hard and he threw nothing but strikes -- fastballs and curveballs," said Elliott, adding, "He was very intimidating on the mound, even though he never tried to brush anybody back from the plate." It is reported that Trimble threw so hard that his catcher, Buddy Cromelin, had to put extra padding in his glove.

Trimble acquired his baseball skills on the streets of Chevy Chase, Md., a Washington suburb. "We kids played ball of some kind every spare minute we had," Elliott said. During baseball season the two boys took the streetcar to Griffith Stadium to watch the Senators play. A number of the ballplayers lived in the area, and Elliott remembered one time in particular when Senators outfielder Jesse Hill took the two to the ballpark as his guests.

Even though the team was rarely competitive during those years, the boys were rabid Senators fans. "Jimmy was a big fan of Stan Spence, who played the outfield, and Earl Whitehill and Dutch Leonard, who were pitchers," Elliott said.

One special memory for Elliott was the 1937 All-Star Game, which was played in Washington. The two boys collected autographs from many of the players, including Carl Hubbel, Johnny Vander Meer, and Dizzy Dean.

Another vivid memory is of the first time the two saw Bob Feller pitch. "He wasn't even in the lineup. They brought him in as a reliever," Elliott remembered. "I still remember hearing the incredible pop, pop, pop sound as the ball hit the catcher's mitt. We said, 'Who in the world is that?' And we found out it was Bobby Feller. We had never heard of him."

By his senior year at St. Albans, Trimble had caught the attention of Washington's sports reporters. An April 18, 1943, article by Joe Holman in the Washington Times-Herald reported:

Out at St. Albans School for boys . . . they are singing the praises of 17-year-old Jimmy Trimble, a three-sport star with a splendid record. . . .

Trimble, a five-foot, 11½ inch, 155-pound boy who is spreading out all the time, says he enjoys all sports and is considering several scholarship offers by major colleges, but admits that he is hopeful of eventually qualifying for professional baseball.

"Ever since I can remember, I've played baseball with older boys," Jimmy tells you. "My buddies all say I'd make a better shortstop than pitcher, but I'm not kidding myself -- I don't hit very well."

One of our staff members, Maury Fitzgerald, who accidentally scouted Trimble recently, says that the youngster has all the action and ability of a seasoned ballplayer.

Fitzgerald saw the youngster strike out 14 Wilson (High School) batsmen, exhibit a blazing fastball, good change of pace and surprising control, and also saw him field his position flawlessly. Maury also saw nothing wrong with Trimble's hitting, recalling that he met the ball well and figured in the scoring.

The article obviously reached the right circles, because Jimmy soon received a letter from Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators:

My dear Sir:

Joe Holman of the Times-Herald and several of my friends have been calling my attention to your good work as a pitcher this spring. I would like very much to have you come and work out with the Washington club, which would allow manager Bluege and myself to pass opinion as to your capabilities. These are times when we may have to use quite a number of the 17-year-old boys who are not yet subject to the army draft, so it naturally would be a good opportunity for you to get yourself a good job. The ballclub leaves Washington tomorrow night and will not be back until the 27th of April. If you could come out and see me at that time, I would greatly appreciate it. Just bring your glove, shoes, and sweatshirt, and we can furnish you with a uniform.

Trusting to have a favorable reply from you and wishing you all success, I beg to remain,

Yours most sincerely,

Clark Griffith President

Trimble was called to Griffith Stadium for a tryout on May 29, 1943. His parents were divorced and his dad wasn't around, so, Elliott recalled, "My dad went with him to Griffith Stadium. Clark Griffith was there to watch him, and Jimmy did very well." Heinie Manush, a 17-year veteran of six major league teams and later a coach for the Senators, saw Trimble pitch and called him "one of the finest prospects he had ever seen."

Clark Griffith wanted to sign Trimble up for the Senators' farm system, Elliott recalled, but his mother insisted that he first finish school. So Griffith gave the young player a $5,000 signing bonus and agreed to pay for a four-year scholarship at Duke University in the hope that at some point Trimble would elect to put college off until later and join the Senators.

In another article about Trimble, Holman wrote:

Conservatively speaking, the happiest boy in Washington, D.C., today is Jimmy Trimble, St. Albans School's right-handed pitching ace, who yesterday signed a contract with the Washington Baseball Club and its president, Clark Griffith.

The 17-year-old youngster . . . enters Duke University, where he hopes to become eligible for a Navy V-8, which will enable him to study for a naval commission.

After the war is over Trimble, who has been scouted by several major league clubs other than Washington, plans on attending school in the winter and playing with the Nationals (Senators) in the summer.

Jimmy Trimble was an all-around athlete at St. Albans, being a basketball forward and football end. He plans passing up football hereafter, although he will play some basketball if granted the necessary permission by his benefactor, Griffith.

In those days Duke was a baseball powerhouse. The team's outstanding coach, Jack Coombs, was a retired major league pitcher. Trimble played fall baseball for him in 1943 and, according to Elliott, would have been Duke's best pitcher if he'd played the following spring.

While at Duke, Trimble was disqualified from officer training because of defective sight in one eye. He declined to use his political contacts in Washington to get a waiver, and instead opted to enter the Marine Corps as an enlisted man.

Concluded Elliott: "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jimmy would have been a major-league star." But, of course, that was not to be.

Early in 1944, Trimble enlisted in the Marines and headed off for basic training at Parris Island, S.C. Before shipping out to the Pacific, Trimble and his girlfriend, Christine White, agreed to get married when he returned. The two had met while White was a student at nearby Woodrow Wilson High School. Exceptionally popular at Wilson, she was also voted "prettiest blonde" at the school. White later went on to become a successful actress, starring in a number of movies, including "Magnum Force," and several TV series, including "Bonanza," "The Fugitive," and "Perry Mason."

White remembered that although Trimble was "handsome in a rugged way," she hadn't liked him at first. She knew nothing about baseball, and he was pitching against her school. "I couldn't understand it," she recalled. "He wouldn't let our boys hit the ball. It seemed so unfair." White hastened to add that she soon learned what a rare achievement a no-hitter was.

In late 1943, a friend arranged a double date for the two girls, and the friend's date was Trimble. White recollected that when she opened the door and introduced herself, Trimble just stared at her, unable to remove his eyes. For young James Trimble, it was love at first sight.

"He told me, 'I want you and baseball,'" White remembered. "I never knew which was first, but it didn't matter."

During his basic training on Parris Island, Trimble was given an opportunity to stay for two additional months and play baseball for the base. At the end of this time he could have entered a special program that would have given him the rank of corporal. Had he done so, he would not have arrived in the Pacific until almost the end of the war. In a fateful -- but typical -- decision, he declined.

"I would not stay on this island unless forced," he wrote his mother. "After all, I got in the Marines to kill Japs." In July 1944, Trimble shipped out to join the Third Marine Division in the South Pacific.

Trimble saw combat on Guam as part of patrols mopping up the remaining Japanese. He was a member of the division's Amphibious Reconnaissance Company, assigned directly to division headquarters. In another fateful decision, he next volunteered to serve in an elite scouting platoon that would put him ahead of the front lines on Iwo Jima.

While on Guam, Trimble showed his C.O. a letter from Clark Griffith, which won him a tryout as a pitcher for the Third Marine Division baseball team. At a time when baseball truly reigned supreme as America's national game, the sport was a major factor in maintaining the morale of the men in uniform. Baseball leagues and exhibition games were organized whenever conditions permitted, and Guam became a baseball hub in the Pacific.

Soon Trimble was spending a lot of time playing baseball. He compiled a superb record on the mound, racking up 21 straight victories in one stretch. He pitched in the "Little World Series" held on Guam in 1944, and achieved considerable notoriety in military circles for his pitching skills. In a letter to his mother, Trimble reported that he was pitching for the all-star team. His record for them was 6-2, which made him quite happy, since many of the players he was pitching against were former pros.

During this time he got to know someone involved with the New York Yankees operation, who told him that he would be able to get Trimble a spot on the Yankees' pitching staff. In another letter to his mother, Trimble asked her to check the contract she had signed for him with the Senators to see if there was any escape clause. She replied that the contract was binding and that he was morally as well as legally bound to honor his commitment to Griffith. He wrote back that he would, of course, keep his word.

The Marine who knew Trimble best, the man who saw him on a daily basis and watched him die in combat, was Donald Mates, now retired in Palm Beach, Fla. Mates was Trimble's tentmate for three-and-a-half months on Guam, from November 1944 to mid-February 1945. Although Guam was officially pacified in early August of 1944, there were still isolated pockets of Japanese resistance until 1946. The Marines stationed on Guam thus spent much of their time on patrols chasing after Japanese guerillas. Trimble spent some time on these patrols, Mates said, but he was often called away to pitch.

Mates was awed by Trimble's fastball. A native of the Cleveland, Ohio, area, Mates recalled that "I thought he was the next Bob Feller."

At night, the two men often talked baseball. "I had seen the game where DiMaggio's streak ended," Mates recalled, "and Jimmy wanted me to replay the game over and over and over.

"Jimmy would drive me crazy asking all these technical questions like, 'How would you pitch to (Indians third baseman) Ken Keltner? Fastballs, curve balls, low and outside, high and inside?' That kind of thing. He made me go over Cleveland's pitching rotation -- Al Milnar, Mel Harder, Al Smith, and of course Bob Feller -- and describe how each one pitched. He was just insatiable for this kind of information.

"Trimble was a cut above everybody else. Most of the Marines had never even thought about going to college, but he had already had a year of college. Also, he'd gone to a fancy prep school in Washington, and he would toss off the names of congressmen and other famous people left and right.

"Jimmy was a celebrity in camp; he carried himself like a movie star, but he was liked by everybody, officers and enlisted men alike."

Jim White, another friend in Trimble's platoon, recalled that Trimble "was always optimistic, always laughing and joking and trying to buck people up."

He also had a sentimental side, White said. "One day," he recalled, "Trimble threw a wild pitch and killed one of the little stray dogs that had become a platoon pet. He was pretty broken up about it and wouldn't pitch any more that day."

When baseball wasn't the topic of conversation, Trimble's fiancée, Christine White, was. "He talked about her constantly," Mates recalled. "He was always showing me pictures of her and talking about how beautiful she was, which you could see from the pictures she obviously was. He would hold up the picture and say, 'This is what's waiting for me when I get home.' It was all wholesome 1940s talk about love for his girl back home. There was none of the raunchy talk like you hear today."

During the eight months he spent in the Pacific, Private Trimble kept up a furious correspondence with White. "Thank God for God, you and baseball in this dark wilderness," he wrote. "Taps is sounding. I will sign off with my love." Many of his letters were playfully signed "Private Jim."

"He wrote more than 70 letters," White said. "By the end he was 19 going on 35. The letters showed an incredible maturity for someone his age."

Trimble's religious faith was also growing during this trying time. In a letter to the headmaster of St. Albans, he wrote:

Dr. Lucas, I have a confession to make. Excuse my language, but I was a lousy Christian while in school, and it took a war to reveal my lack of faithfulness. I believe now that I understand a little what God stands for. I know that if a man didn't have faith out here, he would go crazy.

In his last letter to White, Trimble quoted Shakespeare: "Mine honor is my life. The two grow in one. Take honor from me and my life is done."

In a letter written to his mother on February 18, 1945, en route to Iwo Jima on the USS Harry Lee, Trimble wrote:

Yes, Mom, I am going into combat, but don't let that worry you. We have just finished divine services and this afternoon I am taking communion. It's funny how much faith one develops in prayer under these circumstances. I know everything is going to be all right, so promise not to worry -- just pray as I know you have been doing. . . .

Just back from communion, Mother, and feel better for having partaken. Yes, dear, in some ways you won't recognize your irresponsible offspring. Thank you so much for obtaining another St. Christopher Medal, Mom. I'm sorry to have caused you the trouble.

It's getting colder, Mom, and believe it or not I am glad for once to get away from the heat.

The weather is beautiful, a clear sky and bright sun shining on the water. What scenic beauty for the tourist!

Mom, will you get some flowers for Chris, Easter lilies if possible? . . .

Well, Mom, I'll leave you now as my limited information has exhausted itself. Always thinking of you and thankful that you are my mother. My love to the whole family. Until then,

Your Loving Son,

Jimmie

Despite the growing faith evidenced by this letter, Trimble was certainly not above taking a drink and having a good time. Recalled Mates, "The last two days before we shipped out to Iwo we were bivouacked in tents in a field. A young Guamanian boy came by selling bottles of 150-proof grain alcohol. Jimmy bought two gallons of the stuff and we drank it all and got sick as dogs. We were definitely not feeling well when we boarded the ship for Iwo."

Trimble and his buddies were headed into one of the most hellish operations of World War II.

The small island of Iwo Jima, a volcanic speck in the Pacific, is only two miles wide and four miles long. Yet its position, only 600 miles south of Japan, placed it along the bombing route from the Marianas to Japan. The Japanese had constructed two airfields on the island, from which their fighters attacked American bombers en route to Tokyo and other cities. Although the planes had been knocked out, the island was still an important early warning station for the Japanese. It also would provide a useful emergency landing field for crippled U.S. planes. It had to be taken.

U.S. military planners estimated that it would take four days to quell Japanese resistance. In fact, the battle lasted more than a month. At its end, nearly 7,000 Americans were dead and more than 20,000 were wounded. Japanese dead totaled 21,000 -- out of 22,000 men.

With the 500-foot-high Mount Surabachi on the southern end of the island, one Marine called Iwo "an ugly wart on the face of the Pacific." Stripped of almost all of its sparse vegetation by the U.S. bombardment, the island resembled a lunar landscape, covered with coarse black sand and volcanic ash. Steam rose from the porous lava rocks, and the burning sulfur escaping from pits bombed by U.S. planes made the whole place smell like rotten eggs. "It looked like hell with the fires out, but still smoking," one Marine said.

Moreover, it was February; the weather was cold and rainy and the volcanic ash had become cement-like mud. It was on this desolate, barren island that the U.S. Marines fought their bloodiest engagement of the war in the Pacific.

The landings were preceded by three days and nights of naval bombardment supplemented by daytime carpet-bombing by B-29s. (Unbeknownst to Trimble, the battleship Alabama was one of the ships supplying this gunfire support. Trimble's hero, Bob Feller, was a gunnery crew director onboard the Alabama.) It was the most intensive bombardment of the Pacific war up to that time. For Mates, Trimble and the other Marines on the ship, it must have seemed impossible that any Japanese soldiers could have lived through it. But, in fact, so entrenched were the 22,000 Japanese troops in their deep tunnels and fortifications that almost all of them survived and lay in readiness awaiting the Marines.

On Feb. 19, the Fifth Marine Division landed on the southernmost beaches at the foot of Mount Surabachi. The Fourth Marine Division went ashore farther north. Except for the mined beaches, which took their toll in casualties, the Marines faced little opposition until almost 50,000 of them were ashore. Then the doors of the fortified Japanese gun emplacements opened and the heavy artillery poured a merciless rain of bullets on the massed forces of men and equipment. Totally out in the open, the Marines took huge casualties on the beaches and, lacking protection, had no other option but to move forward foot by foot.

On Feb. 24, the Third Division went ashore in the wake of the landings by the Fourth and Fifth Divisions. The scene that Mates and Trimble saw upon landing was one of carnage: bodies and body parts on the beach and in the water, with burned-out equipment strewn about on all sides. "The burning sulfur created an eerie haze that hung over everything," Mates said. "All I could think of was Basil Rathbone in The Hound of the Baskervilles with that thick fog. The only difference is that it was Japs, not dogs, running at us through the haze."

During the first three days Mates and Trimble's Fourth Reconnaissance Platoon saw little combat, as they were assigned as personal bodyguards to the Third Marine Division's commanding officer, Major General Graves Erskine. "Erskine knew Jimmy personally, because he was the star pitcher for the division," Mates said.

During the day the hulking mound of Mount Surabachi dominated the scene. On Feb. 26 the Fifth Marine Division took Mount Surabachi and raised the American flag there. The moment was photographed by Joe Rosenthal in what would become the most famous image of World War II. Don Mates recalled that he and Trimble had seen the flag and took heart, thinking the worst was over. In fact, the battle was just beginning.

The battle plan for Iwo Jima was for the Fourth and Fifth Divisions to move across the island, cutting it in half. After the capture of Mount Surabachi, the Fifth Division was to move up the western side of the island. The Fourth would move up the eastern side. The Third was to move between the two divisions and head north through the center of the island. By day the marines inched forward, taking ridges and hills, only to have Japanese soldiers emerge from tunnels behind them and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Following the landings, the Third Marine Division took heavy casualties from Japanese rocket attacks launched from the hill that came to be known as Hill No. 362. On Feb. 27 the Fourth Platoon commander asked for eight volunteers to find the location of the rocket sites and to call in artillery to destroy them. Mates recalled that "Trimble's and White's hands were the first to go up." Mates also volunteered.

The next night, four two-man reconnaissance teams were deployed forward of the rest of their platoon in four foxholes running up a ridge, all connected by radio wire. Said Mates, "As we started out, I told Jimmy, 'If there are guardian angels, I hope they are with us here.' He made the sign of the cross."

At midnight Mates and Trimble were in the second foxhole from the bottom, preparing to trade places with the men in the next one up the ridge. Then the attack came. Mates described what ensued:

At about midnight I woke up, could have been a tug on the wire, and I was ready to get up and switch holes when a Jap flare went off (not bright like ours). Peering into our hole was a Jap. He was on his knees so he could reach Jim, sitting up. I was still stretched out in the bottom. He struck Jim in his back, right shoulder blade, leaving him with a bayonet wound. It did not seem deep. Not a word out of Jim. I threw a hand grenade from my prone position and Jim was firing from a sitting position.

Then all hell broke loose. I could hear McCloskey on the radio, "Green Tiger calling Red Circle." Flares lighting up the sky. Grenades exploding, rifle shots, Jap officers screaming orders, Marines cursing, and then two clicks, and Jim screams "grenades" as he fired his rifle. (Jap grenades are ignited by hitting them on something solid, usually their helmets.) One grenade landed between my thighs and exploded and the other along Jim. Because he was sitting up he caught the full blast of both grenades, the rising shrapnel. The grenade between my legs ripped off 20 percent of my left thigh, 5 percent of my right thigh, and fractured both legs.

Jim's back, upper arms, and the back of his head were a mass of wounds, but he was alive. I pulled myself out of the hole and turned to Jim and he reached out his arm and hand to have some help to get out with. At the same time a Jap jumped into the hole with a mine strapped to his stomach and proceeded to wrap himself around Jim. The Jap blew himself into a thousand pieces and blew a hole into Jim's back bigger than a basketball.

It took a bayonet, two grenades, and a Jap suicide attack to kill James Trimble III.

By this time, a tank and a Marine platoon had joined the battle and turned the tide. The fighting raged for more than three hours and when morning came, there were more than 60 Japanese bodies found lying on the ground.

But the Marines took a heavy toll as well. Of the eight scouts in the foxholes, two were missing. One was later found in a cave where he had been dragged by the Japanese, tortured and hacked to pieces. Mates, badly wounded, escaped by rolling down the hill, yelling out the names of presidents (the code of the day) until he was near another foxhole.

Jimmy Trimble lay dead in the foxhole. In the breast pocket of his uniform was his wallet, containing the picture of Christine White that he always carried with him.

When told of Trimble's death, General Erskine was reported to have been "moist-eyed." Two months later, at a ceremony on Guam, the Third Division baseball field was named in memory of Jimmy Trimble by the personal order of Erskine, who was also wounded on Iwo Jima. The general himself attended the ceremony, a highly unusual honor rendered to a deceased private, and wrote the citation that was read to those attending. It said in part:

Private Trimble was an outstanding member of the Third Marine Division All-Star baseball team. Private Trimble's unswerving courage, loyalty, devotion to duty, and high ideals on and off the battlefield will long be remembered by his colleagues.

Trimble's death and the dedication of Trimble Field were reported in articles in all three of Washington's daily newspapers, as well as in U.S. military publications throughout the world. A memorial service was held in the Great Choir of the Washington Cathedral. Trimble was buried in Rockcreek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

James Trimble remains a vivid memory to the dwindling number of people who knew him. While he never had the opportunity to become a hero in the major leagues, in the words of Bob Feller, he became a "real hero" nonetheless. Jimmy Trimble put his country ahead of himself and everything he held dear: his fiancé, his family and friends, and baseball. He volunteered to serve on the front lines and he died as the man he wanted to be: "Private Jim."

Jimmy Trimble was remembered at a Veterans Day 2000 tribute to the baseball heroes of World War II. Christine White quoted General Erskine's words about Trimble's character -- his courage, loyalty, and high ideals. "These are qualities that are desperately needed today," she said. "If we remember Jimmy Trimble and his example, then his death was not in vain."

An evensong service in honor of World War II veterans followed at Washington's Church of the Epiphany. Taps was sounded in memory of the dead, and the choir sang:

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and the pain of death shall not touch them. To the eyes of the foolish they seemed to perish. But they are in peace.

This excerpt from "Hardball on the Hill" by James C. Roberts is reprinted by permission of Triumph Books/Chicago.

• Sport: Baseball
• Year: 1956
• Original/Reproduction: Original
• Team: 3rd Marine Division
• Team-Baseball: 3rd Marine Division
• Vintage: Yes

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